Criminal Executive

The Odds of Huawei’s CFO Avoiding U.S. Extradition Are Just One in 100000

Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearings begin in earnest on Monday

By Natalie Obiko Pearson and Yuan Gao

Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou has joined Carlos Ghosn in the 1% legal club.
Those are the odds that the Chinese executive will win her bid to avoid extradition to the U.S., similar to the chances of acquittal for the auto titan-turned-fugitive in Japan. 

While Ghosn fled Japan in a big black box for Lebanon, Meng squares up to begin extradition hearings in a Vancouver court on Monday, 13 months after she was arrested on a U.S. handover request.
The hearings offer her first shot -- however slim -- at release as a Canadian judge considers whether the case meets the crucial test of double criminality: would her crime have also been a crime in Canada? 

If not, she could be discharged, according to Canada’s extradition rules.

Meng, the eldest daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has become the highest profile target of a broader U.S. effort to contain China and its largest technology company, which is seen as a national security threat. 

The U.S. accuses her of fraud, saying she lied to HSBC Holdings Plc to trick it into conducting transactions in breach of U.S. sanctions on Iran. 

Meng, who turns 48 next month, is charged with bank and wire fraud, which carry a maximum term of 20 years in prison on conviction.
“In most extradition cases, double criminality is an easy piece of analysis,” says Brock Martland, a Vancouver-based criminal lawyer.

Meng Wanzhou leaves her home for a court appearance in Vancouver on Oct. 1, 2019.

In Meng’s case, it’s not, which may help nudge her into the 1% of defendants in Canada who have historically beaten extradition orders to the U.S.
Her defense has argued that the U.S. case is, in reality, a sanctions-violations complaint that it’s sought to “dress up” as fraud to make it easier to extradite her. 

Had Meng’s conduct taken place in Canada, the transactions by HSBC wouldn’t have violated any Canadian sanctions, they say. 

Canada’s federal prosecutors counter the underlying offense is fraud because she lied to HSBC, causing them to miscalculate Huawei’s risk as a creditor and conduct transactions it otherwise wouldn’t have.

Another potential sticking point is that Meng’s misconduct didn’t take place in the U.S. or Canada -- it rests heavily on a 2013 meeting at a Hong Kong teahouse between Meng and an HSBC banker.
“Canadian fraud laws do not have an extraterritorial reach,” said Ravi Hira, a Vancouver-based lawyer and former special prosecutor. 

“If you commit a fraud in Hong Kong, I can’t just prosecute you in Canada.”
While the double-criminality hearings are scheduled for four days, the ruling would likely come much later -- possibly in months.
Being trapped in the middle of a trade war has brought the luxury of time. 

Before her arrest, Meng traveled so frequently for the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker that she’d gone through at least seven passports in a decade. 

These days, she passes her time oil painting and pursuing an online doctorate. 

Phone calls with her father have gone from once a year to every few days.
“If a busy life has eaten away at my time, then hardship has in turn drawn it back out,” Meng wrote last month on the one-year anniversary of her arrest. 

“It was never my intention to be stuck here so long.”

Ghosn Escape
Meng would find it harder to pull a Ghosn. 

She’s under 24-hour surveillance by at least two guards at her C$13 million ($10 million) mansion. 

Her whereabouts are recorded continuously by a GPS tracker on her left ankle. 

While she’s allowed to roam a roughly 100-square-mile patch of Vancouver during the day accompanied by security, any violation -- including tampering with the device or venturing anywhere near the airport -- would automatically alert police. 

She’s posted bail of C$10 million, of which C$3 million came from a group of guarantors, some of whom pledged their homes as collateral. 

Fleeing would cost them all.
If the court finds her case fails the double-criminality test, Canada’s attorney general would have the right to appeal within 30 days. 

In theory, she could be on a plane back to China well before that, says Gary Botting, a Vancouver-based lawyer who’s been involved in hundreds of Canadian extradition cases.

Of the 798 U.S. extradition requests received since 2008, Canada has only refused or discharged eight, according to the department of justice. 

That’s a 99% chance of being handed over -- similar to the conviction rate in Japan. 

Another 40 cases were withdrawn by the U.S.
Still, that’s fractionally better than the odds of two Canadians hostages detained in China, where the conviction rate currently stands at 99.9%, according to Amnesty International.

Canadians Hostages
That’s if Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor ever make it to trial. 

The two men were thrown in jail on spying allegations just days after Meng’s arrest in December 2018. 

Last month, the Chinese government confirmed their cases were transferred to prosecutors, raising the possibility they might finally get access to lawyers.
As of last week, that hadn’t happened yet for Kovrig, according to the International Crisis Group, his employer. 

The former diplomat has been allowed one consular visit a month; in between, he’s unreachable. Communication with his family is limited to letters exchanged in those visits, according to the group.
Families of the two men aren’t speaking publicly for fear of jeopardizing their cases. 

Some sense of the conditions they’re enduring can be gleaned from past history.
Spavor, a businessman who ran tours to North Korea from his base in a border town in northeastern China, has been held since May in Dandong Detention Centre, according to the Globe and Mail.
It’s a jail familiar to another Canadian, Kevin Garratt, who was snatched along with his wife Julia by Chinese security agents in 2014, becoming pawns and hostages in an earlier high-stakes attempt by Beijing to prevent Canada from extraditing millionaire businessman Su Bin to the U.S.
Garratt spent 19 months in the forbidding compound surrounded by two-story-high cement walls. Crammed into a cell with up to 14 other inmates, he slurped meals from a communal bowl on the floor. 

If they were lucky, they got 30 minutes of hot water a day and could exercise in a small outdoor cage, he said in a December 2018 interview.

Chinese Espionage: U.S. Expelled Chinese Officials After Breach of Military Base

Chinese Embassy officials trespassed onto a Virginia base that is home to Special Operations forces. 
By Edward Wong and Julian E. Barnes

Spy nest: The Chinese Embassy in Washington. The expulsions show the American government is now taking a harder line against espionage by China.

WASHINGTON — The American government secretly expelled two Chinese Embassy officials this fall after they drove on to a sensitive military base in Virginia, according to people with knowledge of the episode. 

The expulsions are the first of Chinese diplomats suspected of espionage in more than 30 years.American officials believe at least one of the Chinese officials was an intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover, said six people with knowledge of the expulsions. 

The group, which included the officials’ wives, evaded military personnel pursuing them and stopped only after fire trucks blocked their path.
The episode in September, which neither Washington nor Beijing made public, has intensified concerns in the Trump administration that China is expanding its spying efforts in the United States.

