China to Canada: Free tech exec or else
China is telling Canada that it must immediately release Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou or face “serious consequences.”
“China strongly urges the Canadian side to immediately release the detained person, and earnestly protect their lawful, legitimate rights, otherwise Canada must accept full responsibility for the serious consequences caused,” said a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday.
Canadian officials in Vancouver, at the request of the U.S., arrested Meng on Dec. 1 and revealed the detention on Dec. 5.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned Canada’s ambassador to China and expressed “strong protest” over the arrest, the statement said. The minister was quoted as saying the arrest “ignored the law, was unreasonable and extremely nasty.”
On Friday, a prosecutor urged a Vancouver court to deny bail.
Meng is chief financial officer of telecommunications giant Huawei and daughter of its founder. She was detained at the request of the U.S. during a layover at Vancouver’s airport — the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China agreed over dinner to a 90-day ceasefire in a trade dispute that threatens to disrupt global commerce.
The U.S. alleges that Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It also says that Meng and Huawei misled American banks about its business dealings in Iran.
The arrest raises doubts about whether the trade truce will hold and whether the world’s two biggest economies can resolve the complicated issues that divide them.
“I think it will have a distinctively negative effect on the U.S.-China talks,” said Philip Levy, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and an economic adviser in former president George W. Bush’s White House. “There’s the humiliating way this happened right before the dinner, with Xi unaware. Very hard to save face on this one. And we may see [Chinese retaliation], which will embitter relations.”
Canadian prosecutor John GibbCarsley said in the Friday court hearing that a warrant was issued for Meng’s arrest in New York on Aug. 22. He said Meng, arrested en route to Mexico from Hong Kong, was aware of the investigation and had been avoiding the United States for months, even though her teenage son goes to school in Boston.
Gibb-Carsley alleged that Huawei had done business in Iran through a Hong Kong company called Skycom. Meng, he said, had misled U.S. banks into thinking that Huawei and Skycom were separate when, in fact, “Skycom was Huawei.” Meng has contended that Huawei sold Skycom in 2009.
In urging the court to reject Meng’s bail request, Gibb-Carsley said the Huawei executive had vast resources and a strong incentive to bolt: She’s facing fraud charges in the United States that could put her in prison for 30 years.
Meng’s lawyer, David Martin, argued that it would be unfair to deny her bail just because she “has worked hard and has extraordinary resources.”
He told the court that her personal integrity and respect for her father, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, would prevent her violating a court order. Meng, who owns two homes in Vancouver, was willing to wear an ankle bracelet and put the houses up as collateral, he said.
There was no bail decision by the judge on Friday so Meng will spend the weekend in jail and the hearing will resume Monday. Justice William Ehrcke said he would think about proposed bail conditions over the weekend.
Huawei, in a brief statement emailed to the AP, said that “we have every confidence that the Canadian and U.S. legal systems will reach the right conclusion.”
The company is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies and long has been seen as a front for spying by the Chinese military or security services.
“What’s getting lost in the initial frenzy here is that Huawei has been in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators for some time,” said Gregory Jaeger, special counsel at the Stroock law firm and a former Justice Department trial attorney. “This is the culmination of what is likely to be a fairly lengthy investigation.”