Huawei Scapegoats

China Charges 2 Canadians With Spying

By Chris Buckley and Javier C. Hernández

Outside the Canadian Embassy in Beijing in December. China’s detention of two Canadians that month roiled relations between the two countries.

BEIJING — Two Canadian men detained in China since December have been formally arrested on espionage charges, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, in a move likely to ratchet up tensions between China and Canada that broke out with the arrest of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.
Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was detained while visiting Beijing, was charged with “gathering state secrets and intelligence for abroad,” while Michael Spavor, a business consultant who was detained in northeast China, was accused of “stealing and providing state secrets for abroad,” Lu Kang, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said at a regularly scheduled news briefing.
The vague reference to unspecified overseas entities left open the question of whether the men were suspected of working for a government or for some other organization.
The charges are likely to anger the government of Canada who condemned the initial detentions of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor as “arbitrary” and politically motivated.
Their detentions were retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, at the behest of the United States.
The United States has pressured allies not to use Huawei’s technology, arguing that China could use it to spy on other countries. 
Those efforts intensified on Wednesday, when President Trump moved to ban American telecommunications firms from installing China-made equipment that could pose risks to national security.
The measure seemed aimed at blocking sales by Huawei.

Michael Kovrig

Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were seized by the police in December, days after Meng was arrested while changing planes in Vancouver.
The Chinese government was incensed by Meng’s arrest, and the charging of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor makes it more likely that they will face trial and conviction, deepening the standoff with Trudeau’s administration.
Lu did not provide further details and said only that the arrests were made recently.
Before the latest announcement, Chinese officials had already signaled that Mr. Kovrig and Spavor could be charged with espionage offenses.
Mr. Kovrig worked for the United Nations and the Canadian foreign service before 2017, when he joined the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that tries to defuse conflicts between states.
He focused on Chinese foreign policy, Asian regional politics and North Korea, and he was often quoted in foreign news outlets and invited to meetings in China.
Mr. Spavor followed a less conventional path, using his knowledge of the Korean language to establish himself as a consultant for companies and people interested in North Korea, including Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star who has befriended the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
Mr. Spavor was detained in Dandong, the Chinese city on the North Korean border where he was based.
In early March, a legal affairs committee within China’s ruling Communist Party said investigators believed that Mr. Kovrig had been “stealing and spying to obtain state secrets and intelligence,” and that Mr. Spavor had supplied him with information.

Michael Spavor

But China’s definition of state secrets is opaque, and the International Crisis Group has said Mr. Kovrig’s work for it was in no way nefarious.
Since they were detained, Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have been held in secretive detention sites, without visits from lawyers and family members.
Canadian diplomats have been allowed to visit them about once a month.
Lu, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not respond to questions Thursday about where the two men were being held.
Human rights advocates on Thursday denounced the arrests of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor.
“Their cases show again how the Chinese criminal system violates the human rights of detainees,” said Patrick Poon, a researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong.
He called on Chinese officials to release the men, absent “credible and concrete evidence” of crimes.
Meanwhile, Meng has been granted bail as she fights extradition to the United States to face criminal charges.
Her lawyers have said that they would sue Canadian border services, the police and the federal government for violating her constitutional rights when she was detained for three hours in December before being arrested.
In January, American prosecutors released an indictment of Meng and Huawei, laying out efforts by the company to steal commercial secrets, obstruct a criminal inquiry and engage in bank fraud while trying to evade American sanctions on Iran. 
The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said at a news conference in early March that the case against Huawei and Meng was “by no means a purely judicial case, but rather a deliberate political case” intended to bring down Huawei.
Trudeau and Canadian and United States officials have said that the case against Meng is a legal matter, not a political one.
But Trump veered from that position in December, when he suggested that he could intervene in the case if that helped to seal a trade agreement with China.

Chinazism

Scholars and Ex-Diplomats Warn of Chill After Canadians Detained in China

By Chris Buckley and Catherine Porter

The Canadian embassy in Beijing, this month. Dozens of former diplomats have signed a letter warning that China’s recent arrests have made their work “unwelcome and risky in China.”

