VANCOUVER, British Columbia—The first stage of an extradition hearing for a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei begins on Jan. 20 in a Vancouver courtroom, a case that has infuriated Beijing and caused a diplomatic uproar.
Canada’s arrest of chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, in late 2018 at America’s request shocked Beijing.
“This is one of the top priorities for the Chinese government. They’ve been very mad. They will be watching this very closely,” said Wenran Jiang, a senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.
China’s foreign ministry complained on Monday the United States and Canada were violating Meng’s rights and called for her release.
“It is completely a serious political incident,” said a ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang. He urged Canada to “correct mistakes with concrete actions, release Ms. Meng Wanzhou and let her return safely as soon as possible.”
Meng, who is free on bail and living in one of the two Vancouver mansions she owns, denies the allegations.
Meng was detained in December 2018 in Vancouver as she was changing flights—on the same day that Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for trade talks.
Prosecutors have stressed that Meng’s case is separate from the wider China-U.S. trade dispute, but weeks after her arrest Trump said he would consider intervening in the case if it would help forge a trade deal with Beijing.
Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for cellphone and internet companies. Washington is pressuring other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft.
“I think this is the beginning of a technological war along ideological fronts,” said Lynette Ong, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “You are going to see the world divided into two parts. One side would use Chinese companies and the other side would not use Chinese companies because they are weary of the political implications of using Chinese platforms.”
James Lewis at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the United States wanted to send a message with Meng’s arrest. There is good evidence that Huawei willfully violated sanctions, he said.
“The message that you are no longer invulnerable has been sent to Chinese executives,” Lewis said. “No one has held China accountable. They steal technology, they violate their WTO commitments and the old line is, ‘Oh, they are a developing economy, who cares.' When you are the second-largest economy in the world you can’t do that anymore.”
The initial stage of Meng’s extradition hearing will focus on whether Meng’s alleged crimes are crimes both in the United States and Canada. Her lawyers filed a a motion on Friday arguing that Meng’s case is really about U.S. sanctions against Iran, not a fraud case. Canada does not have similar sanctions on Iran.
The second phase, scheduled for June, will consider defense allegations that Canada Border Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI violated her rights while collecting evidence before she was actually arrested.
The extradition case could take years to resolve if there are appeals. Virtually all extradition requests from Canada to the United States are approved by Canadian judges.
