Huawei founder’s daughter arrested on U.S. request, puts trade war truce in doubt

VANCOUVER/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The daughter of Chinese tech giant Huawei’s founder has been arrested in Canada and is facing extradition to the United States, dealing a blow to hopes of any easing of Sino-U.S. trade tensions and rocking global stock markets.

The shock arrest of Meng Wanzhou, who is also Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, is riling authorities in Beijing and raises fresh doubts over a 90-day truce on trade struck between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on the day she was detained.

Huawei confirmed the arrest in a statement and said that it has been provided little information of the charges, adding that it was “not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng”.

She was detained when she was transferring flights in Canada, it added.

China’s embassy in Canada said it resolutely opposed the arrest and called for Meng’s immediate release.
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn also declined to comment.

The arrest is related to violations of U.S. sanctions, a person familiar with the matter said. Reuters was unable to determine the precise nature of the violations.

Meng, one of the vice chairs on the company’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities and a court hearing has been set for Friday, a Canadian Justice Department spokesman said. Trump and Xi had dined in Argentina on Dec. 1 at the G20 summit.

Sources told Reuters in April that U.S. authorities have been probing Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms equipment maker, since at least 2016 for allegedly shipping U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.

Jia Wenshan, a professor at Chapman University in California, said the arrest was part of a broader geo-political strategy from the Trump administration to counter China and it “runs a huge risk of derailing the U.S.-China trade talks”.