BEIJING — Warning that China’s arrest of two Canadians has created a dangerous chill for people working on policy and research in that country, more than 100 academics and former diplomats have signed an open letter calling for the two men to be immediately freed.
Made public on Monday, the letter was an international cry of concern from people who work and study in China, saying the arrests threaten the flow of ideas with Chinese academics and officials that is essential for policy work and research aimed at narrowing international rifts.
The letter warned China that the detentions will result in “greater distrust.”
Its signatories included 27 diplomats from seven countries and 116 scholars and academics from 19 countries.
“Meetings and exchanges are the foundation of serious research and diplomacy around the world, including for Chinese scholars and diplomats,” the letter said. 

The arrests, though, “send a message that this kind of constructive work is unwelcome and risky in China.”
Timothy Brook, a professor of Chinese history at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and one of the signatories, said in a phone interview, “If China wishes to be seen as a full and responsible member of the international community, it needs to set itself a much higher standard than this.”
“To punish Canada,” he added, “is really for China to say: ‘We have no friends in the world and we want no friends in the world. We will do just what we want on the terms that we want.’”
The Chinese police detained the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, last month as officials in Beijing scrambled to press Canada to free Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese technology executive, arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1, and held for extradition to the United States on fraud charges.
The Chinese government was enraged by Meng’s arrest.
The arrests of the Canadians, as well as a death sentence for drug trafficking given to a Canadian man by a Chinese court last week, have plunged Canadian-Chinese relations into their worst tensions in decades.
But the roster of signatories shows that the arrests of the two men have sent shivers far beyond Canada, and well beyond diplomatic concerns.
“The letter is important as a forum for China specialists to stand up and be counted, to speak up to defend one of our own,” said Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who studies Chinese politics and who also signed the letter. 

“We know it could be any one of us.”
“At the very least, speaking up in this way will keep the two men safe from harm,” Ms. Brady added. “The public campaign ensures the whole world is watching as China uses Canadian citizens as pawns in a wider geopolitical standoff.”

Michael Kovrig, left, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur with high-level contacts in North Korea, have been detained in China.

Other signatories were Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary, and Chris Patten, the former European commissioner for external relations. 

Two former American ambassadors to Beijing — Winston Lord and Gary Locke — also signed, as did six previous Canadian ambassadors to Beijing.
“Chinese actions are becoming out of line with international laws and global norms,” said Susan Shirk, an American signatory who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for China and the region.
“If the Chinese government and Communist Party feel they can simply detain people as part of what appears to be a dispute that’s really with the United States and Canada,” she said, “that puts all our bridge building efforts at risk.”
Also signing was Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister who is president emeritus of the International Crisis Group, the nonprofit organization that Mr. Kovrig has worked for since 2017, after leaving the Canadian foreign service.
Since Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were detained, the Canadian government has campaigned for and received international support from a growing list of countries, including Spain, which last week demanded the men receive “fair, transparent and impartial treatment.”
The letter echoes that multilateral approach and defies the traditional Chinese foreign policy of isolating countries, said David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China.
“Maybe this represents a new approach, not that people are ganging up on China, but that the international community says this isn’t appropriate,” Mr. Mulroney said. 

“The old isolate-and-dominate approach won’t work anymore.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has rejected the idea that the arrests and death sentence for the Canadian men were retribution for Meng’s arrest.
Even so, Chinese officials and media comments have argued that their country must defend itself. The open letter said experts and officials considering going to China would have to weigh the risks in the wake of the arrests.
Mr. Kovrig was seized at night from a street in Beijing about nine days after the Canadian police arrested Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei, a Chinese technology giant.
She has been released on bail in Vancouver and is awaiting a decision on whether the Canadian government can extradite her to the United States, where prosecutors have accused her of bank fraud linked to business deals with Iran that contravene American sanctions.
As a diplomat and then an adviser for the International Crisis Group, Mr. Kovrig specialized in Chinese foreign policy, especially its role in North Korea and other Asian trouble spots. 

