I'm Nathan Rich, AKA Hotpot King.
If you've been watching the ongoing saga that is Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou's
arrest, you've no doubt noticed an uptick in activity recently.
There have been reports that her recent hearings were a victory.
As usual, though, there wasn't enough emphasis on the Canadian authorities
violating Canada law to appease the US in its trade war against China.
But another big truth came out.
It turns out that some Canadian authorities are living in a video game.
Maybe Miss Meng is enjoying eating maple syrup and riding reindeer all day,
or whatever people in Canada do,because she's been stuck there for years.
But even if she's enjoying her cold stay-cation, like the facade that Canada
has sovereignty, all dreams eventually come to an end.
Perhaps Miss Meng will be allowed to return home a little less excited to go
to Canada ever again.
Her fate, along with the notion of Canada being a country separate than the
United States, rests in part on ongoing court decisions and rulings.
Over the last little while, details of those proceedings have seeped out.
Various news outlets have had their take on the situation, and I thought it
might be prudent to emphasize those things which may have gone unnoticed.
The Guardian says her charges won't be dismissed at this time.
But the judge did say that Miss Meng's allegations of misconduct on the part
of Canadian authorities have an "air of reality" to them.
That phrase, by the way, doesn't come from the judge's description, but has
legal significance in this case.
Her allegations against Canadian authorities having an "air of reality" means,
"There is a realistic possibility that the allegations can be substantiated."
Allegations which do not satisfy this requirement are "bald assertions, vague
and unsubstantiated suggestions or mere conjecture or speculation." The
attorney general working against Miss Meng tried to get the court to disallow
further evidence to be submitted.
But let's back up.
If you remember from the last video I did about this, Miss Meng is being
accused of lying in a PowerPoint presentation to the excessively corrupt HSBC
organization. HSBC is a bank famous for money laundering, sanctions
violations, trillions of dollars in "suspicious transfers," and other,
"massively illegal scandals." After this alleged lie in the PowerPoint, the US
government ordered Canada to obey them and arrest Miss Meng.
The evidence? The PowerPoint presentation itself, of course.
But not all of the presentation.
I mean, it's like 20 pages or something; that would be way too much to read.
They only sent snippets of the presentation, literally taking things out of
context. And Miss Meng's lawyers are seeking to do the most heinous thing
I've ever heard of.
That's right, they want the court to ...
allow the whole PowerPoint presentation into evidence.
Imagine getting arrested for saying something (too) vaguely in one part of a
PowerPoint presentation that you said more clearly in another part of the
same PowerPoint presentation.
And people out there actively fight to block you from having the entire
presentation seen. Well, that's Canada, apparently.
Here's the relevant portion of the ruling.
Miss Meng submits that the full PowerPoint should be admitted as evidence in
her extradition hearing, so that the judge can carry out a meaningful
assessment of the reliability of the evidence.
It is her position that the full PowerPoint shows that she was not, in fact,
untruthful. She contends that the brief, out-of-context summary of the
PowerPoint isn't enough to make a valid judgment.
And man, do I agree with that.
She alleges that the US, "deliberately misstated or omitted material
evidence." Is there anyone in the world who doesn't see this yet?
But luckily, the judge did seem to see that - at least saw the possibility of
it, because she (the judge) did allow for Miss Meng to enter more of the
PowerPoint into evidence - not all of it, but at least more of it, which is a
good thing. That's called transparency.
And I think this latest ruling has got some people over in the US a bit
nervous about what happens when they're found to have lied about Miss Meng to
make a case. So now, as CBC reports, Meng Wanzhou will be able to, "argue the
US tried to trick Canada." Anyone familiar with the details will know what
side of the argument is true.
The question is, will the Canadian court system find that truth?
Honestly, I don't know.
But for now, it's good news.
And I hate to be sour on a positive note in her case, but remember how she
was illegally detained and searched for hours and not read her rights?
There are so many people out there who don't understand China and Chinese
people, and maybe I'm one of them.
But at least I know that
-brace yourself for this shock- not all of them are kung fu masters.
And I didn't think I would have to point this out.
But apparently there are Canadian officials who feared for their lives when
they were making that highly coordinated, multi-hour illegal detainment.
Yep. No, that's the name of a police officer in Canada.
Winston, Yep.
No, I'm saying "Winston Yep." That's a name.
Anyway, Winston Yep Is one of those people who daydreamed about being in his
favorite video game, but in real life ended up being a bad cop.
Here's what he had to say about why he didn't arrest Miss Meng immediately
like he was told to, but instead let her rights be abandoned for hours.
But trust him, that's nothing to do with corruption, that's crazy.
He doesn't have time for corruption; he's engaged in a fighting tournament to
test his might.
He said "you can never assume - there could be another person.
It's just like somebody with a knife.
You can't assume a person has only one knife.
They might have two, maybe three.
You always have to be on guard. "
Three knives?
My God, he's right!
Miss Meng could have attacked him with not just a knife in each hand, but one
on her head too!
Then he was asked, "you didn't think for one moment that a 46 year old
international executive was going to come at you with a knife on a plane, did
you? This should have shut his weird fantasy down.
But when Officer Winston Yep was asked this question and others about Miss
Meng, his answers were ...
well, from another realm ...
a ... NetherRealm, if you will.
"We have to take into account public safety, police safety." "We didn't know
who she was actually traveling with and what she was capable of." And the
presence of other passengers made it "a risky situation. "
He also made comments like "if something happened, if she puts up a fight,
we may have to use physical force." "We don't know who she's traveling with
... so we may end up fighting other people." Yep, that's right.
Yep's years of playing video games had finally paid off.
Yep. He (Yep) knew the truth - Meng Wanzhou was about to unleash some serious
kung fu in the business class section of an airplane, after a long
international flight.
And how could anyone possibly know who she was traveling with?
I mean, other than checking the ticket purchases...
Other than that impossible magic, how was Yep to know who was with her?
Scorpion? Maybe Noob Saibot was hiding in the overhead luggage compartment.
Finally, though, Yep got up enough courage to make the arrest - conveniently
after the multi-hour interrogation was over.
See, he isn't the antagonist in this just because he broke protocol in the
arrest. He's a courageous warrior, who barely survived a triple-knife attack
, in his mind. And when a Canadian border agent illegally gave Miss Meng's
phone and other passwords to the Canadian police, I'm sure somehow he was the
victim of that crime too.
Every one of the proven admitted instances of misconduct and illegal
activity have been spun to make the officials committing them the victims.
Poor Canada, if only this super-dangerous knife-laden warrior hadn't forced
them to illegally search her, illegally violate her privacy, illegally not
read her her rights and participate in a bogus arrest.
In all seriousness, though, I don't see how she could not be released, given
all the widespread "accidents" that happened during this process.
You'd think it would have been done by the book, being such a high profile,
unprecedented arrest.
But then again, if they were playing by the rules, it never would have
happened in the first place.
So, who knows?
If you're Canadian, let me know what you think about this.
Are there laws in Canada?
And, if so, are you expected to follow them?
I've only been there a couple of times, so I'm not sure how the judicial
system is there. Is it just a free for all, where whoever the US pretends to
think is dangerous gets arrested and violated, not necessarily in that order?
Or is there some remaining semblance of rule of law?
Hopefully Miss Meng's case will continue to reach fair judgments.
All I've ever said is she should be treated exactly as anyone else would -
anyone else in this world, that is.
Not the Outworld.
By the way, I've been getting more and more complaints of people being
magically unsubscribe from my channel.
So if you're not subscribed, now's the time to do so.
Until next time, thanks everybody.
Xiexie