American intelligence officials say China poses a greater espionage threat than any other country.In recent months, Chinese officials with diplomatic passports have become bolder about showing up unannounced at research or government facilities, American officials said, with the infiltration of the military base only the most remarkable instance.
The expulsions, apparently the first since the United States forced out two Chinese Embassy employees with diplomatic cover in 1987, show the American government is now taking a harder line against espionage by China, officials said.

On Oct. 16, weeks after the intrusion at the base, the State Department announced sharp restrictions on the activities of Chinese diplomats, requiring them to provide notice before meeting with local or state officials or visiting educational and research institutions.
At the time, a senior State Department official told reporters that the rule, which applied to all Chinese Missions in the United States and its territories, was a response to Chinese regulations imposed years ago requiring American diplomats to seek permission to travel outside their host cities or to visit certain institutions.
Two American officials said last week that those restrictions had been under consideration for a while because of growing calls in the American government for reciprocity, but episodes like the one at the base accelerated the rollout.
The base intrusion took place in late September on a sensitive installation near Norfolk, Va. 

The base includes Special Operations forces, said the people with knowledge of the incident. 

Several bases in the area have such units, including one with the headquarters of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six.

The Elizabeth River in Norfolk, Va. The military base intrusion took place in late September on an installation considered especially sensitive in the area.

The Chinese officials and their wives drove up to a checkpoint for entry to the base, said people briefed on the episode. 

A guard, realizing that they did not have permission to enter, told them to go through the gate, turn around and exit the base, which is common procedure in such situations.
But the Chinese officials instead continued on to the base, according to those familiar with the incident. 

After the fire trucks blocked them, the Chinese officials indicated that they had not understood the guard’s English instructions, and had simply gotten lost, according to people briefed on the matter.
American officials said they were skeptical that the intruders made an innocent error and dismissed the idea that their English was insufficient to understand the initial order to leave.
It is not clear what they were trying to do on the base, but some American officials said they believed it was to test the security at the installation, according to a person briefed on the matter. 

Had the Chinese officials made it onto the base without being stopped, the embassy could have dispatched a more senior intelligence officer to enter the base.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy in Washington did not reply to requests for comment about the episode. 

Two associates of Chinese Embassy officials said they were told that the expelled officials were on a sightseeing tour when they accidentally drove onto the base.
The State Department, which is responsible for relations with the Chinese Embassy and its diplomats, and the F.B.I., which oversees counterintelligence in the United States, declined to comment.
Chinese Embassy officials complained to State Department officials about the expulsions and asked in a meeting whether the agency was retaliating for an official Chinese propaganda campaign in August against an American diplomat, Julie Eadeh. 

At the time, state-run news organizations accused Ms. Eadeh, a political counselor in Hong Kong, of being a “black hand” behind the territory’s pro-democracy protests, and personal details about her were posted online. 

A State Department spokeswoman called China a “thuggish regime.”
So far, China has not retaliated by expelling American diplomats or intelligence officers from the embassy in Beijing, perhaps a sign that Chinese officials understand their colleagues overstepped by trying to enter the base. 

One person who was briefed on reactions in the Chinese Embassy in Washington said he was told employees there were surprised that their colleagues had tried something so brazen.

The American Consulate in Hong Kong in September.

In 2016, Chinese officers in Chengdu abducted an American Consulate official they believed to be a C.I.A. officer, interrogated him and forced him to make a confession. 

Colleagues retrieved him the next day and evacuated him from the country. 

American officials threatened to expel suspected Chinese agents in the United States, but apparently did not do so.
China is detaining a Canadian diplomat on leave, Michael Kovrig, on espionage charges, though American officials say he is being held hostage because Canada arrested a prominent Chinese technology company executive at the request of American officials seeking her prosecution in a sanctions evasion case.
For decades, counterintelligence officials have tried to pinpoint embassy or consulate employees with diplomatic cover who are spies and assign officers to follow some of them. 

Now there is growing urgency to do that by both Washington and Beijing.
Evan S. Medeiros, a senior Asia director at the National Security Council under Barack Obama, said he was unaware of any expulsions of Chinese diplomats or spies with diplomatic cover during Obama’s time in office.
If it is rare for the Americans to expel Chinese spies or other embassy employees who have diplomatic cover, Medeiros said, “it’s probably because for much of the first 40 years, Chinese intelligence was not very aggressive.”
“But that changed about 10 years ago,” he added. 

“Chinese intelligence became more sophisticated and more aggressive, both in human and electronic forms.”
For instance, Chinese intelligence officers use LinkedIn to recruit current or former employees of foreign governments.
This year, a Chinese student was sentenced to a year in prison for photographing an American defense intelligence installation near Key West, Fla., in September 2018. 

The student, Zhao Qianli, walked to where the fence circling the base ended at the ocean, then stepped around the fence and onto the beach. 

From there, he walked onto the base and took photographs, including of an area with satellite dishes and antennae.
When he was arrested, Zhao spoke in broken English and, like the officials stopped on the Virginia base, claimed he was lost.
Chinese have been caught not just wandering on to government installations but also improperly entering university laboratories and even crossing farmland to pilfer specially bred seeds.
In 2016, a Chines, Mo Hailong, pleaded guilty to trying to steal corn seeds from American agribusiness firms and give them to a Chinese company. 

Before he was caught, Mo successfully stole seeds developed by the American companies and sent them back to China, according to court records. 

He was sentenced to three years in prison.
The F.B.I. and the National Institutes of Health are trying to root out Chinese scientists in the United States who are stealing biomedical research for China. 

The F.B.I. has also warned research institutions about risks posed by Chinese students and scholars.

Last month, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former C.I.A. officer, was sentenced to 19 years in prison, one of several former American intelligence officials sentenced this year for spying for Beijing.
His work with Chinese intelligence coincided with the demolition of the C.I.A.’s network of informants in China — one of the biggest counterintelligence coups against the United States in decades. 

From 2010 to 2012, Chinese officers killed at least a dozen informants and imprisoned others. 

One man and his pregnant wife were shot in 2011 in a ministry’s courtyard, and the execution was shown on closed-circuit television, according to a new book on Chinese espionage.
Many in the C.I.A. feared China had a mole in the agency, and some officers suspected Lee, though prosecutors did not tie him to the network’s collapse.
For three decades, China did have a mole in the C.I.A., Larry Wu-Tai Chin, considered among the most successful enemy agents to have penetrated the United States. 

He was arrested in 1985 and convicted the next year, then suffocated himself with a trash bag in his jail cell.

Canada vs. thuggish China

Trudeau accuses China of using arbitrary detentions for political ends: ‘This is not acceptable in the international community’

The Guardian

Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December. 

Justin Trudeau has accused Beijing of using arbitrary detentions as a tool in pursuit of political goals in the latest broadside in a diplomatic and trade row with China.