In China he attended meetings with Chinese officials and academics, and was interviewed on Chinese television programs.
Mr. Spavor, who was arrested soon after Mr. Kovrig, is a businessman who has made a specialty of securing access and business in North Korea. 

The Chinese government has said both men are suspected of “harming national security,” a vague charge that can include espionage.
Last week, in a further escalation of the tensions between China and Canada, a court in northeast China sentenced to death a Canadian man, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was convicted of drug smuggling. 

Mr. Schellenberg’s lawyer said the death sentence was extraordinarily swift, coming on the same day as his retrial, which had been ordered at an appeal hearing in later December.

The Hunt for Canadians

13 Canadians detained in China since Huawei CFO arrest

Reuters

TORONTO -- Canada said on Thursday that 13 of its citizens have been detained in China since Huawei Technologies Co Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested last month in Vancouver at the request of the United States.
“At least” eight of those 13 had since been released, the Canadian government said in a statement, without disclosing what charges if any have been laid.
Prior to Thursday’s statement, detention of only three Canadian citizens had been publicly disclosed. Diplomatic tension between Canada and China has intensified since Meng’s arrest on Dec. 1.
The Canadian government has said several times it sees no explicit link between the arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, and the detentions of Canadian citizens.
But Beijing-based Western diplomats and former Canadian diplomats have said the detentions were a “tit-for-tat” reprisal by China.
Meng was released on a C$10 million ($7.4 million) bail on Dec. 11 and is living in one of her two multi-million-dollar Vancouver homes as she fights extradition to the United States. 

The 46-year-old executive must wear an ankle monitor and stay at home from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The 13 Canadians detained include Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor and Sarah McIver, a Canadian government official who declined to be identified, said on Thursday.
McIver, a teacher, has since been released and returned to Canada. 

Kovrig and Spavor remain in custody. Canadian consular officials saw them once each in mid-December.
Overall, there are about 200 Canadians who have been detained in China for a variety of alleged infractions who continue to face on-going legal proceedings. 

“This number has remained relatively stable,” the official said.

The Chinese government has demanded that Canada free Meng and threatened unspecified consequences if it does not.

Rogue Nation

China's arrest of innocent Canadians sends a chilling message to investors
By Elise von Scheel and Katie Simpson 

Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor, left, and former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig were taken into custody by Chinese authorities last month. 

China is sending the wrong message to the international investment community with its recent move to arrest and detain two Canadians on suspicion of endangering national security, says the employer of one of the detained men.
"I'm focused on getting him out and one thing I can say for sure, the one thing he wasn't doing is endangering China's national security," said Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. 

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was in China working for the Brussels-based think-tank when he was taken into custody by Chinese authorities last month.
"China's economy is facing some headwinds and so is going to want to attract businesspeople, is going to want to show it's open for normal business," Malley told CBC News. 

"Now is not the time to have a little asterisk near that 'Open for business' [sign] saying, 'Open for business, but you can't be sure what's going to happen to those of you who come here.'"
Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor were taken into custody separately in early December, shortly after Canadian officials arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer for Huawei Technologies. 

Meng was detained in Vancouver on Dec. 1 for extradition at the request of U.S. officials, who accuse Huawei — a leading global supplier of telecommuncations equipment — of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of American sanctions.
Canadian officials were quick to push back against the detentions of Kovrig and Spavor. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government is deeply concerned by the arbitrary detention of the two men.

Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, shares his thoughts on the detention of his employee Michael Kovrig and the message China is sending. 

Malley said his company is working to secure his employee's freedom.
"Michael [Kovrig] was not doing anything that other people would not have been doing," he said.
Malley said Kovrig was in China to talk to officials and members of the diplomatic community about the situation on the Korean peninsula and China's investments in Africa.

Wrong message, wrong time
Malley said he wouldn't comment on whether China is a safe destination for business travelers, but argued the Chinese are playing this situation badly.
"This is not the message they want to be sending," he said, adding that if the two men were to be released soon, it would send a reassuring signal to the international business community.
According to Statistics Canada, Canada imported $45.4 billion in goods and services from China in 2017, while exporting $28.8 billion to China.
While Freeland wouldn't say whether the Canadians' detentions look like retaliation for Meng's arrest, she said it would be "highly inappropriate" if that were the case.

