The feud between China and the United States sparked by the arrest of a senior Huawei telecoms executive in Vancouver appears poised to inflict collateral damage on Canada, which has sought to build closer ties with Beijing amid an increasingly unpredictable trade relationship with its southern neighbour.
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s global chief financial officer, will appear at a bail hearing on Friday morning, following her arrest last Saturday.
She is sought for extradition to the US for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran.
If granted bail, Meng will likely have to post bail with “a surety of several million dollars”, Vancouver lawyer Gary Botting, who has experience with extradition cases, said. She would also have to give up her passport, he said.
Meng could also be fitted with electronic monitoring equipment, and the court could go so far as to order security to monitor her while she awaits a decision on extradition, lawyers said.
If Meng fights extradition, her case could go on for years, lawyers said, pointing to examples like Lai Changxing, a Chinese businessman who fled to Canada after he was implicated in a bribery case and fought extradition to China for 12 years. If she chooses not to fight, she could be in the United States within weeks, experts said.
On Thursday, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said he was made aware of the pending arrest, but says he did not interfere in the process and has not yet spoken with his Chinese counterpart.
“The appropriate authorities took the decisions in this case,” he told reporters. “We were advised by them with a few days’ notice that this was in the works but of course there was no engagement or involvement in the political level in this decision because we respect the independence of our judicial processes.”
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