“Using arbitrary detention as a tool to achieve political goals, international or domestic, is something that is of concern not just to Canada but to all our allies,” Trudeau told the Toronto Star editorial board.
He said nations including Britain, France, Germany and the United States “have been highlighting that this is not acceptable behaviour in the international community because they are all worried about China engaging in the same kinds of pressure tactics with them”.
Canada’s relations with China soured after its arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant last December.
Nine days later, Beijing detained two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – and accused them of espionage as retaliation.
Trudeau added that “we need to figure out how to engage with them, but we also have to be clear-eyed about it, that China plays by a very different set of rules and principles than we do in the west”.
His comments may further inflame tensions between the two countries, which had appeared to be trying to move on from the row. 

This week both Beijing and Ottawa nominated new ambassadors.

The previous Canadian ambassador John McCallum was fired in January after he said it would be “great” if the US dropped its extradition request for the Huawei executive. 

She is wanted by the US on fraud charges and is currently out on bail in Vancouver and living in her multi-million dollar home awaiting extradition proceedings.

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.

U.S. think tank leaders urge China to release Canadian researcher, citing threat to ties

By Emily Rauhala

Louis Huang holds a placard calling for China to release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor, left, and Michael Kovrig outside a court hearing for Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on March 6. 

A high-profile group of think tank leaders and scholars is calling for the release of a Canadian policy adviser being held in China, warning that his detention threatens U.S.-China relations at a critical moment.
In a rare joint statement published Monday, leaders working for leading U.S. and international institutions said the arrest of Michael Kovrig of the International Crisis Group on vague allegations of endangering national security is having a “chilling effect” on efforts to improve the bilateral relationship.
The statement comes more than three months after Kovrig was detained in China in retaliation for the arrest in Vancouver of Chinese technology executive Meng Wanzhou. 

The United States and its allies have said Kovrig’s detention is unlawful and have called for his immediate release.
It also comes as the United States and China remain locked in a tense dispute over trade, technology and other issues — a dispute the signatories worry will deepen if independent policy institutions are no longer able or willing to conduct research in China.
“At this moment of testing for the bilateral relationship — defined by growing differences and suspicions between our governments — we believe these efforts and the partnerships we’ve built with counterparts in China over many years are more important than ever,” the statement said.
“Michael’s arrest has a chilling effect on all those who are committed to advance constructive U.S.-China relations. We urge China to release Michael so that he can return to his family.”
The statement is a show of unity and resolve from U.S. think tanks and academic leaders across the political spectrum. 

Signatories include senior leaders from the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Hudson Institute, as well as former diplomats such as Anne-Marie Slaughter and Nicholas Burns.
In January, a group of academics and former diplomats signed a letter calling for Kovrig and another Canadian, businessman Michael Spavor, to be released.
That letter, signed by 116 scholars and 27 former diplomats from 19 countries, warned that researchers were getting nervous about traveling to China.
“We who share Kovrig and Spavor’s enthusiasm for building genuine, productive, and lasting relationships must now be more cautious about traveling and working in China and engaging our Chinese counterparts,” it said.
The arrests are part of a conflict that has put Canada in the middle of a broader standoff between the United States and China.
Kovrig is a former diplomat who had worked since 2017 as an adviser for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, conducting research on northeast Asia, including China, Japan and the Koreas.
He was detained in December in a retaliation for the arrest of Meng, chief financial officer for Huawei Technologies, who was wanted on U.S. charges.
Meng was arrested at Vancouver’s airport on Dec. 1. As China scrambled to secure her release, Chinese authorities detained Kovrig and, later, Spavor.
Not long after, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian serving time in China for smuggling drugs, was hastily retried and sentenced to death.
As Meng awaits her extradition hearing from the comfort of one of her family’s multimillion-dollar houses in Vancouver, Kovrig and Spavor are being held without charge and with no access to lawyers.
The International Crisis Group thanked colleagues for urging Kovrig’s release.
“We are extremely grateful and heartened by the support shown by the prominent signatories from the research community and by the fact that they have come together as one on this issue,” said Robert Malley, the organization’s president and chief executive.
“Many members of that community wish to constructively engage with China. Michael’s arbitrary detention can only scare them away.”

Aggressive Outbursts Mar Xi's Plan to Raise China on the World Stage

Beijing rewards diplomats that are aggressive advocates of China’s views and scorns those that it perceives as overly timid

Bloomberg News

China’s diplomats aren’t being very diplomatic.
In the past few months, its envoy to Canada publicly accused his hosts of “white supremacy,” its ambassador in Sweden labeled the Swedish police “inhumane” and blasted the country’s “so-called freedom of expression,” and its chief emissary in South Africa said President Donald Trump’s policies were making the U.S. “the enemy of the whole world.”
“I don’t think we are witnessing a pattern of misstatements and slips of the tongue," said Ryan Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who previously oversaw China affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. 

“We seem to be watching China’s diplomats matching the mood of the moment in Beijing. Beijing rewards diplomats that are aggressive advocates of China’s views and scorns those that it perceives as overly timid.”
That may be damaging Xi Jinping’s efforts to win friends abroad and capitalize on Donald Trump’s international unpopularity. 

While China has seized on the trade war and U.S. disengagement abroad to pitch itself as a champion of globalization, 63 percent of respondents to a 2018 Pew poll in 25 countries said they preferred the U.S. as a world leader, compared with 19 percent for China.

Backlash Builds
At stake is China’s avowed goal of establishing itself as a global superpower with influence over a network of allies to balance U.S. influence. 

China is pouring billions into global efforts such as Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative to forge stronger links with countries around the world.
But China’s increasingly strident diplomatic approach could do more harm than good. 

Anti-China sentiment has played a pivotal role in election surprises across Asia, and more countries around the world are becoming skeptical of Chinese investment -- particularly in telecommunications, with fears growing about using its equipment in 5G networks due to concerns about espionage.
China’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to faxed questions about the more aggressive language from diplomats. 

After Trump took office, China has sought to portray itself as a supporter of the international order, with Xi himself defending globalization at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

His charm offensive stood in contrast to Trump, who has reshaped public discourse with regular insults of other world leaders on Twitter.
Even so, foreign diplomats in Beijing say that the behavior of Chinese officials has become far more aggressive and assertive in private meetings in recent years. 

Their discussions have become more ideological, according to one senior foreign envoy, who described the behavior as a strong sense of grievance combined with increasing entitlement about China’s international role and rights.
China’s reported behavior at the APEC summit in November highlighted the shift. 

Papua New Guinea police were called after Chinese officials attempted to “barge” into the office of the country’s foreign minister to influence the summit’s communique, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. 

