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.

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.”

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.

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.

Chinese State Hooliganism

Feud with Canada is damaging China’s reputation in the world

By Josh Wingrove and Greg Quinn

Canada's ambassador to China John McCallum told reporters Wednesday that China's prosecutions of Canadian nationals risked undermining their own interests among the world's business community.
Canada’s ambassador to China warned that the spiralling diplomatic feud between the nations was damaging Beijing’s reputation, as the U.S. joined countries criticizing a Canadian citizen’s death sentence as “politically motivated.”
Ambassador John McCallum told reporters Wednesday that China’s prosecutions of Canadian nationals risked undermining their own interests among the world’s business community. 

McCallum, a former lawmaker, said he believed that argument would prove more compelling to Chinese officials than seeking support from business and foreign governments to pressure Beijing.
“We have to engage the senior Chinese leaders and persuade them that what they are doing is not good for China’s place in the world,” McCallum said, attending a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet in Sherbrooke, Quebec. 

“It’s not good for the image of corporate China in the world.”
Canada is navigating what Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland described Wednesday as a “difficult moment” with China, six weeks after the Vancouver arrest of Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. 

China has since detained two Canadians over alleged national security threats, moved to execute another for drug-smuggling and mocked Trudeau in daily news briefings.
Trudeau’s government has warned Canadians to exercise caution in the country “due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws” and sought support from leaders of nations including Argentina, Germany and New Zealand. 

Following a phone call between Freeland and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, the State Department issued a statement criticizing the “politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals.”
Freeland said Canada was arguing that China represents a “way of behaving which is a threat to all countries.” 

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has come under increasing criticism in the West over a human rights record that includes crackdowns on human rights lawyers and the mass detention of Uighur Muslims.

The feud between Beijing and Ottawa stems from the Dec. 1 arrest of Meng as part of a U.S.-led effort to extradite her over sanctions violations. 

The U.S. and its allies have taken a series of steps in recent weeks to bar the Chinese telecommunications giant from sensitive networks over spying fears, including a probe into suspected trade-secrets theft by federal prosecutors in Seattle.
China has denounced the effort as unjustified and demanded Meng’s immediate release. 

Days after her arrest, China’s spy agency detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on suspicion of “activities endangering national security,” although authorities have provided no evidence and deflected questions about whether the actions were taken in retaliation for Meng.

STILL HELD
Meng is free on bail pending her next court hearing. 

But Kovrig, who was on leave from his foreign service posting in Hong Kong, and Spavor, an entrepreneur who ran tours into North Korea, remain in custody. 

A third Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, had his earlier 15-year sentence for drug smuggling increased to execution during a retrial Monday in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian.
“My first priority by far is to do everything in my capacity to secure the release of the two Michaels as quickly as possible, and to help to save the life of Mr. Schellenberg,” McCallum said earlier Wednesday.
McCallum said Kovrig and Spavor are each being questioned up to four hours per day and that he has visited both, along with Schellenberg. 

He cautioned that efforts to build international pressure for their release were unlikely to be effective unless Beijing believed it would benefit from doing so.
“There are many fronts we are working on, but one of the main ones is to persuade China, not necessarily through Canadians, but through corporate and government leaders around their world, that this behavior is not in their interest,” McCallum said. 

“We have a lot of work yet to do.”

US: Death sentence to Canadian in China politically motivated

The arbitrary detentions of Canadians are not just about Canada -- they represent a way of behaving which is a threat to all countries

AP
Canada's Foreign Minister Freeland (L) and US Secretary of State Pompeo and at a news conference in Washington in December 2018.

The United States State Department has called the sudden move to award the death sentence to a Canadian man by a Chinese court in a drug trafficking case "politically motivated".
In a statement on Wednesday, deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland had spoken the previous day and "expressed their concerns about the arbitrary detentions and politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals".
The Chinese court has sentenced Robert Schellenberg to death in a sudden retrial in the drug smuggling case on Monday, after giving him a 15-year jail term in 2016.
Freeland and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been talking to world leaders about Schellenberg's case as well as those of two other Canadians arrested in China in retaliation against the December arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Canada had arrested the daughter of Huawei's founder at the request of the US, which wants her extradited to face charges related to the company's business dealings in Iran. 

