Tag: Meng Wanzhou

Michael Spavor Reaches Settlement With Canada Over Detention by China

Media Library

The government of Canada has reached a financial settlement with one of two Canadian men it contends were arbitrarily detained for nearly three years by China in a retaliatory move, the man’s lawyer said. John K. Phillips, who represents Michael Spavor, told The Associated Press Wednesday evening that “I am only able to say that the matter between Mr. Spavor and the government of Canada has been resolved.” Mr. Spavor, a businessman who had extensive dealings in North Korea, and Michael Kovrig, a then a Canadian diplomat who was on…

In Hostage Diplomacy, It’s Often the Hostage-Takers Who Pay

Chin@Strategy

Brittney Griner’s release, nearly a year after Russian authorities detained her, is once more forcing a difficult question in Washington and other capitals. What is the least bad option in dealing with hostage diplomacy? The practice, which has grown somewhat more common in recent years, involves imprisoning a foreigner, usually on spurious or exaggerated charges, for the purpose of extracting concessions from that person’s government. For the victim’s government, giving in risks encouraging hostile states to take more hostages. But holding out prolongs the hostage’s suffering, as well as sending…

China and U.S. Quietly Released Captive Citizens Before Summit

Chin@Strategy

Shortly before President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met for a virtual summit this week, the United States sent seven Chinese nationals who had been convicted of crimes back to China, and Beijing lifted an exit ban on an American citizen who had been blocked from leaving for four years. One of the Chinese nationals who was repatriated was a woman who had been convicted in 2019 of trespassing after she had entered former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a cache of electronics, according to a senior…

Meng and the Michaels: why China’s embrace of hostage diplomacy is a warning to other nations

Chin@Strategy

The release of two Canadian hostages by China has ended a lengthy feud between the two countries, but experts caution the saga foreshadows a deepening rift between the two nations. After facing charges of espionage and spending more than 1,000 days in detention, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were set free by Chinese authorities late last week. Accompanied by Canada’s ambassador to China, the pair arrived home early on Saturday morning. The two had been detained after Canada’s arrest of the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who also arrived home after…

How the Huawei Case Raised Fears of ‘Hostage Diplomacy’ by China

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The talks between the Justice Department and a top executive from Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecommunications giant, had stretched over more than 12 months and two presidential administrations, and boiled down to one overarching dispute: whether Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Huawei’s founder, would admit to any wrongdoing. Since her arrest in 2018, Ms. Meng had refused to admit that she had misled the global banking conglomerate HSBC about Huawei’s dealings with Iran a decade ago, even though that was the key to her release from detention in Canada,…

To Get Back Meng Wanzhou, China Uses a Hardball Tactic: Seizing Foreigners

Chin@Strategy

In a rapid-fire climax to a 1,030-day standoff, China prepared to welcome home a company executive whose arrest in Canada and possible extradition to the United States made her a focus of superpower friction. In getting her back, Beijing brandished a formidable political tool: using detained foreign citizens as bargaining chips in disputes with other countries. The executive, Meng Wanzhou, was set to land in China on Saturday night local time to a public that widely sees her as a victim of arrogant American overreach. By the same turn, Michael…

Who Is Meng Wanzhou?

Chin@Strategy

When Meng Wanzhou was arrested by the Canadian authorities in the Vancouver airport while changing flights December 2018, she suddenly became one of the world’s most famous detainees. Her arrest — made at the United States’ request for her extradition on fraud charges — provoked a storm of recriminations from China, landed Ms. Meng in legal limbo, and put Canada in the middle of a fight between two world powers. Ms. Meng has been a public face of Huawei. She began her career there more than 25 years ago and…

U.S. Reaches Agreement to Release Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou

Chin@Strategy

For its part, the Chinese government has underwritten the cost of installing Huawei gear, in an effort to dominate networks from Latin America to the Middle East. Ms. Meng came to personify that effort. Her determination to wire up Tehran, at a time in which the West was seeking to contain Iran’s nuclear program, attracted protests among American officials. For that reason, some China hard-liners objected on Friday to news that the charges were being dropped. “It sends the wrong message to Chinese business executives around the world that it’s…

Meng’s Release Could Reduce Friction Between U.S. and China

Chin@Strategy

The deal to release Meng Wanzhou could reduce a nettlesome conflict in U.S.-China relations. President Donald J. Trump took an aggressively adversarial stance toward China, castigating Beijing for what he called unfair trade policies, blaming it for the coronavirus pandemic, blocking Chinese technology companies from the lucrative American market and imposing heavy tariffs on Chinese exports. The Trump administration also accused Huawei of stealing technology from its Western rivals. Since coming to office, President Biden has also taken a tough position on China. He has sought to establish the United…