Chinese officials later denied the report, calling it “a rumor spread by some people with a hidden agenda.”

Huawei Advocacy
Chinese diplomats’ advocacy for the country’s embattled tech giant, Huawei Technologies Co., has even riled heads of government. 

After the Chinese ambassador to the Czech Republic, Zhang Jianmin, announced in November that the Czech cyber security body’s decision to ban Huawei did not represent the view of the Czech government, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said, “I do not know what the ambassador is talking about," according to Czech Radio. 

One European ambassador in Beijing said China’s aggressive advocacy for the company has been prevalent across the 28-nation bloc.

Zhang Jianmin

In some regions, China’s overseas rhetoric has been hardening for years. 

Foreign officials noticed an increasingly strident tone from Beijing following the global financial crisis. 

At a 2010 meeting hosted by Southeast Asian nations in Hanoi, then foreign minister Yang Jiechi famously dismissed some of China’s neighbors as “small countries” when challenged over Beijing’s stance in the South China Sea.
Foreign diplomats said the outbursts have increased in both frequency and intensity since Xi took power in 2012. 

In the last few years, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and now Canada have all incurred Beijing’s wrath, with diplomatic barbs often accompanied by economic pressure through import restrictions, store inspections and safety warnings to Chinese tour groups.
In a speech at the 2017 Communist Party conclave that saw Xi appointed for a second term as party chief without an apparent successor, Xi described China as “standing tall and firm in the East” and pledged to make the country a global leader in innovation, influence and military might. 

At a conference for Chinese ambassadors at the end of that year, Xi urged diplomats to play a more proactive part in an increasingly multipolar world -- a speech China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom described as a “mobilization order,” or “bugle call.”

‘Crags and Torrents’
China’s diplomatic corps has been quick to show its loyalty to Xi. 

In a 2017 essay in the party’s theoretical magazine Qiushi, top diplomat Yang Jiechi pledged to study and implement Xi’s thought on diplomacy in a “deep-going way.” 

And Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently praised Xi for “taking the front line of history” and “braving 10,000 crags and torrents.”
“Chinese ambassadors always feel they have to speak to the leaders in Beijing more than to the local public. Their promotions depend on it,” said Susan Shirk, a former U.S. deputy assistant Secretary of State for East Asia. 

“If today what they say is more overtly anti-American or anti-Western then that reflects the changing foreign policy line.”
In line with national “party-building” campaigns, Chinese diplomats regularly engage in “self-criticism” sessions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to people familiar with the meetings. Last month, the former deputy head of the party’s powerful Organization Department, Qi Yu, was appointed as the foreign ministry’s Party Secretary despite a lack of diplomatic experience. 

One foreign ambassador said Chinese diplomats are increasingly “scared.”
China has seen this kind of ideology-driven diplomacy before. 

During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese diplomats in London videotaped themselves fighting protesters on the streets of London, according to the book China’s Quest by historian John Garver. 

In Beijing, British and Soviet diplomatic missions were besieged or invaded and other diplomats were threatened on the streets.
The new wave of truculence is also affecting how foreign envoys are treated in China. 

Detained Canadian citizen and former diplomat Michael Kovrig has been questioned about his work as a diplomat, according to people familiar with the discussions. 

The move is a violation of Article 39 of the Vienna Convention, which explicitly covers the past work of former diplomats. 

China is a signatory.
Foreign diplomats visiting China’s far western colony of East Turkestan have been followed, temporarily detained and forced to delete photographs from their phones, while Swedish citizen Gui Minhai was grabbed by Chinese authorities in front of Swedish diplomats.
The shift in mood, and tensions with the U.S., have altered the tone of discussions inside China’s bureaucracy. 

One Chinese trade diplomat said that while it’s never been easy to be a dove in China, all but the most senior officials now refrain from publicly voicing moderate positions toward the U.S.
“Beijing has established a pattern of making examples of middle powers in hopes that doing so deters others from challenging China’s interests,” said Hass at the Brookings Institution. 

“Some in Beijing also seem to be growing frustrated that China’s rising national power is not yet translating into the types of deference from others that it seeks.”

China's State Terrorism

Don’t Let the Chinese Take the World Hostage

By Hal Brands

Take no prisoners.
Discussions of what China’s rise will mean for the world often take on an abstract, impersonal quality. 

We use terms like “international order,” “geopolitical competition” and “balance of power.” 

Yet the case of Michael Kovrig, the Canadian ex-diplomat who has been unjustly detained in China for nearly two months, reminds us that the rise of a brash authoritarian power comes with profoundly human consequences.
No less, this episode shows how Xi Jinping’s China risks alienating those foreign observers who have worked hardest to build connections and understanding between Beijing and the outside world.
Kovrig certainly fits this description. 

He is fluent in Mandarin and served at posts in Hong Kong and Beijing. 

Since 2016, he has been covering China for the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental with a strong reputation for objectivity and quality. 

Kovrig’s work for ICG has covered an array of issues: China’s role in U.S.-North Korea diplomacy, its involvement in the conflict in South Sudan, and its growing global military footprint.
The official story about Kovrig’s detention in early December is that his work ran afoul of China’s laws on NGOs, which impose strict restrictions and reporting requirements on foreign institutions operating in that country. 

But it’s hard to see his arrest as anything other than geopolitical blackmail by the Chinese government.
The timing of Kovrig’s detention and the commentary of quasi-official mouthpieces such as the Global Times make clear that he was picked up as revenge for the Canadian government’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecom giant Huawei. 

After Meng was detained for violating U.S. financial laws and sanctions on Iran, China arrested Kovrig and another Canadian citizen. (According to reports, up to 13 Canadians have since been detained by the Chinese.) 

Beijing then re-tried a Canadian citizen accused of drug trafficking and sentenced him to death. 

In essence, China has responded to a Canadian-American law-enforcement decision it didn’t like by arbitrarily punishing Canadians.
Kovrig is thus a reminder that authoritarian regimes behave in inhumane ways as a matter of habit. 

It is a clear warning that, as China becomes more powerful, foreign citizens who displease Beijing will be at risk so long as they are within reach of Chinese authorities. 

All of Canada’s democratic allies must stand firmly against this sort of hostage-taking. 

They must condemn, on as multilateral a basis as possible, Chinese behavior; make clear that they will not be bought off or bullied into silence by Beijing’s economic influence; and demonstrate that China will face public pressure and isolation in international diplomatic forums until Kovrig and others who have been been unjustly detained are released. 

The alternative to hanging together is being coerced separately — and having one’s citizens deliberately victimized — the next time a diplomatic row with China occurs.
Yet Kovrig’s saga also carries dangers for China, because it risks weakening some of that country’s most important links to the outside world. 

