MENG'S FUTURE
Could deal help Michaels?
Meng Wanzhou, the scion of the Huawei telecommunications company who is mired in extradition proceedings in Canadian court, has spent the last two years living under partial house arrest in her Vancouver mansions, a colourful and relaxing life compared to the “grey, grinding monotony,” endured by the two Canadians in China who were seized in retaliation for Meng’s 2018 arrest in Vancouver.
The story of the Two Michaels — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — are inextricably linked with Meng’s fate and on Thursday evening, U.S. media reported the U.S. Justice Department was in discussions with Meng’s lawyers about dropping criminal proceedings against her in exchange for an admission of wrongdoing.
It’s the latest development in a saga that has seen a distinct deterioration in the diplomatic relationships between Ottawa and Washington and Beijing, and raises questions not just about Meng’s future, but also the possible fate of Kovrig and Spavor, not to mention other Canadians imprisoned in China.
On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to comment on the reports about a possible deal between the United States and Meng.
“For almost two years we have been working extremely hard to bring home these two Michaels,” Trudeau said. “It has been extremely difficult for them and for their loved ones. We shall continue to stand up for Canadians around the world.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not return the National Post’s request for comment.
“I don’t think this is the worst solution, but in the end it will mean that these two Canadians have been through a lot for an outcome that is perhaps more about saving face than it is about justice,” said Stephanie Carvin, a professor of international relations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.
Meng, who’s Huawei’s chief financial officer, is accused in the U.S. of bank and wire fraud charges, some of which are alleged to have contravened the U.S. trade embargo with Iran. She was arrested in Canada, and is fighting extradition to face charges in the United States. Meng has maintained she did nothing wrong.
While the deal has yet to be confirmed, and there is no evidence Meng will admit to any wrongdoings, a more pressing question for many Canadians is what such a bargain might mean for the Two Michaels and for Canada’s future relations with China in general.
Citing sources, the Wall Street Journal hinted the deal between the U.S. government and Meng could also “pave the way” for the return of Kovrig and Spavor to Canada.
Over the course of the controversy, the federal Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have given little indication of interest in freeing Meng in exchange for getting the two hostages back.
China's ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, told Meng in a phone call in late November that she had been “wrongly detained.” “We expect you to go back home safe and sound at an early date,” Cong is reported to have said to Meng. In remarks on Wednesday, he said Meng had been “unreasonably detained.”
Meng has spent the past two years living in luxury in some of Vancouver's poshest neighbourhoods, protected by private security. While Meng's $10-million bail conditions require her to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, she's been free to move around the greater Vancouver region during the day.
In a dispatch posted to the Huawei website a year ago, Meng describes “moments of fear, pain, disappointment, helplessness, torment, and struggle” with her confinement, but that she's had time to enjoy life, too.
“It is so slow that I have enough time to read a book from cover to cover. I can take the time to discuss minutiae with my colleagues or to carefully complete an oil painting,” she wrote.
The 48-year-old has also had visits from her family; she's married and has four children.
There would be consequences to accepting a deal with the U. S., but if Meng returns to China, she's likely to be given a hero's welcome, said John Gruetzner, a China policy expert now based in Vancouver after more than 30 years in Beijing as the cofounder of an international consultancy firm.
“The Chinese media will treat her as a returning Olympic hero and brand her as the Lei Feng of globalization,” he said, referencing the Chinese soldier who was featured in several propaganda campaigns and personifies self-sacrifice.
If a deal is forthcoming — which is by no means certain, said Gruetzner — she's likely to return to China and continue her work with Huawei.
Meng's father, Ren Zhengfei, is the founder and CEO of Huawei. “She has a legitimate role in the company still,” Gruetzner said. “The optics of not going back to Huawei would suggest that she'd done something wrong.”
As Huawei expands in international markets, it will need governance reform and to improve its transparency, Gruetzner said. What happens next — either in the case of Meng, or Kovrig and Spavor — is anyone's guess.
In a report in Reuters on Friday, experts said a U. S. deal for Meng would need to insist on guarantees of release for the two Michaels.
“Without the two Michaels being part of the package, we have no leverage at all if Meng should return to China,” Phil Calvert, a former Canadian diplomat in China and now a research fellow at the University of Victoria, told Reuters.
“Chinese officials have sent all sorts of unofficial signals that they would be released, and that would be great. But we would be relying on China to keep its word and they could take some time to release them too,” Calvert said.