China's disappeared: Some of the people who vanished at the hands of the Chinese state in 2018

Canadian citizens, a famous actress, a security insider and a student Marxist disappeared in China this year
The Associated Press
Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig briefly disappeared this month before it was revealed they were taken into custody by Chinese officials. The two men's detention followed the arrest and detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou by Canadian authorities. 

It's not uncommon for individuals who speak out against the government to disappear in China, but the scope of the "disappeared" has expanded since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013.
Not only dissidents and activists, but also high-level officials, Marxists, foreigners and even a movie star — people who never publicly opposed the ruling Communist Party — have been whisked away by police to unknown destinations.
The widening dragnet throws into stark relief the lengths to which Xi's administration is willing to go to maintain its control and authority.
Here's a look at some of the people who went missing in 2018 at the hands of the Chinese state:

Canadian citizens
China threatened "grave consequences" if Canada did not release high-tech executive Meng Wanzhou, shortly after the Huawei chief financial officer was detained in Vancouver earlier this month for extradition to the U.S.
The apparent consequences materialized within days, when two Canadian men went missing in China. 

Both turned up in the hands of state security on suspicion of endangering "national security", a nebulous category of crimes that has been levied against foreigners in recent years.
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was taken by authorities from a Beijing street late in the evening, a person familiar with his case said. 

He is allowed one consular visit a month and has not been granted access to a lawyer, as is standard for state security cases.

Kovrig, an adviser with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, remains in detention in China.

Also detained is Michael Spavor, who organizes tours to North Korea from the border city of Dandong. 

China has not said whether their detentions are related to Meng's, but a similar scenario unfolded in the past.
A Canadian couple was detained in 2014 on national security grounds shortly after Canada arrested Su Bin, a Chinese man wanted for industrial espionage in the U.S.
Like Spavor, Kevin and Julia Garratt lived in Dandong, where they ran a popular coffee shop for nearly a decade. 

They also worked with a Christian charity that provided food to North Korean refugees.
While Julia Garratt was released on bail, her husband was held for more than two years before he was deported in September 2016 — about two months after Su pleaded guilty in the U.S.

Tax-evading actress
Fan Bingbing was living the dream. 

Since a breakthrough role at the age of 17, Fan has headlined dozens of movies and TV series, and parlayed her success into modelling, fashion design and other ventures that have made her one of the highest-paid celebrities in the world.
All this made her a potent icon of China's economic success, until authorities reminded Fan — and her legion of admirers — that even she was not untouchable.
For about four months, Fan vanished from public view. 

Her Weibo social media account, which has more than 63 million followers, fell silent. 

Her management office in Beijing was vacated. 

Her birthday on Sept. 16 came and went with only a handful of greetings from entertainment notables.
When she finally resurfaced, it was to apologize.
"I sincerely apologize to society, to the friends who love and care for me, to the people, and to the country's tax bureau," Fan said in a letter posted on Weibo on Oct. 3.
Chinese actress Fan Bingbing poses for photographers upon arrival at the opening of the Cannes film festival in southern France in May. One of China's highest paid celebrities, Fan disappeared from public view for four months before apologizing for tax-evasion. 

Fan later admitted to tax evasion. 

State news agency Xinhua reported that she and the companies she represents had been ordered to pay taxes and penalties totaling 900 million yuan ($130 million US).
"Without the party and the country's great policies, without the people's loving care, there would be no Fan Bingbing," she wrote, a cautionary tale for other Chinese celebrities.
Xinhua concurred in a commentary on her case: "Everyone is equal before the law, there are no `superstars' or `big shots.' No one can despise the law and hope to be lucky."