Kovrig’s work and tweets make clear that he was not naïve about China. 

He was skeptical, for instance, about allowing Huawei to build critical 5G networks in the U.K. 

Yet in his role with ICG, Kovrig worked to give the wider world an objective understanding of Chinese politics and policies; he interacted regularly with Chinese officials, organizations, citizens; he appeared on Chinese television and in other media. 

In doing so, Kovrig has been one of many foreign experts who have sought to improve the West’s understanding of China, promote better communication and exchanges, and thereby contribute to constructive relations between Beijing and the world.
In recent years, China has shown a remarkable talent for alienating these people. 

Late last year, the Hoover Institution released a report detailing Chinese efforts to influence the U.S. political system, as part of a broader strategy for manipulating democratic politics overseas to dull the global response to China’s rise. 

China’s influence operations, the report concluded, often “involve use of coercive or corrupting methods to pressure individuals and groups and thereby interfere in the functioning of American civil and political life.” 

Notably, many of the members of the working group that helped produce the report are academics and former officials who had argued for greater engagement with China in the past.
Kovrig’s arrest imperils those efforts. 

In mid-January, the Canada warned its citizens “to exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” 

The U.S. State Department issued a similar warning. 

Business leaders have grown wary of traveling to China. 

Moreover, Kovrig’s case is impeding longstanding talks involving influential U.S. foreign policy figures and their Chinese counterparts. 

A number of think-tank colleagues in Washington have told me that their employers are restricting travel to China. 

People who have traveled regularly to China over a period of years now say, quite understandably, that they are hesitant to go back.

Visits to China, interactions with Chinese officials, and other such exchanges offer valuable insights into Beijing’s ambitions and behavior. 

What Beijing doesn’t seem to realize is that this is bad news for China.
A country that still needs foreign investment and technology will not benefit from making foreign CEOs wonder whether they or their employees should take the risk of traveling there. 

A country that harps on how it is misunderstood and mistreated by the West will not benefit from constricting critical channels of communication. 

“NGOs, journalists, and diplomats all play a role in connecting China to the wider world,” said David Mulroney, Canada’s ambassador to China from 2009 to 2012. 

“The alternative is a China that is isolated, poorly understood and cut off from important ideas and conversations.”
Kovrig’s case is tragic on a human level; it should be a clarion call for the world’s democracies. 

It is also an example of how China is weakening the relationships and exchanges that are so important to its own future.

Rogue Company: Huawei Sinks Deeper As The World Turns Its Back

Governments worldwide have started to view Huawei's expansion as a serious threat
By David Volodzko

In this Jan. 9, 2019, photo, a security guard stands near the Huawei company logo during a new product launching event in Beijing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said late Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, it is "closely following the detention of Huawei employee Wang Weijing" on charges of spying for China.

Huawei Technologies now faces shocking new charges, in addition to a growing litany of scandals, suggesting the world's second-largest smartphone maker is working with the Chinese military to steal our technology, defraud our institutions and spy on us using our own devices.
The company, its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou and subsidiaries Skycom Tech and Huawei Device USA now face criminal charges for bank fraud, wire fraud, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and conspiring to obstruct justice. 

Governments worldwide have started to view its expansion as a serious threat.
"It's been a longstanding concern of the U.S. intelligence community," former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, "that any of the Chinese IT and telecommunications companies like Huawei, like ZTE, for example, have to be considered as extensions of Chinese intelligence service — in fact, Chinese law encourages, if not mandates, that when called upon, these companies will cooperate with the Chinese government."
The latest charges claim Meng delivered a presentation to a bank executive in 2013, during which she repeatedly lied about Huawei's relationship with Skycom, which tried to sell U.S. technology to Iran despite sanctions. 

Then in 2017, when Huawei became aware of the U.S. investigation, Huawei Device USA tried to obstruct justice by attempting to move witnesses who knew about its operations in Iran back to China, where FBI agents couldn't interview them.
On December 1, Canadian officials arrested Meng for extradition to the United States. 

But Meng is the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, who formerly worked as a technology engineer for the Chinese military before founding Huawei, which makes her Chinese corporate royalty — and Chinese officials made no attempt to mask their outrage.
Days later, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum to protest Meng's arrest, calling it "vile in nature" and threatening Canada with "grave consequences."
China then arrested consultant Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, both Canadian nationals, on charges of endangering state security. 

This past weekend, another Canadian national was arrested on fraud charges.
The pressure was enough to force some Canadian officials to openly question the government's move. “From Canada’s point of view," McCallum said at a charity lunch in Vancouver, "if [the U.S.] drops the extradition request, that would be great for Canada."
McCallum, an outspoken critic of his government's decision to arrest Meng, has previously said she has “strong arguments” to fight extradition. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired him after these recent remarks.
Meng remains detained in Vancouver, but the fraud allegations involving her are only part of Huawei's problems. 

The U.S. Justice Department has separately accused two Huawei affiliates of stealing trade secrets, wire fraud and obstruction of justice over violating agreements with T-Mobile in 2012 by secretly taking photos of its Tappy robot technology, which mimics human fingers to test smartphones, and stealing a piece so Huawei engineers could reverse engineer it.
North America isn't the only place turning its back on the company, either. 

Earlier this month, the Huawei sales director for Poland was arrested for espionage.
Australia's TPG Telecom has abandoned plans to build a new mobile telephone network that would have relied on Huawei technology. 

French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said last week European states must stand united when dealing with Huawei.
And Vodafone has announced it is halting the purchase of Huawei technology for its new 5G networks in Europe.
But some are wondering why this awakening didn't take place sooner, since Huawei has for years been mired in scandal. 

In July 2012, vulnerabilities were found in its routers that could allow remote access to the devices. In early 2015, German cybersecurity company G Data reported it had found malware pre-installed on Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei smartphones enabling audio surveillance and location tracking. 

In January 2018, African Union officials accused China of hacking the computer system at its headquarters every night for the past five years. 

The building, located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, had been built by Chinese contractors — including Huawei.
Then there's a slew of accusations, such as that Huawei has provided surveillance equipment to the Taliban. 

Or the case of Shane Todd, the American engineer who apparently committed "suicide" in Singapore in June 2012 under suspicious circumstances, in connection with work he had been doing involving a semiconductor amplifying device purportedly for Huawei, with potential military applications.
Todd had evidently told his family the project could endanger U.S. national security, and that he felt he was in danger.
China continues to respond with denial and threats. 

China's State Terrorrism

Kevin and Julia Garratt on their experience as detainees in China
By Jessica Murphy

Julia and Kevin Garratt (centre) with their children Peter and Hannah. Their second son Simeon is not pictured.

