Canada recently arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies, who faces extradition to the United States on suspicion because U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
Meng Wanzhou, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on Saturday in Vancouver at the request of American law enforcement authorities.“She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday,” Justice Department spokesman Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. “As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.”
According to Canadian officials, she may have been operating from Canada to avoid the US embargo on Iran. Now, the American envoy has been summoned to protest the arrest.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng has summoned the U.S. Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, in a protest over the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, and said it will take “further action” if needed….The minister said U.S. actions have violated the “legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and are extremely bad in nature,” according to a posting on the ministry website. “China will take further action based on the U.S. actions.”The move comes after a week in which both China and the U.S. seemed to struggle with how to react to an arrest with potentially broad reverberations. The two nations are, at the same time, trying to ratchet back a damaging trade dispute.
However, there may be less to the drama then immediately meets the eyes.
…[A]t a high-level conference on Sunday at Tsinghua University in Beijing that included four Nobel laureates in economics from the United States, a senior adviser to the Chinese leadership opened his remarks by praising the two countries’ broader economic relationship and avoiding any mention of the arrest.“The economies of China and the United States are integrated,” said the adviser, Ma Jianting, a vice president of the Development Research Council, the policy advisory unit of China’s cabinet. “There is no parting of the ways.”Mr. Ma’s remarks were the latest of many signs that the Chinese government was trying to compartmentalize the Huawei issue, while still taking an assertive enough stance to satisfy nationalistic anger in China.
Like the missiles over Syria, Meng’s arrest and potential extradition may also be designed to send a message to China. The Trump administration intends to put America first despite a volatile stock market and a Democratic House of Representatives.
In fact, it looks like the “trade talks” are on track.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday insisted that U.S.-China trade talks are moving in a “positive” direction, despite mixed signals from top Trump administration officials and the arrest of the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei.”We are on track,” Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked about the stock market’s 1,100 point drop over the course of last week, pointing to “promising” statements from Beijing’s commerce department and government agencies.
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