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Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou arrived in China on a special plane.
Washington:
The White House said on Monday that the near-simultaneous release of a senior Huawei executive and two Canadians detained shortly after his arrest was not a prisoner exchange, but that their cases were raised during an appeal. between the Chinese and American presidents weeks ago.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou flew to China from Canada on Friday after reaching a deal with US prosecutors to end the bank fraud case against him, a point of tension between China. and the United States.
Hours after news of the deal was heard, the two Canadians who were arrested shortly after Meng’s arrest were released from Chinese jails and were on their way back to Canada. Beijing had denied that their arrests were related.
When asked if the White House was involved in negotiating a “prisoner swap,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the premise.
The deferred prosecution agreement with Meng was “an action of the Department of Justice, which is an independent Department of Justice. This is a matter of law enforcement,” she said, adding: “There is no connection”.
But Psaki also confirmed that in a call on September 9, two weeks before the announcements, Chinese leader Xi Jinping brought up Meng’s case and US President Joe Biden called for the release of the two Canadians, the man behind. case Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, detained in China for more than 1,000 days.
“These two leaders have raised the cases of these individuals but there has been no negotiation about it,” Psaki said.
Separately, two American siblings barred from leaving China since 2018 returned to the United States over the weekend, according to a US official. Cynthia and Victor Liu had been subject to an “exit ban” although they had not been the subject of criminal allegations. Their father, former bank official and fugitive Liu Changming, is wanted in China on charges of fraud.
Psaki said she did not know if Biden was aware of the state of negotiations between Meng’s attorneys and the Justice Department.
Meng had been arrested at Vancouver International Airport in Canada under a US warrant and was charged with bank and wire fraud for allegedly misleading HSBC in 2013 over the telecommunications equipment giant’s business dealings in Iran. .
The years-long extradition drama had been a central source of contention in the increasingly difficult relationship between Beijing and Washington, with Chinese officials signaling the case should be closed to help end a deadlock diplomatic.
Ball in the United States court
Psaki stressed that the deal announced on Friday did not indicate an easing of US concerns over Chinese behavior.
“Our policy has not changed, our policy towards China,” Psaki said. “We are not looking for conflict. It is a competitive relationship and we will continue to hold the PRC to account for its unfair economic practices, its coercive actions in the world and its human rights violations,” he said. she said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Earlier in September, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry in a virtual meeting that Washington should take practical steps to improve relations by responding to a list. demands, including dropping the charges against Meng.
“Right now the ball is in the US court,” Wang told Kerry, according to a Chinese statement.
But U.S. officials have refuted any suggestion that Kerry or other administration officials negotiated Meng’s release with China for other concessions.
Earlier in the week, Xi told the United Nations that China would not build new overseas coal-fired power projects, a pledge Kerry had pressured Beijing to help the world stay the course to achieve. the objectives of the Paris climate agreement.
“We were not involved in their internal decision-making on this in any way,” a White House official told Reuters of the Justice Department’s process.
“The number one coal movement is, frankly, China acting in its own best interests,” the official said. “I think they realized they weren’t going to get anything for it. They weren’t going to be able to use it as leverage.”
Meng arrived at the home of a hero hosted in China, and state media there suggested that her release could be an opportunity to rekindle the strained relationship between the United States and China.
While some Republican senators criticized the Biden administration for giving in to Beijing’s demands, analysts said it didn’t fit.
“I believe the deal that the PRC made to release Meng was on the table during the Trump administration. It had to admit wrongdoing and that is what it ultimately did. surrender, ”said Bonnie Glaser, an Asian. expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank.
The Justice Department says it is still preparing for a lawsuit against Huawei.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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