Canadian couple Kevin and Julia Garratt were detained in China in 2014 and accused of spying. Amid an escalating feud between Canada and China and allegations of retaliatory detentions, the pair tells the BBC about what it was like -- and how they ever made it home.
Kevin Garratt remembers well the night he and Julia were arrested in north-eastern China.
He recalls being pulled away from his wife as they walked through a restaurant's downstairs lobby, and pushed into the back of a black sedan filled with burly officers.
He thought the whole thing was some terrible mistake.
Julia, forced into a separate sedan, found herself shaking in fear and shock at the sudden turn of events, and the drive in the darkness.
She thought: "This is going to be my last night.
"I don't think I've ever felt that level of fear and panic before. And also just sad for my family and my children, because there was no warning, there would be no chance to say goodbye."
The Garratts had lived in China since 1984, and from 2008 operated a coffee house popular with Western expats and tourists in Dandong, a city on the North Korean border, while continuing to carry out Christian aid work.

The couple lived in Dandong, at the main China-North Korea border.

But unbeknownst to either of them, early in 2014 and thousands of miles away, American authorities were launching a crackdown on Chinese cyber-espionage. 

One of the men in their sights was Su Bin, a Chinese resident working in Canada.
That June, Canadian authorities picked up Su, accused of stealing data about military projects and selling it to China, for extradition to the US.
Canadian officials and observers believed the Garratts' arrest was a tit-for-tat detention and an attempt to pressure Canada for Su's release.
Canada's ambassador in Beijing at the time, Guy Saint-Jacques, describes them as "a couple of Canadian missionaries who had been in China 30 years doing good work".
He tells the BBC their arrest "was the first case where we saw a clear retaliation for something that had happened in Canada".
When he met counterparts at the foreign ministry about the case, Saint-Jacques recalls: "They never said directly 'let's do a swap.' But it was very clear what they wanted."
On the night of the Garratts' arrest -- the beginning of months of detention for the pair -- they had been invited for dinner by a friend of a friend, who told the couple they wanted to talk about their daughter going to study in Canada.
But something about the dinner felt strange.
"It didn't seem genuine, and the daughter never came," Kevin says.
Julia says it was only later they realised the whole evening had been a set-up for their arrest.
"It was very carefully thought through and planned in advance. We had no idea," she says.
Parts of the couple's story could be pulled directly from today's headlines.

Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver last December

In December, Chinese telecoms executive Meng Wanzhou, 46, was detained in Vancouver for allegedly breaking US sanctions against Iran.
This week, the US filed charges against Huawei and Meng, and the US is seeking her extradition.
Following Meng's arrest came threats of "grave consequences" from China if the tech heiress and chief finance officer at Huawei, China's largest private company, was not released.
In mid-December, two Canadian men -- former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor -- were held in China on accusations of harming national security.
Like in the Garratts' case, their detention is seen by China analysts as a reprisal.Michael Spavor (L) and Michael Kovrig have been put under "compulsory measures"

The Garratts' experience in detention parallels what Canadian officials and others have suggested that Kovrig and Spavor are living through -- daily interrogations, being kept in a room with lights on day and night.
"I don't know what they did or didn't do, but I know what they're going through right now," says Julia.
The Garratts say they were never physically harmed but were watched by guards around the clock, and had to request the most basic necessities when they needed them.
"You want a drink of water, they have to go get it for it. Brush your teeth, they get it for you. It's really meant to frighten and control you," says Kevin.
Julia says the first few nights, she put a blanket over her eyes to block the light, but the guard pulled it down.
They also experienced daily interrogations for up to six hours.

------
Tit for tat arrests

• About 200 Canadians held in China
• The cases of Michael Spavor, Michael Kovrig and Robert Lloyd Schellenberg are linked to China's displeasure at arrest of Meng Wanzhou
• Kovrig, a diplomat on leave, and Spavor, a businessman with close ties to North Korea, are accused of engaging in activities that harm China's national security
• Schellenberg was convicted last year on drug smuggling charges and given a death sentence in January
• Canada has accused China of acting arbitrarily in his sentencing
• The country updated its travel advisory to China following Schellenberg sentencing, urging caution due to risk of "arbitrary enforcement of local law"

--------
Their interrogators had a decade of details about their time in China and their travels, and asked over and over about the minutia of their activities -- the why, the when, and the where.
Whom they met.
"They would ask the same questions two month later and compare the answers," says Julia.
"It's very, very gruelling."Kevin Garratt is reunited with his wife Julia in Vancouver

Some four years later, they have documented their experience in a book, Two Tears on the Window, published in November.
Devout Christians, they say prayer and the support of both their close family and the wider church community helped them through their time in detention.
"I had the sense that my peace cannot be stolen from me, my true freedom cannot be stolen from me. And I think there was great comfort in that," says Julia.
She was released on bail in February 2015, pending trial.
In January 2016, still in detention, Kevin was charged with stealing state secrets.
A month later, Su waived extradition and headed to the US, where in March he pleaded guilty to hacking into major US defence contractors, stealing sensitive military data and sending it to China.
Saint-Jacques says that Chinese officials seemed taken by surprise by Su's decision to cut a deal with American officials.Justin Trudeau raised the Garratt case with Chinese officials in August 2016

He believes that turn of events, combined with a visit to China by Justin Trudeau, during which the newly elected PM raised Kevin's case, were instrumental in securing Kevin's release.
He was deported to Canada in September 2016 after 775 days in detention, and reunited with Julia, who had left the country earlier that year.
Meanwhile, Meng's case continues to strain China's ties with Canada and the US.
Chinese officials have called her arrest a "serious mistake", accusing Canada of double standards and "Western egotism and white supremacy".
She is out on bail and under house arrest in Vancouver, where she owns property.
She is next due in court on 6 March, but the case could possibly drag on for years.
It also comes amid growing scrutiny in Western countries over Huawei, which is a world leader in telecoms infrastructure, in particular the next generation of mobile phone networks, known as 5G.
Concern about the security of the company's technology has been growing, particularly in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany, which fear its products could be used for spying.
Amid the diplomatic dispute, Canada has worked to rally international allies to its corner.
Earlier this month, over 140 diplomats -- including Saint-Jacques -- and academics signed an open letter to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping calling for the release of Kovrig and Spavor.
Canada also fired ambassador John McCallum on Sunday following controversial comments he made about Meng's extradition case.

Canada’s Ambassador to China Pushed Out Over Stupid Huawei Comments

By Dan Bilefsky

The Canadian ambassador to China, John McCallum, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, earlier this month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the ambassador’s resignation on Saturday.

