Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Canada, China and US were all doomed to lose in Meng Wanzhou’s case

Canada, China and US were all doomed to lose in Meng Wanzhou’s case

Analysis: After the Huawei chief’s detention, the saga rapidly turned from a narrow legal dispute into an escalating battle
The deal allowing Meng Wanzhou to return home to China nearly three years after her arrest will come as a relief to all the participants in a saga that rapidly turned from a narrow legal dispute into an escalating geopolitical battle.

After the Huawei finance chief was detained on a US warrant in Vancouver airport in December 2018, Canada, China and the US soon found themselves locked into a court case which they were all – at least in political terms – doomed to lose.

Meng’s case was never going to turn purely on the idiosyncrasies of Canadian extradition law or the frankness with which she had told Huawei’s bankers HSBC about the relationship between her company and a subsidiary accused of violating US sanctions against Iran.

For one thing, even though the justice department may have felt they were doggedly acting on information about a potential breach of US sanctions law, Donald Trump made the case explicitly political by saying he would intervene to drop the charges if he thought it would help US-China trade negotiations.

China, meanwhile, felt Meng and Huawei were being used as a weapon in a wider battle. It was highly unusual for the prosecution to be directed at the chief finance officer personally and not at the corporation. Last year, Airbus agreed to pay $4bn in penalties to resolve a bribery case. In 2015, Deutsche Bank was fined $258m for violating Iran- and Syria-related sanctions. But no executives were detained in either case.

Since Meng was the daughter of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, this was viewed as a personal attack not just on the firm but on a business hero.

Beijing responded to her detention on three tracks.

Within days, the Chinese government detained two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor, on dubious charges. A Chinese court in August found Spavor guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. He has appealed the ruling. The verdict for Kovrig has yet to be announced.

Second, Huawei prepared one of the most legally sophisticated, multi pronged and expensive court challenges to an extradition ever mounted – one that would likely have taken years to wind its way through the Canadian courts. After two years of hearings, the court was due to announce in October when it would rule on Meng’s extradition. The substantive hearing in the US – now cancelled – would have been equally drawn out.

Finally, the Chinese government made life as difficult as possible for Canada.

Caught between two superpowers and desperately aware of the need to display the independence of its courts, Canada has tried to avoid provocation. It still has not announced its decision on Huawei 5G or the on listing of China CGTN television network . Nor has it been at the forefront of those defending Taiwan from Chinese threats. It was not a member of the Aukus security pact announced this week. The emphasis has been on quiet diplomacy, and making clear through its declaration on arbitrary detention that state hostage taking is unacceptable – although even that prompted a furious reaction from Beijing.

So why has a settlement been reached now? The US justice department said the out-of-court settlement is not dissimilar to one discussed between the two sides last year. At the time Meng refused to make any admission of guilt at all. Since then she may have realised her chances of avoiding extradition were vanishingly small. The court’s room for discretion in extradition cases is low. The judge cannot hold a substantive trial of the charges just to test if the alleged crime would be considered illegal in Canada, and whether there had been abuse of process.

Meng may find this frustrating, given the evidence shown in court.

Her lawyers argued that internal HSBC emails and memos showed she had been upfront with senior HSBC staff about Huawei’s relationship with the subsidiary accused of sanctions-busting, Skycom.

Indeed, at a hearing in August, the judge in the case said that the case against Meng seemed very unusual. No one lost money, the allegations were several years old, and the intended victim, a global bank, knew the truth even as it was allegedly being lied to.

Heather Holmes, associate chief justice, asked: “Isn’t it unusual that one will see a fraud case with no actual harm many years later? And one in which the alleged victim, a large institution, appears to have had numerous people within the institution who had all the facts that are now said to be misrepresented?”

In reaching the out of court settlement the US may have acknowledged its case at trial was hardly watertight.

But the deal struck on Friday contains damning admissions by Meng that she had been knowingly untruthful in telling HSBC about the links between Huawei and its subsidiary operating in Iran. The DPA does not set out whether HSBC independently knew anyway about the degree of connection, merely that facts in the presentation were inaccurate.

Her return to China will come as a welcome gift to the re-elected Justin Trudeau – even if he still has to negotiate the release of the two Michaels.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×