The Chinese regime is furious
over the arrest of the Huawei CFO in Canada
If she’s extradited to the US,
there could be trouble.
Meanwhile, China authorities have abducted Canadian citizens
as Trump prepares his next move in the US-China Trade War.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
The CFO of one of China’s biggest telecom companies,
Huawei, has been released on bail.
Meng Wanzhou was arrested during
a plane transfer last week in Canada
and now faces extradition to the United States,
where, if convicted, she could face up to 30 years in jail.
The conditions of her release were steep.
The bail was set at 10 million Canadian dollars,
which is about 7 million US.
Plus, “Among conditions of her bail,
the 46-year-old executive must wear an ankle monitor
and stay at home from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.”
That means she’s going to miss out on
the thrilling Canadian nightlife.
But don’t worry,
Meng can still greet her friends and supporters at home.
Like these guys, who showed up with flowers at her mansion.
Which is exactly the same kind of treatment
Chinese dissidents get when they’re under house arrest.
In addition to that,
“Five friends pledged equity in their homes
and other money as a guarantee she will not flee.”
You know, sometimes it takes
getting arrested for violating sanctions on Iran
to find out who your real friends are.
I’m sure that if something like that ever happened to me,
Shelley would do the same.
Shelley?
Why aren’t you saying anything?
Fine, I guess we aren’t real friends.
Now China’s Foreign Ministry has called the arrest a mistake.
“We have already made our position clear
to the United States and Canada,
that they should immediately correct their mistake
and release Meng Wanzhou.”
He went on to say,
“Any person, especially if it is a leader of the United States,
or a high-level figure,
who is willing to make positive efforts to push this situation
toward the correct direction,
then that, of course, deserves to be well received.”
I’m sorry,
“Any person,
especially if it is a leader of the United States?”
I wonder who Lu Kang could be talking about.
Well, President Trump responded.
With a resounding, maybe.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Trump said,
“If I think it’s good for what will be certainly
the largest trade deal ever made—
which is a very important thing—
what’s good for national security—
I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.”
Which I guess is Trump-speak for let’s make a deal.
Trump has been promising a yuge increase in tariffs on Chinese goods,
unless China will come to an agreement he likes
within a 90-day window that’s already ticking down.
Billions of dollars are on the line.
But Meng’s arrest has made it more complicated.
Chinese state-run media had warned there would be
“severe consequences” for Meng’s arrest.
“It added yet another point of tension
between Washington and Beijing.”
And not just for Washington.
Also for Ottawa.
That’s...the capital of Canada.
“On Tuesday, Canada confirmed that one its citizens,
a former Canadian diplomat, was detained there.”
China has detained Canadian citizen Michael Kovrig.
He’s a former diplomat, at one point serving as
the vice consul at Canada’s embassy in Beijing.
He was working for the NGO International Crisis Group
and was abducted on Monday.
I mean, arrested.
Chinese authorities have publicly stated their arrest of Kovrig
totally has nothing to do with Meng Wanzhou.
He was arrested simply because his NGO
was violating Chinese law by not being registered in China.
Amnesty International says the Chinese government
has created new laws regulating NGOs specifically for this purpose.
“The Chinese government recently enacted a law
governing the activities of foreign NGO
so they all have to be officially registered in China,
which is very difficult for many of them to do,
and therefore because it’s so difficult,
a lot of times it's impossible to do work without,
in effect, breaking the law.”
“That creates the situation, a lot of the time,
the Chinese government can ignore that,
but when they need to or when they want to,
they can always point to this so-called illegal activity
by foreign NGO workers and take actions if they want to.”
And as a former Canadian ambassador to China said,
“In China there are no coincidences ...
If they want to send you a message they will send you a message.”
But China’s fast and loose approach to the law
is actually part of the reason they won’t understand
why this is a bad idea.
According to a former Canadian ambassador,
“It won’t work.
The Canadian court system
is not susceptible to pressure.
It is truly independent.”
Of course all of this should sound very familiar.
In 2014, Canada arrested a Chinese businessman
accused of stealing US military secrets.
And not long after,
Chinese authorities arrested a Canadian couple living in China.
In the end, the Chinese businessman
was still extradited to the US,
and the Canadian couple spent two years in prison
and house arrest before being deported.
Actually that spy case was pretty complicated and interesting,
so let me know in the comments if you’d like me to do
a China Uncensored episode about it.
Anyway, the point is,
if you mess with Chinese citizens for breaking your laws,
the Chinese Communist Party won’t hesitate to
break China’s laws to mess with your citizens.
In fact, in addition to Michael Kovrig,
Chinese authorities have also abducted, uh,
detained another Canadian citizen named Michael Spavor.
If you’re a Canadian named Michael,
maybe now is a good time to leave China.
Spavor started a company in China that promotes
cultural exchanges with North Korea,
and he had helped arrange Dennis Rodman’s first trip there.
Chinese authorities say that both Michaels are being investigated
for “activities that endangered China’s national security.”
It’s interesting to note that Chinese authorities
have only detained Canadians so far.
Maybe because they realize that taking Americans
would bring things to a whole new level.
Meanwhile, the US State Department is considering
issuing a travel warning to US citizens going to China.
Just to be safe.
So what do you think of the arrest of Meng Wanzhou
and the detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor?
Leave your comments below.
And now it’s the time you’ve all been waiting for,
when I answer questions from a member of my 50-Cent Army,
fans who support China Uncensored
on the crowd funding website Patreon.
Pekka Saari asks,
“Winston from serpentza said in his last live stream
that you're political propaganda channel
paid by the Falun Gong,
are you going to respond?
Ah, the China Uncensored funding conspiracy theories.
I’ve heard a lot over the years,
usually that we’re funded by the CIA,
or Falun Gong, or just vague “anti-China forces.”
Now typically I hear that from professional Chinese trolls,
so I was actually a bit surprised
to hear that coming from Winston.
I actually like a lot of his videos,
even though we don’t always see eye to eye.
And I know he tries to be accurate with his information,
so I was surprised to hear he jumped on
that conspiracy theory bandwagon.
Anyway, he’s wrong about this.
We’ve been very open about where
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About 20% is from YouTube ad revenue,
and the other 80% is from people like you:
Our roughly 2,000 supporters on Patreon.
Now that being said, I want to make something very clear—
I am totally open to secret funding.
Especially from the CIA.
They have loads of money!
Then maybe our studio could look more like this.
Instead of this.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question, Pekka.
And if you’d like your question answered on the show,
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Thanks for watching.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.