Former Chinese envoy to Canada reassigned to Iran

Open this photo in gallery: Cong Peiwu attends a news conference for a small group of reporters at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa in November, 2019.Blair Gable/Reuters China's former ambassador to Canada has been reassigned to Iran, an apparent promotion that puts Cong Peiwu at the centre of deepening relations between authoritarian governments in Beijing, Tehran and Moscow. Mr. Cong spent about 4½ years in Ottawa during the worst period in Canada-China relations since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He arrived the year after China jailed two Canadians in what one Canadian cabinet minister called a case of "hostage diplomacy,"…