MONTREAL — Canada’s ambassador to China has resigned following a series of diplomatic missteps that further complicated strained relations between the two countries.
The resignation came days after the ambassador, John McCallum, stunned seasoned diplomatic observers by saying that Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei who was arrested in December by Canadian authorities in Vancouver at the United States request, stood a good chance of avoiding extradition to the United States.
His public assessment of the sensitive and high profile case came under sharp criticism, including from the leader of the opposition conservative party Andrew Scheer, who said McCallum’s comments threatened to politicize the case and called for him to be fired.
“Last night, I asked for and accepted John McCallum’s resignation as Canada’s ambassador to China,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday.
McCallum backpedaled on Thursday, saying that he misspoke. 

But a day later, following a news report quoting him saying that it would be “great for Canada” if the United States dropped its request to extradite the Huawei executive, he was once again under fire.
Canada is in the middle of a struggle between China and the United States, two countries engaged in a protracted trade war.
Canada has vowed not to intervene politically in the Huawei case, which is currently pending in Canadian courts, making McCallum’s comments all the more awkward. 

China has characterized Meng’s arrest as an abuse of power by Canadian authorities.
The United States is expected to formally request the extradition of Meng from Canada in the coming days. 

It has until Jan. 30 to make the request. 

Once made, Canadian courts will decide whether she can be sent to the United States, with a final determination made by Canada’s minister of justice.
Canada has also been trying to help three of its own citizens held in China, including Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was working for a research organization, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, who have been detained on suspicion of “endangering national security.” 

The third Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was sentenced to death this month in China for drug smuggling.
McCallum is known to speak his mind. 

A former academic, he has held a series of senior positions in Liberal governments including as minister of defense and as Trudeau’s minister of immigration. 

He played a leading role in Canada’s decision to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees to the country.

Australia Probes China’s Detention of Australian-Chinese Writer

Yang Hengjun is detained in China after Canberra’s decision to ban Huawei from Australia’s 5G network
By Eva Dou in Beijing, Rob Taylor in Canberra and Yifan Wang in Hong Kong

The Australian-Chinese writer Yang Hengjun disappeared ahead of a visit to China by Australia’s defense minister. 

Australia’s government is investigating the detention of an Australian-Chinese political writer and academic in China amid heightened concern over detentions of Western nationals in the country.
Australia’s foreign ministry said it was seeking access to Yang Hengjun, an Australian spy novelist who once worked for China’s Foreign Ministry, and that no reasons had been provided by security or diplomatic authorities in Beijing for his detention.
Mr. Yang’s case threatens to cast a shadow over a visit to China by Australia’s defense minister. 

It follows months of tension between Australia and Beijing over Canberra’s decision to lock Chinese phone giant Huawei Technologies Co. out of future 5G communication networks and to challenge Chinese influence in the South Pacific.
His detention also comes as China enters a year of sensitive political anniversaries, including the 30th anniversary of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. 

Several labor organizers and student activists in multiple cities either have disappeared or been taken into police custody in recent days, in what some observers described as a sign authorities are on edge.
There were no immediate indications of whether Mr. Yang’s case was linked to those broader issues. Mr. Yang has been detained previously on trips to China, including in 2011, when a friend reported that Chinese authorities told him he could be released only if he agreed to say he had been sick for the preceding few days.
Australia’s defense minister, Christopher Pyne, was due to arrive in China Thursday in an effort to soothe recent tensions evident since Australia’s conservative government targeted foreign influence in domestic politics and society with counterespionage legislation, triggering a chill in trade and diplomatic relations.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement Wednesday that it wanted to know why Mr. Yang had been detained and was seeking “to obtain consular access to him, in accordance with the bilateral consular agreement, as a matter of priority.”
Asked about Mr. Yang’s case at a regular China Foreign Ministry news conference, spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she wasn’t aware of the situation.
Mr. Yang had flown from New York to Guangzhou on Jan. 18, but he didn’t continue onto a second flight to Shanghai, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, citing friends. 

It wasn’t immediately clear what the purpose of his trip was.
There has been concern about the risks for Western nationals in China in recent weeks after China detained Canadian researcher Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of Huawei’s finance chief at the U.S.’s request. 

Canada issued a travel alert this month, warning of the possibility of “arbitrary enforcement” of local laws in China.
More than 100 scholars and former diplomats from Western countries signed an open letter to Xi Jinping this week calling for the release of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor, saying it would make China experts think twice about visiting the country. 

While Australia’s government has been cautious with its criticism to protect trade ties, several Australians signed, including Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister and president emeritus of Mr. Kovrig’s employer, the International Crisis Group.
China has accused the two Canadians of activities that endanger national security, without specifying what those activities are. 

They haven’t been formally charged.
On Jan. 16, Mr. Yang posted a comment on his Weibo social-media account criticizing a travel warning China issued for Canada, warning Chinese citizens to be careful of their safety and follow local laws. 

“Canada is pretty much one of the top three countries that treat tourists the best,” he wrote.
Mr. Yang, who was born in China, joined China’s Foreign Ministry in the 1980s, and at one point he posted a photo of himself online in a police uniform. 

He later switched to academic work and moved abroad.
It has been unclear what happened during his previous disappearances in China. 

When he emerged in 2011, he only said he had fallen ill and had communication issues, leading to what he called a misunderstanding.
Feng Chongyi, a friend and a Sydney-based academic who was himself detained in China last year, expressed concern that Mr. Yang had been detained on national-security grounds.
“It is an extension of China’s hostage-diplomacy issue,” Mr. Feng said. 

He said he had tried to warn Mr. Yang against travel to China following the detention of the two Canadians.
In a sign that Chinese residents critical of government policy also face heightened risks, police from the southern city of Shenzhen took six labor activists into custody on Sunday night, according to friends and family members. 

Three of the activists were formally detained on suspicion of “disturbing social order,” while another has since been released, they said.
Separately, five current students and two recent graduates from top universities in Beijing who belong to a group that supported worker-unionizing efforts in southern China last year disappeared on Monday, according to friends. 

The seven were hiding out in an apartment in the coastal city of Tianjin while the group released statements excoriating Beijing police for having shown several of them videotaped confessions by fellow activists detained last year, friends said.
One of the people detained, Peking University student Zhang Ziwei, described others being grabbed by unidentified people in messages he sent to friends by smartphone late Monday night. 

In a video message, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Zhang said he could hear the people going to door-to-door.
“The proletariat doesn’t fear death, much less repression!” he said in the video. 

