US alleges Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou used a Hong Kong shell company to evade US trade curbs on Iran
China raised the pressure on the United States and Canada as a bail hearing for a top Chinese technology executive was set to resume Monday in Vancouver, British Columbia.
A headline in a Communist Party newspaper called Canada’s treatment of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, «inhumane.» The editorial published in Monday’s Global Times followed formal government protests to the ambassadors of both Canada and the United States over the weekend.
Meng was detained on December 1 while changing planes in Vancouver. The U. S. wants her extradited. It alleges Huawei used a Hong Kong shell company to evade U. S. trade curbs on Iran.
Her arrest could fuel U. S.-China trade tensions at a time when the two sides are seeking to resolve a dispute over Beijing’s technology and industrial strategy. Both sides have sought to keep the issues separate, at least so far.
«This is a criminal justice matter,» U. S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on CBS’ «Face the Nation» on Sunday. «It is totally separate from anything that I work on or anything that the trade policy people in the administration work on…. We have a lot of very big, very important issues. We’ve got serious people working on them, and I don’t think they’ll be affected by this.»
The hearing on whether to release on bail was due to resume later Monday. Canadian prosecutor John Gibb-Carsley asked the court Friday to reject Meng’s bail request. Justice William Ehrcke said he would think about proposed bail conditions over the weekend.