Security insider
Unlike most swallowed up by China's opaque security apparatus, Meng Hongwei knew exactly what to expect.
Meng — no relation to the Huawei executive — is a vice minister of public security who was also head of Interpol, the France-based organization that facilitates police cooperation across borders.
When he was appointed to the top post, human rights groups expressed concern that China would use Interpol as a tool to rein in political enemies around the world.
Instead, he was captured by the same security forces he represented.
Former Interpol president Meng Hongwei delivers his opening address at the Interpol World congress in Singapore in July 2017. 

In September, Meng became the latest high-ranking official caught in Xi's banner anti-corruption campaign. 

The initiative is a major reason for the Chinese leader's broad popularity, but he has been accused of using it to eliminate political rivals.
Xi pledged to confront both high-level "tigers" and low-level "flies" in his crackdown on graft — a promise he has fulfilled by ensnaring prominent officials.
Meng was missing for weeks before Chinese authorities said he was being investigated for taking bribes and other crimes. 

A Chinese delegation later delivered a resignation letter from Meng to Interpol headquarters.
His wife Grace Meng told the AP that she does not believe the charges against her husband. 

The last message he sent her was an emoji of a knife.

Daring photographer
Lu Guang made his mark photographing the everyday lives of HIV patients in central China. 

They were poor villagers who had contracted the virus after selling their own blood to eke out a living — at a going rate of $7 a pint, they told Lu.
A former factory worker, Lu traversed China's vast reaches to capture reality at its margins. 

He explored environmental degradation, industrial pollution and other gritty topics generally avoided by Chinese journalists, who risk punishment if they pursue stories considered to be sensitive or overly critical.
His work won him major accolades such as the World Press Photo prize, but his prominence likely also put him on the government's radar.
This November, Lu was travelling through East Turkestan, the far west colony that has deployed a vast security network in the name of fighting terrorism. 

He was participating in an exchange with other photographers, after which he was to meet a friend in nearby Sichuan province. 

He never showed up.
More than a month after he disappeared, his family was notified that he had been arrested in East Turkestan, according to his wife Xu Xiaoli. 

She declined to elaborate on the nature of the charges.

Marxist student
In the past, the political activists jailed in China were primarily those who fought for democracy and an end to one-party rule. 

They posed a direct ideological threat to the Communist Party.
This year, the party locked in on a surprising new target: young Marxists.
About 50 students and recent graduates of the country's most prestigious universities convened in August in Shenzhen, an electronics manufacturing hub, to rally for factory workers attempting to form a union
Among them was Yue Xin, a 20-something fresh out of Peking University. 

Earlier this year, she made headlines by calling for the elite school to release the results of its investigation into a decades-old rape case.
This time, she was one of the most vocal leaders of the labour rights group, appearing in photographs with her fist up in a Marxist salute and wearing a T-shirt that said "Unity is strength" — the name of a patriotic Chinese communist song.
Yue, a passionate student of Marx and Mao Zedong, espoused the same values as the party. 

She wrote an open letter to Xi and the party's central leadership saying all the students wanted was justice for Jasic Technology labourers.
Her letter quoted Xi's own remarks: "We must adhere to the guiding position of Marxism." 

Yue called Marx "our mentor" and likened the ideas of him and Mao to spiritual sustenance.
Nonetheless, she ended up among those rounded up in a raid on the apartment the activists were staying at in Shenzhen. 

While most have been released, Yue remains unaccounted for.
She has been missing for four months.

Huawei Threat

How arrest of Chinese princess exposes regime’s world domination plot
By Steven W. Mosher

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver on Dec. 6 led to immediate blowback.
Furious Chinese Communists have begun arresting innocent Canadians in retaliation. 

So far, three of these “revenge hostages” have been taken and are being held in secret jails on vague charges. 

Beijing hints that the hostage count may grow if Meng is not freed and fast.
Even for a thuggish regime like China’s, this kind of action is almost unprecedented.
So who is Meng Wanzhou?
Currently under house arrest and awaiting extradition to the US, she will face charges that her company violated US sanctions by doing business with Iran and committed bank fraud by disguising the payments it received in return.
But to say that she is the CFO of Huawei doesn’t begin to explain her importance — or China’s reaction.
It turns out that “Princess” Meng, as she is called, is Communist royalty. 

