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China just dragged in the Canadian and U.S. ambassadors over the arrest of Huawei's CFO

“It is lawless, reasonless and ruthless, and it is extremely vicious.”
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China summoned the ambassadors of Canada and the U.S. over the weekend to explain the “lawless” arrest of Huawei’s CFO.

Le Yucheng, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said Sunday that Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China, had been summoned to hear Beijing’s “strong protest against the U.S.'s unreasonable direction to Canada of detaining the Huawei executive.”

In an earlier statement Saturday, Beijing said it had summoned Canada’s ambassador over the arrest that “severely violated the Chinese citizen's legal and legitimate rights and interests.”

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“It is lawless, reasonless and ruthless, and it is extremely vicious,” the statement said.

Meng Wanzhou will return to court in Vancouver Monday for her bail hearing, hoping to convince the judge to release her after prosecutors Friday outlined their case against the executive.

During a five-hour hearing, a Canadian government lawyer claimed that between 2009 and 2014 Meng helped mislead multinational banks about her company’s control of a Hong Kong-based entity called SkyCom, which operated in Iran.

READ: Trudeau was informed that Huawei’s CFO was going to be arrested. Trump was not.

The action would have meant not only that Huawei violated sanctions against selling U.S. technology to Tehran, but also that the banks would be at risk of significant penalties. Prosecutors claim Meng misrepresented SkyCom as an entirely separate business, when in fact it was controlled by Huawei.

Prosecutors said Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei’s billionaire CEO, should be denied bail as she poses a serious flight risk given her access to significant resources.

Meng will plead her innocence on all charges, according to a sworn affidavit released Sunday, arguing that she should be released on bail while awaiting an extradition hearing due to severe hypertension and fears for her health while incarcerated in Canada.

The detention of Meng comes at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over and ongoing trade dispute. The two sides have agreed to a truce and are in negotiations to end the conflict. Both sides said Meng’s arrest has not impacted talks.

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The Chinese foreign ministry declared Monday that it had never heard of any country having a security problem with Huawei.

That statement came at the same time as multiple news reports emerged that the top three telcos in Japan had opted not to use equipment from Huawei or ZTE in their next-generation 5G networks, due to security concerns.

That follows an announcement from Britain’s BT last week that it was removing Huawei equipment from parts of its network. The U.S. government has long voiced concerns over Huawei’s close ties to the Chinese government and recently urged allies to follow its lead and ban the company from critical communications infrastructure.

Cover image: A man walks past a Huawei store in Beijing on December 10, 2018.(GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)