While the Chinese government
and state media are stepping up the pressure on Ottawa, Beijing’s warning to
the US side is more restrained
Analysts suggest it would not
be helpful for Beijing to link Sabrina Meng Wanzhou’s case to the ongoing trade
talks with Washington
by Frank Tang
Additional reporting by Keegan
Elmer
China decided to pick a fight
with Canada over the arrest of a senior Huawei executive because it wants to
avoid further confrontation with the United States as talks to resolve the
trade war continue, analysts have said.
Beijing has ratcheted up its
pressure on Canada to release Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer
of Huawei and the daughter of the Chinese telecom equipment giant’s founder Ren
Zhengfei.
On Saturday night, China’s
foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng summoned Canada’s ambassador John McCallum to
lodge a “strong protest” and officially demand the immediate release of Meng.
China’s official media –
including the Xinhua news agency and party mouthpiece People’s Daily –
as well as the state-backed tabloid Global Times, joined a chorus
condemning Canada’s arrest of Meng and threatened “grave consequences” if she
is not freed.
China summoned the US
ambassador on Sunday night and lodged “a strong protest” over the case. China’s
foreign ministry requested the US to withdraw an arrest warrant for Meng, but
it fell short of threatening “grave consequences” as it did to Canada. Instead,
Le told Terry Branstad that “China will make further response according to the
US acts”, according to a foreign ministry statement.
A district court in New York
requested that the Canadian authorities arrest and extradite Meng, who is
accused of covering up her company’s links to a firm that supplied equipment to
Iran in breach of US sanctions.
She was arrested on December 1
– the day of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s meeting in Argentina.
Wang Yiwei, a professor of
international relations at the Renmin University of China, said the case had
been brought forward by a faction in Washington that wanted to undermine the
ongoing trade talks between China and the US.
Wang argued it would be unwise
for China to let the case undo Trump and Xi’s agreement to call a trade truce
for 90 days to give them time to try to reach a deal.
“We must be fully aware of the
big picture and know our top priority,” Wang said. “The trade negotiations
agreed between the top leaders should not be interrupted.”
China’s foreign ministry and
commerce ministry have not yet drawn a link between Meng’s arrest and the
China-US trade talks.
In contrast to the warnings
and threats directed at Canada, Beijing has struck a positive and hopeful note
about the trade talks.
Chen Fengying, a senior
researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations,
said there was no need to link Meng’s case to the trade talks, because it was
“better addressed through diplomatic channels”.
Beijing should not “make
economic issues complicated”, he said, arguing that if it was added to the
agenda in the trade talks the issue could become another source of pressure to
force Beijing into making concessions.
US Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer said on Sunday that US-China negotiations should not be impacted by
the controversial arrest.
“This is a criminal justice
matter. It is totally separate from anything I work on or anything that trade
policy people in the administration work on,” Lighthizer said on CBS’ Face
the Nation.
Meanwhile, Beijing is keeping
up the pressure on Canada.
A Global Times editorial
published on Sunday said: “It does not serve Canada’s national interest if it
intends to fawn over the US by treating Ms Meng unjustly. If Meng is refused
bail and extradited to the US, Canada will get minimal gratitude from the US,
but maximum opposition from China.
“Chinese people will take the
issue seriously, and will ask the Chinese government to impose severe sanctions
on Canada. Canadian public interest will definitely be impaired if Sino-Canadian
relations are put at a risk of major retrogression.”
A Canadian court is currently
holding a bail hearing, which will resume on Monday, and the editorial said the
court should first grant her bail and eventually set her “totally free”.
Roland Paris, a former foreign
policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has argued that
Beijing’s efforts to force Ottawa to cave in may not work.
“Perhaps because the Chinese
state controls its judicial system, Beijing sometimes has difficulty
understanding or believing that courts can be independent in a rule-of-law
country,” he wrote in a tweet. “There’s no point in pressuring the Canadian
government. Judges will decide.”
Shi Yinhong, director of
Renmin University’s Centre for American Studies and an adviser to the State
Council – China’s cabinet – said there was a low probability that Canada would
bow to pressure from Beijing and set Meng free.
“If China takes revenge
against Canada, there will be some complaints in the Western world about why
China did not take action against the originator, the US.”
Henry Chan Hing Lee, an
adjunct fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of
Singapore, said that while US conservative groups would use the Huawei case and
national security as a reason to push for a tougher stance towards Beijing, nationalist
elements within China were exerting similar pressure to stop a deal.
“The authorities should be
very careful in handling this extremely complicated situation. It would be more
troublesome if its stand-off with Washington lasts,” he said.
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