Her grandfather was a close comrade of Mao Zedong during the Chinese Civil War, who went on to become vice governor of China’s largest province.
She is also the daughter of Huawei’s Founder and Chairman, Ren Zhengfei. 

Daddy is grooming her to succeed him when he retires.
In other words, Meng is the heiress apparent of China’s largest and most advanced hi-tech company, and one which plays a key role in China’s grand strategy of global domination.
Huawei is a leader in 5G technology and, earlier this year, surpassed Apple to become the second largest smartphone maker in the world behind Samsung.
But Huawei is much more than an innocent manufacturer of smartphones. It is a spy agency of the Chinese Communist Party.
How do we know?
Because the party has repeatedly said so.
First in 2015 and then again in June 2017, the party declared that all Chinese companies must collaborate in gathering intelligence.
“All organizations and citizens,” reads Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law, “must support, assist with, and collaborate in national intelligence work, and guard the national intelligence work secrets they are privy to.”
All Chinese companies, whether they are private or owned by the state, are now part and parcel of the party’s massive overseas espionage campaign.
Huawei is a key part of this aggressive effort to spy on the rest of the world. 

The company’s smartphones, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, are used to “maliciously modify or steal information,” as well as “conduct undetected espionage.” 

Earlier this year the Pentagon banned the devices from all US military bases worldwide.
But Huawei, which has been specially designated as a “national champion,” has an even more important assignment from the Communist Party than simply listening in on phone conversations.
As a global leader in 5G technology, it has been tasked with installing 5G “fiber to the phone” networks in countries around the world.
In fact, “Made in China 2025” — the party’s aggressive plan to dominate the cutting-edge technologies of the 21st century — singles out Huawei as the key to achieving global 5G dominance.
Any network system installed by Huawei working hand-in-glove with China’s intelligence services raises the danger of not only cyber espionage, but also cyber-enabled technology theft.
And the danger doesn’t stop there.
The new superfast 5G networks, which are 100 times faster than 4G, will literally run the world of the future. 

Everything from smartphones to smart cities, from self-driving vehicles to, yes, even weapons systems, will be under their control.
In other words, whoever controls the 5G networks will control the world — or at least large parts of it.
Huawei has reportedly secured more than 25 commercial contracts for 5G, but has been locked out of an increasing number of countries around the world because of spying concerns.
The “Five Eyes” — Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US — have over the past year waged a concerted campaign to block the Chinese tech giant from dominating next-generation wireless networks around the world. 

Not only have they largely kept Huawei out of their own countries, they have convinced other countries like Japan, India and Germany to go along, too.
Yet Huawei is far from finished. 

The company has grown into a global brand over the past two decades because, as a “national champion,” it is constantly being fed and nourished by the party and the military with low-interest-rate loans, privileged access to a protected domestic market, and other preferential treatment.
These various state subsidies continue, giving Huawei a huge and unfair advantage over its free market competitors.
Huawei stands in the same relationship to the Chinese Communist Party as German steelmaker Alfried Krupp did to Germany’s National Socialists in the days leading up to WWII.
Just as Germany’s leading supplier of armaments basically became an arm of the Nazi machine after war broke out, so is China’s leading hi-tech company an essential element of the party’s cold war plan to dominate the world of the future.
As far as “Princess” Meng is concerned, I expect that she will be found guilty of committing bank fraud, ordered to pay a fine, and then released. 

Even a billion dollar fine would be chump change for a seventy-five-billion-dollar corporation like Huawei.
The real payoff of her arrest lies elsewhere. 

It has exposed the massive campaign of espionage that Huawei is carrying out around the world at the behest of the Party.

It has revealed how that Party dreams of a new world order in which China, not America, is dominant.
The two Chinese characters that make up Huawei’s name literally mean, “To Serve China.” 

That’s clear enough, isn’t it?

