China scores Huawei exec’s ‘persecution’

VANCOUVER (AFP) — The high-stakes battle by Chinese Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou against extradition to the United States enters its final stage in a Canadian court on Monday, after more than two years of legal skirmishes and diplomatic barbs.

The daughter of Huawei founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei faces charges in the United States of bank fraud and conspiracy over the commercial activities of a former Huawei subsidiary alleged to have violated US sanctions against Iran.

As the case enters its final months, Meng’s defense lawyers are set to assert that abuses by Canada and the United States have denied her the right to a fair process.

The case has roiled Canada’s diplomatic relations with China, its second largest trading partner behind the United States.

Meng is accused of having lied to the HSBC investment bank about Huawei’s relationship with subsidiary Skycom, putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Iran. If convicted, she could face more than 30 years in a US prison.

Meng and Huawei both deny the charges. Huawei is the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer.

Two Canadian citizens — former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor — remain imprisoned in China. They were detained days after Meng’s December 2018 arrest during a stopover in Vancouver, and after Beijing threatened Canada with severe consequences over what Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng called Meng’s “unconscionable” detention.

Ottawa has long maintained Kovrig and Spavor were “arbitrarily” jailed in retaliation for Meng’s arrest, while affirming the independence of Canada’s judicial system in dealing with the US extradition request.

Beijing, meanwhile, has called the charges against Meng “completely political,” and part of a plot to crush its top global technology firm. Washington last year banned US semiconductor chipmakers from selling to Huawei, which it accuses of stealing American trade secrets.