Trudeau says Canada will not cave in to China's pressure over Huawei CFO's case

Amid rising tensions between Beijing and Toronto, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau on November 11 said that his country would not cave in to pressure from China over the case of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. Huawei’s CFO was detained by Canadian authorities in December 2018 and she is currently under house arrest in Vancouver. Her case has caused diplomatic chill between the two countries. Beijing has also retaliated to her arrest by detaining two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, over espionage charges. 

In an interview during an FT online conference, Trudeau said, “We don’t believe in coercive diplomacy and ... we actually deeply believe that if you start giving into that kind of pressure, you’ll leave yourself worse off for the long term”. 

He added, “China continues to think that they can just put enough pressure on us and we will ... give in, but that’s exactly the opposite of our position”. 

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Meng’s extradition trial 

Meanwhile, Meng has denied charges against her in the US and is fighting extradition from her house arrest. A Canadian judge has denied Meng access to most of the documents her lawyers wanted to use to help prevent her extradition to the United States. Prosecutors have accused her of misleading a bank in the US on Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran, putting it at risk of penalties for flouting US sanctions on Tehran. 

However, defence lawyers have argued that the case is about the US sanctions on Iran and not a bank fraud case, adding that Canada has repudiated the sanctions. In May, British Columbia’s Superior Court judge Heather Holmes ruled that the legal standard of double criminality had been met. Holmes said that Meng’s approach would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfill its international obligations in the extradition context for fraud and other economic crimes.

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