Front Burner - How the Huawei arrest is playing out in China

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

"The tone here is that this is an an innocent woman. So why would you treat her like a criminal? And the idea is, if you have handcuffed someone you have presumed their guilt," says Nathan VanderKlippe, the Globe and Mail's Asia correspondent. Tensions between Canada and China are high after the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and the subsequent detention of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig. Today on Front Burner, Nathan explains China's side of the diplomatic dispute and breaks down how this story is playing out in Beijing.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Right now, Canada is caught in the middle of a massive diplomatic spat involving the United States and China. The attention not surprising given that the case involves the CFO of a telecommunications giant. The Trump administration's decision to extradite one of its top executives shocked the markets and Beijing. Beijing calling her arrest unreasonable and nasty and threatening grave consequences. This dispute, it has everything to do with Huawei, one of the biggest telecom companies in the world. The whole thing started when the chief financial officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver last week. And the situation is taking some serious turns. We may be seeing the first Chinese retaliation against Canada.

A former Canadian diplomat has now been detained in China. At this stage, I can make no comment on his status. Officials from Global Affairs are doing their very best at this stage. And a Vancouver judge granted Meng Wanzhou bail despite fear she would flee. Today, we look at how this story is playing out in China and what that tells us about how this tense situation could unfold. That's coming up on FrontBurner. So earlier this week, I spoke with someone who knows a lot about how this is playing out on the ground in Beijing. Nathan Vanderklip is the Globe and Mail's Asia correspondent in that city.

I spoke with him before news broke that a Canadian named Michael Kovrig was detained in China. Michael was a diplomat in the Canadian embassies in Hong Kong and Beijing. We're not sure yet why he was arrested. The Canadian government is saying that the matter is being taken very seriously. We've been in touch with Mr. Kovrig's family and we have raised the issue with the Chinese authorities. But others, including former longtime federal politician Bob Ray, are calling it retaliation. Okay, let's get to Nathan. Hi, I'm Nathan Vanderklip. I'm the Globe and Mail correspondent in Beijing. I cover China and other parts of Asia. Hi, Nathan. Hi.

So I'm hoping that we can start first with some of the responses that you're hearing in China. Maybe we can start first with the press. What has press coverage been like around this? Yeah, press coverage has been kind of extraordinary. It's been a bit of a full-on press. It has almost seemed as if there has been sort of an effort by different outlets of the Chinese media to sort of outdo themselves in the sort of invective that can be directed at Canada. And you've had everything from sort of reusing tropes of calling Canada the 51st state to really sort of... Like the 51st state of the United States? Yeah, the 51st state of the United States. I mean, one of the central themes here is a theme of basically calling Canada a vassal state of the United States. And so this is, some of this is meant to literally just meant to be insulting. There's a website called the

China Digital Times, and they have this amazing thing called MiniTruth, like a takeoff on Mini Truth in our Orwellian term. And they collect censorship orders, leaked censorship orders, and they just published one that is an order on reporting on the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The only thing that can be used are what they're calling authoritative reports from some of the central organs of the Chinese state press. And that coordinated message has been quite strong. I mean, you've had everything from Hu Xijin. Hu Xijin is the editor of the Global Times. The Global Times is a tabloid, it's a nationalist tabloid. And Hu Xijin

took to Twitter, actually, said, arresting Meng Wanzhou is bringing terrorism to state and business competition. Piling pressure on a company and the country behind it by detaining a court executive, it's much worse than an ordinary human rights violation. So that's one of the strands here is this notion that Canada has committed human rights violations in A, its arrest of this woman, and B, its treatment of her. And is he implying that we've also committed terrorism? He's not just implying it. He's saying it straight out.