Palladino said Meng's case was also discussed.
"They noted their continued commitment to Canada's conduct of a fair, unbiased, and transparent legal proceeding," the statement said.

China defiant
Canada has embarked on a campaign with allies to win the release of former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor, who were arrested on vague allegations of "engaging in activities that endanger the national security" of China 10 days after Meng's arrest.
"Led by the prime minister, our government has been energetically reaching out to our allies and explaining that the arbitrary detentions of Canadians are not just about Canada -- they represent a way of behaving which is a threat to all countries," Freeland said.
She added that the arrested Canadians would be at the top of her agenda when she visits Davos for the World Economic Forum next week.

Earlier on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying mocked "actually, you can count by the fingers of your hand the few allies of Canada that chose to side with it on this issue." 

Asked about Hua's comments, Freeland said: "I would just point to the fact that the EU alone, which has issued a statement, is a union of 28 countries."

Unlawful arrests
The United Kingdom, Australia and other countries have also issued statements backing Canada.
The White House, meanwhile, called the arrests "unlawful" in a statement after Trudeau called Donald Trump last week, but the US president has not talked directly about the arrested Canadians.
Bruce Heyman, a former US ambassador to Canada, said Washington and other allies need to take a stronger public stance supporting Canada.
"A statement is a statement, but it only has strength in value if there are consequences for behaviour," Heyman told The Associated Press news agency. 

"A threat to Canadians is a threat to the United States. That's what's missing here. That's what you do with allies and your best friend. Canada has always been there for the United States in a time of need."
Heyman argued that a lack of leadership from the Trump administration has empowered countries like China and Canada is suffering the consequences.
"We are seeing behaviours around the world by countries who feel that they have a licence to do things because the US is behaving entirely differently," he said. 

"We should be there protecting our allies."

China smells weakness – so it’s picking on Canada

China is targeting Canada, and not the United States, because they see us as both weak and anxious for closer economic ties, an image reinforced by Ottawa’s previously fawning words for China.

By Brian Lee Crowley

Meng Wanzhou

The battle with China over the extradition case of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, is not one that Canada chose. 

It is increasingly clear, however, that it is one that we cannot afford to lose, since China evidently believes that Canada is the weak link in its global contest of wills with the West.
The case of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, Beijing’s latest thinly disguised effort to use the Chinese courts to up the pressure on Ottawa, has seriously escalated tensions. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decried the hasty retrial and death sentence for the Canadian accused of smuggling drugs as “arbitrary.” 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has responded by demanding that the Canadian government cease “such irresponsible remarks.” 

The two sides have traded travel advisories.
China has been known to give severe sentences for drug-related offences, even to foreigners – although it is notable that its tough-on-drug-crime approach does not extend to its own role in the domestic production and export of fentanyl, which has led to an opioid crisis in North America and beyond.

Yet, as with the detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, it would be farcical to believe China’s position – that they are just applying their own laws to foreign nationals, much as Canada is doing with Meng – given China’s long history of politicizing criminal trials for the benefit of the Communist Party regime.
Make no mistake: China is targeting Canada, and not the United States, because they see us as both weak and anxious for closer economic ties, an image reinforced by Ottawa’s previously fawning words for China.

If Canadians did not already understand the odious and thuggish nature of the regime that their government has been seeking to embrace on their behalf, Mr. Schellenberg’s case should dispel all doubts.
China respects strength, not weakness. 

In the interests of protecting Canadians and the rule of law within our own country, we must make it clear that we will not let such egregious offences go unanswered, and respond firmly to escalating provocations by the Chinese regime.
There are measures we can take immediately: the expulsion of the ambassador; the use of Magnitsky sanctions against specific members of the regime involved in this travesty; and a warming of our relations with Taiwan. 

Tightening visa restrictions could be considered, though punishing ordinary Chinese for the actions of the regime might be unpalatable.
We should also join most of our principal allies in rejecting Huawei’s role in our emerging 5G communications network, if for no reason other than as an effective expression of our determination to stand up for ourselves against China’s blackmail and intimidation. 

If Huawei was rightly viewed as a security threat when relations were more normal, allowing a firm required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party into the heart of Canada’s communications infrastructure, amid China’s acts of retaliation and aggression, should now be a non-starter.
But acting alone is not enough. 

We must engage our allies. 

If China’s bullying leads to consequences across its relations with the West, that will give the country pause. 

