Huawei exec's extradition hearing begins in Canada

The first stage of an extradition hearing for a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei begins Monday in a Vancouver courtroom, a case that has infuriated Beijing, caused a diplomatic uproar and added to tensions between China and the United States.

Canada's arrest of chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's legendary founder, in late 2018 at America's request shocked Beijing.

Huawei represents China's progress in becoming a technological power and has been a subject of US security concerns for years. Beijing views Meng's case as an attempt to contain China's rise.

"This is one of the top priorities for the Chinese government. They've been very mad. They will be watching this very closely," said Wenran Jiang, a senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.

China's foreign ministry complained Monday the United States and Canada were violating Meng's rights and called for her release.

It is completely a serious political incident, said a ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang.

He urged Canada to correct mistakes with concrete actions, release Ms. Meng Wanzhou and let her return safely as soon as possible.

Washington accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng, 47, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company's business dealings in Iran.

Meng, who is free on bail and living in one of the two Vancouver mansions she owns, denies the allegations. Her defense team says comments by President Donald Trump suggest the case against her is politically motivated.

Meng was detained in December 2018 in Vancouver as she was changing flights on the same day that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for trade talks.

Prosecutors have stressed that Meng's case is separate from the wider China-U.S. trade dispute, but Trump undercut that message weeks after her arrest when he said he would consider intervening in the case if it would help forge a trade deal with Beijing.

China and the US reached a "Phase 1" trade agreement last week, but most analysts say any meaningful resolution of the main US allegation that Beijing uses predatory tactics in its drive to supplant America's technological supremacy could require years of contentious talks.

Trump had raised the possibility of using Huawei's fate as a bargaining chip in the trade talks, but the deal announced Wednesday didn't mention the company.

Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for cellphone and internet companies. Washington is pressuring other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft.

"I think this is the beginning of a technological war along ideological fronts," said Lynette Ong, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

You are going to see the world divided into two parts. One side would use Chinese companies and the other side would not use Chinese companies because they are weary of the political implications of using Chinese platforms.

James Lewis at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the U.S. wanted to send a message with Meng's arrest.. There is good evidence that Huawei willfully violated sanctions, he said.

"The message that you are no longer invulnerable has been sent to Chinese executives," Lewis said.

"No one has held China accountable. They steal technology, they violate their WTO commitments and the old line is, 'Oh, they are a developing economy, who cares.' When you are the second-largest economy in the world you can't do that anymore."