He's saying that this is an act of terrorism in sort of the broader treatment of the country's companies and that sort of thing. And that's I mean, that's just one thing on Twitter. But I mean, his his newspaper has been one of the sources, unsurprisingly, of some of the strongest commentary. The Chinese foreign ministry said Canada could face severe consequences if it doesn't release miss mung the global times took that and said the consequences will be formidable um but it's not just them i mean you know you've got the you've got the people's daily basically the central newspaper of of the chinese state and they've come out with some with some quite strong commentary you know accusing canada of a flagrant violation of human rights in the case of Ms. Meng saying that they've ignored the spirit of the law

by presuming Meng Wanzhou is guilty without trial. And the evidence for that that they marshal is that her personal dignity has been insulted because she was handcuffed and shackled like she was some kind of notorious criminal. So this is the sort of tone of stuff that's coming out. Although, is it in any of the articles that she's just having a bail hearing in order to decide whether or not she can go free while there's a decision to be made on whether or not she will be extradited to the United States? I mean, there is there is obviously some acknowledgement of that. But the tone here is that this is an innocent woman. Right.

So why would you treat her like a criminal? And guilt has been presumed. And the idea is if you have handcuffed someone, you have presumed their guilt. And if you have if you have detained or imprisoned someone, you have presumed their guilt. And and I think the Canadian argument would be, no, no, you you are arrested. There is a legal process. And that's just how the legal process works. And in fact, that legal process has worked quite quickly within a week to bring somebody before a court to begin a bail hearing.

What about on the streets? What are you hearing when you go out in Beijing from regular people on the street? Are they echoing what is being published in the media? Well, here's an interesting indication. There are police that are stationed now around the Canadian embassy here in Beijing. And there's a number of police that are stationed on the corners and that are patrolling. There's a couple of police cars that are sitting there with flashing lights. And you've actually seen it perhaps most clearly on the Weibo site of the Canadian embassy. Weibo is a Chinese social media service.

It's a bit like Twitter. And the Canadian embassy in Beijing has a Weibo site. And soon after this Meng Wanzhou news broke, people started to flood it with comments. And within 24 hours, they'd accumulated more than 10,000 comments. And they were quite angry comments, many of them. I mean, Canada was accused of being the armed thug of America, which is kind of a nice turn of phrase, actually. They're, yeah, I mean, I can read you a couple of them. One, hello, hello to the dog of the U.S. government. Don't tell me that you are singing for human rights and freedom. If so, why are you stampeding on those like this? Can you read me another one? Oh, yeah, here's a good one. And

this this is actually being a bit of a theme, not just in social media, but in fact, in commentaries, in state media as well. There's this notion that what has happened here is not a judicial process, but in fact, it's a kidnapping. A commentary in sort of CGTN, which is China's big television, international television network, their attempt to establish an international television network. We called it a hostage-taking. So one of the comments on the Weibo site says, it seems like you are good at kidnapping people. How about we kidnap some of your residents? Courtesy demands reciprocity.

And so there has been this theme as well, that China should take an eye for an eye in this matter. this theme as well, that China should take an eye for an eye at this matter. Can we talk about the response from the Chinese government? So obviously we talked before that the official media outlets in China are very closely tied to the state. But officially, officially, from the government, what are we hearing? So officially, officially, we're hearing this from a couple of sources. There's been the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, which came out initially and said, you know,

she has violated no laws, she needs to be released. And then from there, we've heard from the foreign ministry, which has released documents, short explanations of conversations that took place between a vice minister of foreign affairs here and two ambassadors, the Canadian ambassador to China, as well as the U.S. ambassador to China. And those were actually interesting because some of the language there was quite similar in terms of accusing both countries of being engaged in severely violating this woman's rights and that sort of thing. The Chinese side has made clear our solemn positions to the U.S. and Canada and asked them to clarify the reason of the detention

and to release the detainee immediately. But in the Canada context, Canada was threatened with severe consequences if she was not immediately released. And that language didn't appear in the conversation with the U.S., which is an indication of the degree to which anger here is being directed at Canada. You mentioned these threats of serious consequences. And also, you were mentioning before even threats of sort of an eye for an eye. What could these consequences be?