We should be especially clear that we expect Washington’s full support on this matter, since it was our response to the U.S. extradition request that resulted in Chinese action against Canada, and China fears American power. 

This, not backroom negotiations with China, holds the best hope for the safety of Canadians now threatened by Beijing.
The irony is that China’s aggressive actions against Canada are counterproductive. 

The extradition process for Meng is no rubber stamp. 

Our rule-of-law approach allows ministerial discretion to deny extradition on defined grounds.
In effect, China’s bullying behaviour threw away a chance for them to work with Canada to get us to use ministerial discretion appropriately. 

Instead, they ripped aside the curtain and showed us the true nature of their Mafia-like regime where threats and intimidation, not reason and good-faith negotiation, are the preferred instruments of power.
While still in opposition, Trudeau raised eyebrows when he expressed “admiration” for how China’s “basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.”
Canadians have just been given an object lesson in how that “basic dictatorship” works. 

It’s not the economy, but rather the judicial system, that has turned on a dime at the behest of the Communist Party, to threaten the life of a Canadian in the hopes that we will abandon our commitment to the rule of law. 

That is the true nature of the Chinese regime. 

There is nothing to admire here – and much to oppose.

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.

Terra Non Grata

U.S. Renews Travel Advisory for China, Warning of Arbitrary Detention

By Liam Stack

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized exit bans during a visit to China in October. He again mentioned detained Americans at a meeting in Washington with a Chinese foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, left, in November.

The United States renewed a travel advisory for China on Thursday that warned American citizens could face arbitrary detention there, a move that came amid tense relations between the countries dominated by trade disputes and the recent American-requested arrest of a high-profile Chinese executive in Canada.
The rights of foreign nationals in China have received renewed focus because of public concern over the fate of an American family barred from leaving the country, Sandra Han and her two adult children, Victor and Cynthia Liu. 

The arrest in Vancouver last month of Meng Wanzhou, an executive of the Chinese tech giant Huawei, has also raised the specter of retaliatory arrests of Americans or Canadians in China.
The travel advisory issued by the State Department on Thursday was a routine renewal of a similar warning issued in January 2018. 

It urged Americans to exercise increased caution in China because of so-called “exit bans,” an illegal tool the authorities there use to bar a person from leaving the country.
People subjected to a ban typically learn of its existence only when they try to leave China, and no method exists for them to determine when the ban has been lifted, the State Department said.
The advisory warned that United States citizens under a ban have been harassed and threatened and “detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime.” 

They also face prolonged interrogations and extended detention for reasons related to ‘state security.’
Canada’s leading newspaper, The Globe and Mail, reported Thursday that China had detained 13 Canadians since Meng’s arrest, a higher number than the three Canadians previously reported to have been detained after her arrest on Dec. 1.
But a spokesman for Canada’s foreign ministry said it "did not have reason" to believe that the arrests were retaliatory, although the spokesman said two of the Canadians — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — were arrested for unspecified reasons of national security.
The State Department said China had used exit bans to compel foreign nationals to resolve civil disputes or to cooperate with police investigations. 

Exit bans have also been used to turn foreigners into bait meant to lure other people, like fugitives, to the country.
That appears to have been the motive behind the exit ban applied since last June to Han and her children, whose father, Liu Changming, is a former executive at a state-owned bank and accused of participation in a $1.4 billion fraud case. 

The children have said their father severed ties with the family in 2012.
Some people subjected to an exit ban have been imprisoned, including Han, a naturalized American citizen who was arrested and sent to a secret prison days after the family arrived in China in June to visit a sick relative.
Others, including her children, Liu, an American-born undergraduate at Georgetown University, and Liu, a naturalized American employed by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in New York, are allowed to move freely within China. 

But they are forbidden to leave the country.
The Liu family’s case has drawn the attention of American officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who criticized the practice of exit bans during a visit to China in October and mentioned the family to a Chinese foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, at a meeting in Washington in November.
In a letter sent in August to John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, Ms. Liu said she and her brother were being used as pawns in China’s investigation into her estranged father.
“The investigative officers have made abundantly clear that neither my brother nor I am under any form of investigation,” Liu wrote. 

“We are being held here as a crude form of human collateral to induce someone with whom I have no contact to return to China for reasons with which I am entirely unfamiliar.”