When Donald Trump heard Canada had arrested Huawei's CFO on behalf of U.S. prosecutors, he was surprised. 'Don’t you know she’s the Ivanka Trump of China?”
Ryan Ding, Huawei president of the carrier business group, speaking on Jan. 24, 2019, in Beijing for the launch of new 5G Huawei products.U.S. national security officials were convinced of a danger other nations thought could be managed—that Huawei was assembling the architecture China could use to conduct worldwide surveillance.
The White House instead offered a slim thread of evidence. In 2017, Beijing had introduced an intelligence law that said “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.” Mr. Ren, a former army engineer, started out in 1987 selling telecom switches from an apartment in Shenzhen, a small city overshadowed by neighboring Hong Kong. In his telling, a 1993 Greyhound bus trip across the U.S. stirred grand ambitions.
A bank ended up providing investigators with evidence for the government’s first case, which originated in the Brooklyn, N.Y., office. Prosecutors in April 2017 served Huawei with a subpoena to answer questions about whether it conducted business in sanctioned countries, and company executives subsequently halted travel to the U.S.
Instead, a judge had granted her bail, set at 10 million Canadian dollars, equivalent to $7.5 million, and imposed a curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Otherwise, she was free to roam. A GPS monitor on her ankle kept Ms. Meng tethered to authorities. The former head sales executive in Europe directed Ms. Meng’s daily Zumba classes and yoga workouts. Personal chefs prepared health-conscious meals. A florist arranged bouquets for the dining table. Mr. Ren tried to prod his daughter into pursuing a Ph.D. while she waited for her release.
On March 6, 2019, three months after her arrest, bodyguards and TV cameras followed Ms. Meng into court for her extradition hearing. Mr. Spavor, a Calgary native, traveled to South Korea at age 21 and taught English. He became fascinated with the authoritarian state of North Korea and began arranging tours. In 2013 and 2014, he planned three trips for Dennis Rodman, the former Chicago Bulls basketball star who had his own interest in the secretive country and its leader,Dennis Rodman, left, Michael Spavor, third from left, and North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, right, in January 2014 in Pyongyang, North Korea.
In June 2019, after more than 150 days in prison, Mr. Kovrig was allowed to send a batch of letters home. The embassy scanned the stack of handwritten notes and emailed them to his wife in Toronto. “If there is one faint silver lining to this hell, it’s this: trauma carved caverns of psychological pain through my mind,” one letter said. “I find myself filling those gulfs with a love for you and for life that is vast, deep and more profound and comforting than what I’ve ever experienced.”
In their conversations, Mr. Trump would try six or seven ways of bluntly asking a specific question, and Mr. Xi would repeat the same vague responses. Mr. Trudeau asked Mr. Trump to speak up for Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor when the U.S. president met with the Chinese leader at the summit in Osaka. Mr. Trudeau got his opening by chance. Chile was a guest at the G-20 meeting, but its representative didn’t attend a scheduled assembly. That left Canada seated alphabetically between China and Brazil—and Mr. Xi seated to the right of Mr. Trudeau.
The 60-year-old Canadian had risen in the slipstream of China’s economic miracle, and through more than a decade living and working in the country had ties with Chinese entrepreneurs, executives and party leaders. He had written two books on China and taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Calling for a timeout, Mr. Barton stepped into the hallway. “I think we’re in the 5%,” the adviser said, acknowledging the worse-than-expected outcome.Mr. Barton held his tongue through the last hour of hectoring. The Chinese official focused on Section 23 of Canada’s 1999 Extradition Act, which gave the country’s justice minister authority to cancel an extradition.At the end of the meeting, Mr. Barton asked if China’s Foreign Ministry would attend a second meeting in Ottawa.
Shortly after, Mr. Barton made his first visit to a Chinese prison. Guards escorted him past an interrogation room holding a metal chair with straps.The two men met in a reception room, and they were told not to discuss Mr. Spavor’s case. Mr. Barton leaned across a table toward the handcuffed prisoner. “I’m going to talk to you very fast to be able to smuggle some stuff in about the case,” he said. “Here are the four things I want to discuss.
Mr. Barton also went to the Beijing prison to see Mr. Kovrig, who was livid and gesturing at guards he said were abusive. They had taken away his glasses, citing rules against metal objects.