Well, there was an unwillingness to define what they are. China's foreign ministry left Canada guessing about what that might mean. You ask what kind of serious consequences would these be, Liu says, I can tell you in one sentence, it is totally up to Canada. Now, we can look to the examples of other countries who have gotten into spats with China. And that's an increasingly long list of countries. You can look to South Korea, which had an extended spat with China over South Korea's installation of FAD, this U.S. anti-missile technology, which was, of course, installed out of fear of North Korea. China saw that as an attempt to bring powerful U.S. radars within reach of the Chinese mainland. And the response there was furious and included a few

things that included sort of stanching the flow of tourists to South Korea. There was also a significant attempt to limit the sales of South Korean cars in China. Part of these things are that there is a real sort of nationalist sentiment in China that can be directed into consumer action in some of these cases. And so there's a real dip in the sales of South Korean cars into China for a while. China's also denied visas to K-pop music stars with concerts in China, removed popular Korean TV dramas from the Chinese internet, and temporarily closed more than 70 South Korean stores in China

after they mysteriously failed surprise inspection checks. So there was, you know, there was fairly severe consequences. In Australia, where there's also been a spat over the last couple of years amid a big sort of Australian debate over Chinese foreign influence. They went after things like education and tourism as well. I know in the past there actually was a case where Canada arrested Su Bin, a Chinese man who the U.S. sought to have extradited for spying. A Chinese-Canadian man facing extradition to the United States,

accused of trying to steal top-secret military data from the United States. And China responded by detaining Canadians Kevin and Julia Garrett. The Chinese government is accusing two Canadians of spying. Kevin and Julia Garrett are suspected of stealing state secrets and collecting national security and military information. The Garretts's detainment comes one week after the Canadian government accused China of hacking into the computers at the National Research Council. Are there any real concerns here that that the Chinese could start picking up Canadian citizens in China right now? There are definitely concerns. It's really hard to know. I have been told that in China, there is a sense

that what happened with the Garretts didn't produce any effect. Su Bin was extradited. Su Bin was sentenced to 46 months in jail in the US. And so there is that. But on the other hand, I've also spoken with Canadians, Canadians in the business community who are being careful now and who are saying, you know, perhaps we'll hold off and travel to China for some time. The flip side of that is there are other Canadians and what appears to be quite a sizable contingent of Canadians who are saying, no, no, no, no, we're going to continue with business as usual. with business as usual. And the most striking example of that is a delegation, a forestry delegation, which was sort of midway, which is currently midway through an Asia tour. And they're scheduled actually to land in Beijing today. And this delegation caught the news over the weekend because it's being led by a BC minister. And the BC minister said he was pulling out. And the way that release was worded

made it sound as if the trade delegation was off. The trade trip was off. That's not in fact the case. The minister has pulled out. The government has pulled out. But the bulk of the business community is still coming. And can I ask, what about you? Are you taking any precautions?

Or are you worried about anything? No, I'm not taking precautions. No. I don't think I'm worried. No. I mean, I suppose if something were to happen, there'd be nothing you could do anyways. I'm in China now. If things happen, you just suddenly discover that you're unable to leave China. But no, I'm not, I'm not worried myself. Can we talk a little bit about how this dispute between China and Canada right now could influence our ability to do trade with the country? The prime minister has been very clear that he would like to pursue a trade deal with China.

