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Washington: The White House on Monday said a near-simultaneous release of a top Huawei executive and two Canadians detained shortly after her arrest wasn’t a prisoner swap, but that their cases came up during a call between the Chinese and American presidents weeks before On Friday, Huawei Chief treasurer Meng Wanzhou flew home to China from Canada after reaching an agreement with U.S. prosecutors to finish the bank fraud case against her, some extent of tension between China and therefore the us .
Within hours of the news of the deal, the 2 Canadians who were arrested shortly after Meng was taken into custody were released from Chinese jails and were on their way back to Canada. Beijing had denied that their arrests were linked When asked if the White House was involved in brokering a “prisoner swap,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected the premise The deferred prosecution agreement with Meng was “an action by the Department of Justice, which is an independent Department of Justice. this is often a enforcement matter,” she said, adding, “There is not any link.”
But Psaki also confirmed that during a turn Sept. 9, fortnight before the announcements, China’s leader Xi Jinping mentioned Meng’s case and U.S. President Joe Biden pressed for the discharge of the 2 Canadians, businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, who had been held in China for quite 1,000 days These two leaders raised the cases of those individuals but there was no negotiation about it,” Psaki said Separately, two American siblings prevented from leaving China since 2018 returned to the us over the weekend, consistent with a U.S. official. Cynthia and Victor Liu had been subject to an “exit ban” despite not facing criminal allegations. Their father, former bank official and fugitive Liu Changming, is needed in China to face fraud charges.
Psaki said she had no information on whether Biden knew about the status of the negotiations between Meng’s lawyers and therefore the Department of Justice Meng had been arrested at Vancouver International Airport in Canada on a U.S. warrant, and was indicted on bank and wire fraud charges for allegedly misleading HSBC in 2013 about the telecommunications equipment giant’s business dealings in Iran The years-long extradition drama had been a central source of discord in increasingly rocky ties between Beijing and Washington, with Chinese officials signaling that the case needed to be dropped to assist end a diplomatic stalemate.
Ball within the US Court
Psaki emphasized the deal announced on Friday didn’t indicate a softening of U.S. concerns about Chinese behavior Our policy has not changed, our policy toward China,” Psaki said. “We aren’t seeking conflict. it’s a relationship of competition and that we are getting to still hold the PRC to account for its unfair economic practices, its coercive actions round the world and its human rights abuses,” she said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Earlier in September, China’s secretary of state Wang Yi told Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry during a virtual meeting that Washington needed to require practical steps to enhance relations by responding to an inventory of demands, including dropping the case against Meng Right now, the ball is within the United States’ court,” Wang told Kerry, consistent with a Chinese statement But U.S. officials have rebutted any suggestion that Kerry or other administration officials had negotiated Meng’s release with China for other concessions.
Earlier within the week, Xi announced at the United Nations that China wouldn’t build new coal-fired power projects abroad, a pledge Kerry had been pressuring Beijing to form to assist the planet stay course to satisfy the goals of the Paris climate agreement We weren’t involved in their internal decision-making thereon in any way, shape, or form,” a White House official told Reuters of the Justice Department’s process.
“The movement on coal, favorite , is, frankly, China acting in its own interest,” the official said. “I think they realized that they weren’t getting to get anything for it. They weren’t getting to be ready to use it as leverage Meng arrived to a hero’s welcomed in China, and official media there suggested that her release might be an opportunity to reboot fraught U.S.-China ties.
While some Republican senators criticized the Biden administration for giving in to Beijing’s demands, analysts said that did not add up I believe that the deal that the PRC made to urge Meng released was on the table during the Trump administration. She had to acknowledge wrongdoing and ultimately that’s what she did. i do not see capitulation,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the us , a think factory .
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