2 min

Tags in this article

, , ,

The United States will formally ask Canada to extradite Huawei-CFO Meng Wanzhou. Wanzhou was arrested by the Canadian authorities last month at the request of the US.

Reuters reports on the basis of an interview by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail with the Canadian ambassador to the United States, David MacNaughton.

According to MacNaughton, the US has already informed Canada that it will request the extradition of Meng, but the ambassador did not know when this will happen. The deadline for submitting a formal request is 30 January, 60 days after the arrest of the Huawei Summit woman on 1 December last year.

Meng, CFO and daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested by the Canadian authorities in Vancouver in early December during a transit from Hong Kong to Mexico. This was at the request of the US, which has been investigating the Chinese telecom giant and its CFO since 2016 on suspicion of violation of the US trade embargo against Iran.

Beijing angry

Meng was released on bail last month and is due to appear before the court in Vancouver on 6 February. China has been calling for the release from the outset and is warning of serious consequences if this does not happen. It clearly doesn’t call the arrest an ordinary legal case.

Canada and the United arbitrarily abused their bilateral extradition treaty to seriously violate the security and legal rights of a Chinese citizen, says Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. China insists that the U.S. does not submit a formal extradition request.

Relations between Canada and China have been considerably cooled down by events. Shortly after Meng’s arrest, two Canadian citizens were arrested in China. A third Canadian who had previously been found guilty of drug smuggling was sentenced to death. According to Beijing, both cases have nothing to do with Meng’s arrest, but not everyone in the West is so sure of that.

Trade War

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou also further increased tensions between the United States and China. Both countries have been engaged in a trade war for months, with Huawei in the eye of the storm. The US fears Chinese espionage through the telecom giant’s equipment, although no evidence of this has yet been put on the table.

Earlier this year, President Trump passed a bill to ban all Huawei equipment from any government agency. He also openly puts pressure on friendly countries to ignore Huawei. Australia, New Zealand and Japan, among others, have already followed him.

Related: Huawei Founder: Our equipment has no ideology

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.