No China for Canadians

Hundreds of Canadians held by China raises the stakes for Trudeau’s government
By TONDA MACCHARLES

OTTAWA—Around 200 Canadians are currently detained in China for a variety of reasons, the Star has learned.
The staggering number paints a worrying picture of what is at stake for the federal Liberal government — and for many individuals abroad and their families here — when it comes to dealing with Beijing’s newly aggressive posture towards Canada.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver earlier this month. 

Justin Trudeau adopted a deliberately measured tone Wednesday as news broke of a third Canadian detained by China.
Trudeau said it does no good to “politicize” or “amplify” consular cases because it can actually hinder what he said is the ultimate goal of securing Canadians’ release from detention and their safe return home.
He said every year there are “tens of thousands” of Canadians who visit, work or travel within China and “hundreds” of consular cases there that Global Affairs Canada oversees.
Federal sources have told the Star the number of those currently detained stands at about 200.
Global Affairs has not yet responded to the Star’s request for clarification on how many of those detentions have occurred since tensions heightened.
But sources told the Star up to three arrests a week is common, often involving dual Canadian-Chinese citizens (China does not recognize dual citizenship), in cases of drunkenness, drug use, other kinds of criminality and alleged visa violations, with only a small number considered political cases. Still, the broader picture of those who remain in detention right now is alarming.
China publicly admitted Thursday it has detained a third Canadian, Sarah McIver, an English teacher, for an alleged and unspecified violation of her work visa.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that McIver has been detained because “a local Chinese public security authority imposed (an) administrative penalty on a Canadian national for illegal employment.”
And while China and the Canadian government have differentiated McIver’s situation from those of the two other Canadian cases, pointing to “national security” allegations in the latter, the timing of her arrest in the wake of Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has raised alarms that Beijing is further cracking down on Canadian travelers in that country.
Former ambassador to China David Mulroney, who headed Canada’s mission there from 2009 to 2012 said the cases require lots of attention.
“We worked hard deploying consular officials to every corner of China to call on them. Dual citizens are heavily represented in that number, often because of business deals gone sour. Commercial disputes can often morph into criminal cases. In those cases in China, the foreigner almost always loses. Few if any were political.”
The Chinese government has demonstrated its fury over Meng’s arrest by warning Ottawa of “grave consequences” if she isn’t released.
Chinese state security forces then arrested two Canadian men, levelling vague allegations they “endangered China’s national security.”
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, an analyst for respected non-governmental organization International Crisis Group, and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor, who runs Paektu Cultural Exchange, described as a non-profit group that facilitates sport, culture, tourism and business exchanges with North Korea, are still in detention.
Little is known about their condition.
Canada’s ambassador in Beijing, John McCallum, has had one “consular access” visit with each man to ascertain the basis of their detention, whether they have legal advice, and their health condition.
Officials have said nothing further about their cases, citing Canadian privacy law.
However Trudeau told reporters Wednesday the detention of the third Canadian — whom he did not name — “doesn’t fit the pattern” of the other two.
It is not clear, however, how many of the other “hundreds” of detentions occurred before or after Meng’s arrest drew Beijing’s wrath.
But given the current climate, families are worried, with McIver’s Alberta relatives turning to their Conservative MP and later foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole for help.
Trudeau insists that he will continue to engage with China despite the current tensions, citing the need to deal with the world’s second-largest economy.
However as the broader picture becomes clear of just how many Canadians are at the mercy of China’s judicial system, it’s obvious Trudeau must maintain engagement with the Chinese despite the uproar over Meng, in order to preserve their rights as well.
Meng’s company, Huawei Technologies, was founded by her father, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, and is regarded as a corporate jewel in China’s eyes.
It is also a company whose ties to the Chinese government are at the centre of global scrutiny right now as Canada and allies develop the next or fifth generation of ultra-high-speed wireless networks, known as 5G technology.
Meng has since been released on $10-million bail and ordered to remain in Vancouver to await an extradition hearing.
But her release on strict bail conditions has not led to the liberation of Kovrig or Spavor — whose detentions were widely seen as tit-for-tat measures by Beijing.