The US has indicated it will pursue the extradition of a top Huawei executive, Canada’s ambassador to Washington said, suggesting the case might not be resolved in trade talks with China.
Ambassador David MacNaughton confirmed in an e-mail on Monday that US officials have continued to signal an intent to follow through on the case against Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. The Globe and Mail newspaper earlier cited an interview with MacNaughton saying that the US has notified the Canadian government of plans to file a formal extradition request before a 30 January deadline.
Meng — the daughter of the Chinese telecommunication giant’s founder — was arrested at the behest of the US last month over allegations of bank fraud related to sanctions against Iran. She has denied wrongdoing and is restricted to staying in Vancouver while awaiting further court hearings.
The case — and China’s subsequent detention of two Canadian nationals — has prompted a diplomatic feud between Ottawa and Beijing, with each side accusing the other of arbitrary law enforcement. The dispute was complicated by a Trump interview with Reuters on 11 December, in which he said he would intervene in the case, if he “thought it was necessary” to close a trade deal with China.
The deadline falls on the same day that China’s top economic official, vice Premier Liu He, is due to arrive in Washington for talks with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and trade representative Robert Lighthizer. Huawei has been a central concern of US efforts to protect intellectual property rights and secure sensitive data systems.
Suffered the most
Still, Canadians in China have suffered the most since Meng’s 1 December arrest. China detained Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on suspicion of activities endangering national security while another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, saw his drug-smuggling sentence increased to death from 15 years in prison.
MacNaughton told The Globe and Mail he had voiced Canada’s anger to the Trump administration over the dispute.
“We don’t like that it is our citizens who are being punished,” MacNaughton said in the interview. — Reported by Josh Wingrove, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP
