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Robert Delaney

Jodi Xu Klein

The surprise agreement between US prosecutors and Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou that allows Meng to return to China after nearly three years of detention in Canada will not reset strained relations among the three nations any time soon, analysts said.
Even with the release of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the two Canadians arrested for espionage after Meng was detained in Vancouver in December 2018, Beijing’s relationships with the US and Canada are so steeped in mistrust that they may remain deeply troubled, they said.
The return of “the Michaels” immediately after Meng’s release was “welcome news in Washington, Beijing, and, especially, Ottawa”, said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Centre’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
No crime and no punishment as Meng Wanzhou admits wrongdoing without guilt
However, “the speed with which the deal was executed is a tacit admission of what China has denied for three years: they were hostages, plain and simple”.
Earlier this year Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in prison; Kovrig’s sentence was pending as of when he was released.

From the American side, suspicions about Huawei remain – the US attorney in Brooklyn said that while the prosecution of Meng had been deferred, the fraud case against the company continues – as does a belief that China may be emboldened by the tough strategy it took in the Meng affair.
Beijing has characterised Meng’s detention as part of an effort by Washington to halt Huawei’s rapid accumulation of global market share in the mobile telecoms industry and Ottawa’s involvement in the case as compliance in this campaign.
Chinese officials have also dismissed the US case that Meng misled lender HSBC in a way that caused the bank to violate US sanctions against Iran. On Friday, Meng did not plead guilty to the charges but, as part of the agreement, admitted to providing “knowingly false statements”.
Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou flying back to China after striking deal with US
“Meng’s release on its own will not lower temperatures in US-China relations; it may even raise them as China claims victory over a wrongful prosecution,” Daly said.
“Neither China nor the United States seems to have made concessions in the handling of the case,” he added. “Beijing will see Meng’s return as a vindication of hostage diplomacy; the key question for Canadians and the rest of the world will be what to make of China’s ready and ongoing embrace of that strategy.”
Ethan Paul, a research associate at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank, noted that the Meng agreement was the first move the Biden administration had made on any of the items included in the “two lists” Chinese foreign vice-minister Xie Feng presented to US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman in July.
Paul said top Chinese officials repeatedly emphasised that those lists represented Beijing’s core negotiating position.

However, he added that “we should not lose sight of the fact that the Biden administration has firmly planted its flag on competition with China as the defining feature of its foreign policy post-Afghanistan”, Paul said.
“The [Biden] administration has sent very clear signals since the Biden-Xi call – through Aukus, the Quad meeting, and the announcements regarding Taiwan and a potential new 301 [tariff] investigation – that it is still not happy with the direction of the relationship, and is doubling down on its confrontational approach and desire to be in a ‘position of strength’,” he added.
Adam Segal at the Council on Foreign Relations also doubted that the Meng deal signalled any improvement in US-China relations, saying that it wouldn’t “fundamentally change things”.
US marines chief calls China ‘the pacing threat for the next decade’
“The Biden administration will continue to sanction Huawei, and China will still feel bullied by Meng’s arrest,” Segal said. “The mistrust remains, especially around technology.”
The US government has placed Huawei, China’s tech giant, on the Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2019, barring any American supplier from selling products to Huawei, which the US contends has ties with the Chinese government.
The US Department of Justice designated Huawei and scores of its subsidiaries as national security threats and prohibited its products from being installed in US 5G networks.
Even if Meng’s release were to lead to a more cooperative relationship between Washington and Beijing, US President Joe Biden will face criticism that he caved to a country that one of his own military leaders has called America’s “pacing threat for the next decade”.

That charge started soon after news of the agreement broke on Friday.
“Meng Wanzhou violated US sanctions, but the Biden administration chose to appease the Chinese Communist Party rather than enforcing the law,” Senator Tom Cottonl the Arkansas Republican who is a vocal China critic, said in a statement. “Instead of standing firm against China’s hostage-taking and blackmail, President Biden folded.
“This surrender only encourages the Communists in Beijing to take more Americans and our allies hostage in the future.”
Supporters of ‘two Michaels’ express relief as ‘arbitrary detention’ ends
Florida’s Marco Rubio, another Senate Republican who has made hard-line positions against China one of his key policy objectives, piled on.
“The release of Ms. Meng raises serious questions about President Biden’s ability and willingness to confront the threat posed by Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said in a statement issued on Saturday. “We have already seen how the administration’s single-minded focus on climate is causing them to downplay genocide.
“This is just another example of the Biden Administration’s dangerously soft approach towards Beijing,” he added.


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Meng Wanzhou

Meng Wanzhou’s shock release may not improve China’s relationships with US or Canada, analysts say

Protesters outside an extradition hearing for Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in 2019 calling for China to release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. Photo: Reuters

FILE PHOTO: A Huawei logo is seen on a cell phone screen in their store at Vina del Mar, Chile July 18, 2019. REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido/File Photo

=== PHOTO CAPTURED ONLINE=== Filer of (L) Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. Photo: Facebook

(210726) -- TIANJIN, July 26, 2021 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng (3rd R) holds talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman (3rd L) in north China's Tianjin on July 26, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Ran)

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s tear-soaked message: ‘This moment I’m soaring over the Arctic … my motherland is within reach’

Meng Wanzhou prepares to leave Canada. Photo: Twitter

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co., delivers a statement to members of the media as she exits provincial court in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. Meng and the U.S. Justice Department reached a deal to resolve criminal charges against her, a breakthrough in a case that raised tensions between China, Canada and the U.S. Photographer: Jimmy Jeong/Bloomberg

A picture of Meng wanzhou leaving canada airport. Photo: CCTV

An Air China flight bound for Shenzhen, believed to be carrying Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, takes off from Vancouver International Aiport in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada September 24, 2021. REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier

No crime and no punishment as Meng Wanzhou admits wrongdoing without guilt

Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou leaves court at the conclusion of a hearing in Vancouver, British Columbia, on September 24. Photo: Reuters

As Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou enters Chinese airspace, foreign ministry slams ‘arbitrary detention’

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou leaves her home in Vancouver on Friday morning. Photo: Ian Young

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly presides over a hearing for Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, which Meng attended virtually from Canada, at Brooklyn's Federal District Court in a courtroom sketch in New York, U.S., September 24, 2021. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

An unscheduled Air China 777, carrying Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, takes off from Vancouver International Airport, bound for China, on Friday afternoon. Photo: SCMP

An unscheduled Air China 777, carrying Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, taxis at Vancouver International Airport before taking off for China on Friday afternoon. Photo: SCMP

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As for the US, ‘the Biden administration will continue to sanction Huawei, and China will still feel bullied by Meng’s arrest’



‘The Biden administration will continue to sanction Huawei, and China will still feel bullied by Meng’s arrest’.