Friends said he later stopped sending messages and they haven’t been able to reach him since.
The Shenzhen Public Security Bureau didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Rogue Company

U.S. Will Ask Canada to Extradite Huawei Executive

By Edward Wong, Katie Benner and Alan Rappeport

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, arriving last month at a parole office in Vancouver. American officials are expected to ask Canada within a week to extradite Meng to the United States to face charges related to violating Iran sanctions.

WASHINGTON — The United States plans to formally request within a week that Canada extradite a top Huawei executive to stand trial for charges related to violating American sanctions on Iran.
American officials say they will seek to have Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei who was detained in Canada on Dec. 1, sent to the United States. 

They have until Jan. 30 to make the request.
“We will continue to pursue the extradition of defendant Meng Wanzhou, and will meet all deadlines set by the U.S.-Canada Extradition Treaty,” Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement. 

“We greatly appreciate Canada’s continuing support in our mutual efforts to enforce the rule of law.”
The United States’ request would come as American and Chinese officials kick off a critical round of trade talks next week aimed at resolving a dispute that is causing great economic damage in China.

The talks are expected to begin Jan. 30 in Washington, when a delegation led by Liu He, China’s top trade negotiator, meets with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative.
American and Chinese officials have tried to portray the arrest of Meng as separate from the trade talks, which are taking place against a March 2 deadline set by President Trump and Xi Jinping.
But the Trump administration has increasingly mixed talk of national security concerns related to Chinese businesses with its positions on trade. 

And American officials have tried to crack down on certain activities by Chinese telecom firms like Huawei, which is aiming to build next-generation cellular and data networks in countries worldwide.
China has already expressed alarm about the detention of Meng, a Chinese citizen and a daughter of the founder of Huawei, whose arrest set off a diplomatic crisis involving the United States, Canada and China. 

Meng is currently living with her family at one of her homes in Vancouver. 

In December, a Canadian court ruled that Meng would not have to be held in jail, but said that the authorities could closely monitor her, and that certain parts of Vancouver were off limits.
A senior official with Global Affairs, the Canadian Foreign Ministry, said the Canadian government expects the United States to proceed with the request to have her brought to the United States to face charges that she lied to American banks about Huawei’s efforts to evade Iran sanctions. 

Meng was arrested Dec. 1 in a Vancouver airport as she was stopping over between China and Latin America, and the treaty says the United States must make a formal extradition request within 60 days of an arrest.
Once Canada gets the request, the process would move to the Canadian courts, which would determine whether Meng could be extradited. 

If they say yes, the minister of justice makes the final determination. 

The Canadian official said the process could take months or years because the first decision by a court can be appealed to a higher court.
A spokesman for Canada’s Justice Department said Tuesday night that the British Columbia Supreme Court had scheduled a hearing for Feb. 6 to confirm that the United States had made a formal extradition request by the deadline.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated Tuesday that Meng’s fate would be taken into consideration as the trade talks proceed. 

While American officials insist that Meng’s case is not a consideration in the trade negotiations, Trump suggested in December that he could intervene in the matter if it would help close a trade deal.
Trump administration officials have increasingly cautioned that a resolution to the tit-for-tat trade war will be hard to reach.
“I acknowledge the degree of difficulty,” Larry Kudlow, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Tuesday, referring to the magnitude of the structural changes that the United States is demanding from China. 

“At the end of the day, it has to be in America’s interest.”
Members of the United States national security community say there is a risk that Meng’s fate becomes entangled with trade considerations.
“Given previous reporting, at any moment, the administration could decide that extracting a trade concession is more important to U.S. national interests than the prosecution of this individual,” said David Laufman, a Washington lawyer who served as chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section. 

Laufman declined to comment on the specifics of the case.
The arrest of Meng followed a yearslong investigation by Justice Department officials in Brooklyn looking at whether a company tied to Huawei did business in Iran in a way that violated sanctions, and whether Meng lied to American banks about Huawei’s connections to the smaller company, Skycom. 

Justice Department officials aim to charge Meng with fraud.
Chinese officials say the arrest of Meng was based on political motivations and are linked to a broader Trump administration campaign against Huawei.
The United States has been urging other countries to prevent Huawei from building their networks, citing security concerns that the company poses. 

American officials frequently point out that the founder of Huawei and Meng’s father, Ren Zhengfei, was a soldier decades ago in the People’s Liberation Army. 

Some American allies, foremost among them Australia, have voiced similar security warnings about Huawei.
Days after Meng’s arrest, Chinese security officers separately detained two Canadian men, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in northern China. 

Mr. Kovrig is a diplomat on leave and a researcher for the International Crisis Group, and Mr. Spavor is an entrepreneur who has organized tours to North Korea. 

Chinese officials have said security officers are investigating the men on potential national security charges. 

Canada has said the arrests were arbitrary, and analysts say it is clear the men were detained as hostages to trade for Meng.
On Monday, more than 100 academics and former diplomats issued an open letter calling on China to free the men immediately.
Last week, a Chinese court sentenced to death Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian man convicted of drug smuggling, further raising tensions.
On Monday, The Globe and Mail, a newspaper in Toronto, published an article in which David MacNaughton, the Canadian ambassador to the United States, said American officials would proceed with the extradition request.
Chrystia Freeland, the foreign minister of Canada, has said repeatedly that Canadian courts would make decisions based purely on legal considerations and not on politics. 

Ms. Freeland stressed that approach after Trump told Reuters in an interview in December that he could stop the extradition of Meng if China offered sufficient concessions in continuing negotiations aimed at ending a costly trade war between the United States and China that has dragged on since Mr. Trump started it last summer.

Huawei criminal: US will formally lodge an extradition request with Canada

By Kirsty Needham

Beijing -- China has called Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest “an abuse of the extradition agreement” between the United States and Canada, after reports the US will formally lodge an extradition request with Canada.
The US has until January 30 to lodge a formal request, outlining its case against Meng, upon which Canada’s Justice Minister will ultimately rule.

Meng Wanzhou, centre, leaves her home while out on bail in Vancouver

Diplomatic relations between Canada and China have become highly strained in the fallout of Meng’s arrest at Vancouver airport.
Two Canadians have been detained on national security charges in China, while another faces the death penalty for drug smuggling.
Canada’s US ambassador David McNaughton was reported to have told the Trump administration that Canada didn’t like to see its citizens being punished – it was the US that had brought the case against Meng “yet we are the ones who are paying the price”.
Canada’s Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said last month that she took her extradition obligations very seriously and, if Canada’s courts approved Meng’s extradition, she will “ultimately have to decide on the issue of surrender of the person sought”.

Gareth Evans joins other Australians in global push over China's jailing of Canadians
Ten Australians, including former foreign minister Gareth Evans, were among 140 former ambassadors and academics to sign a letter calling for the release of the two Canadians, analyst and former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor.