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

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

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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

Published: 7:17am, 25 Sep 2021Updated: 5:52am, 25 Dec 2021

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.

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.