Obviously, China is a significant growing player on global trade. And we, as always, will look for ways to engage, deepen and improve our trading relationship with them. You know, they announced a couple of years ago that they were going to pursue talks toward a free trade agreement. They have sort of renewed that in the last few months. have sort of renewed that in the last few months. Actually, this Huawei thing comes literally a few weeks after what was a real renewed effort by the federal government to sort of get things back on track with China. It's a real challenge. Canada's Deputy Foreign Minister Ian Shugart has also postponed a visit to Beijing planned for this week. So are we going to see sort of like a slow down or is everyone just pressing pause

right now to see how this develops? I don't think so. No, I mean, that's not the message that's coming out. The read I get at this point in time is that in Ottawa, there's no desire to push pause on things in this situation. You know, I was talking a bit earlier about Australia. And I spoke with a couple people in Australia yesterday, including John Garneau, a guy who was an advisor to the prime minister. He had been a longtime correspondent to China, an important figure in what has been in Australia, sort there's a lot more smoke than fire. And for all the diatribe that is unleashed to the state media, it's not often matched with a similar degree of actual action. Because let's not forget that when you target trade, trade is by its nature a transaction between two parties. And so you don't just injure the party on the other side, you injure yourself. And if you actually look at the Australian trade figures, trade with China

increased in Australia in 2016 by almost 4% and 2017 by 16%. Even at the same time that there was all this bravado directed at Australia. Indeed. Directed at Australia. Indeed. So the U.S. and China are in the middle of these very tense trade talks. And how do we think that this arrest might affect that relationship? Do you think it might be the same thing?

Lots of talk, little action? Well, I think what's been interesting for now is that there has actually been very little talk right at the outset there were sort of fingers pointed in both directions u.s and canada u.s and canada after that there seems to have been a decision to point those fingers almost exclusively at canada there could be a few reasons for the for that decision one of those is likely that there is a desire to preserve a more harmonious, if you will, environment with the U.S. So because they're in the midst of this current sort of 90-day detente, the Trump administration says that if they're going to allow 90 days for talks and in that period that the U.S.

will not expand its tariff regime against China. We'll be discussing trade. And I think at some point we are going to end up doing something which is great for China and great for the United States. The relationship is very special, the relationship that I have with President Xi. And so there's a desire on the Chinese side to have those talks produce some fruit, to not be subject to higher tariffs or to tariffs on a greater volume of goods. So that's one reason.

Another reason is that the U.S. is just about the only country in the world right now that is stronger militarily, economically than China. And so it's in a very different position than Canada, which of course is, as Guy Saint-Jacques, the former Canadian ambassador to China, put it, China sees Canada as a junior partner. So this is another reason China's, Canada would be considered a more vulnerable partner from that perspective. And I suppose the final reason here is that Meng Wanzhou right now is on Canadian soil. So there is some logic to directing the fire at Canada over the U.S. that is. Right. So we're a good target, not just for practical reasons,

because she's here, but also because we're just an easier punching bag at this point. Right. We're smaller. So I know you don't have a crystal ball, but if you were going to try and predict in the coming weeks how this might play out, what would you say? I would say every indication at this point in time is that over the coming weeks that things are going to continue to be tense between Canada and China. It's on bail! It's a great company like Huawei. We love you. We want to make our voice heard. We want to make our voice heard here. May our voice be heard. If she is granted bail, that may take a bit of the fury out of this, but the bigger questions will remain.

We are Canadian, right? We are supposed to be independent. We have our own judgment. We're not supposed to be the dirty hands of Americans. Free Monao! Is anybody trying to win me? This is going to remain a fairly significant irritant between Canada and China. But for now, the extradition process, I mean, the Canadian argument here is that Canada is a country under the rule of law. We have a legal process

and that the legal process is independent and the politicians don't mess with that. Well, in the case of extradition, the final decision to extradite gets made by the justice minister. So there is de facto a political component to this. And that's that's part of the reason why China has it makes some sense for China to be applying political pressure here, because there is a political decision that will be made at the end of the day here. And China is trying to raise the stakes for Canada,

suggesting that if you make a decision that we're not happy with, there will be, as I said, severe consequences. Nathan, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. Meng Wanzhou has been released on $10 million bail as she fights extradition to the U.S. She has to surrender her passports and submit to electronic surveillance. If you're interested in this story, we did an episode on Friday charting the rise of and security concerns around Huawei.

You can find it in our feed. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger.

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