Despite everyone in the Trump Administration insisting that China’s trade deal and the US-mandated capture of Huawei’s chief financial officer by Canada are totally unrelated, President Trump has offered to “intervene” to resolve the Huawei case if it means he gets his way in the trade deal.
China has yet to respond to the offer, which likely adds fuel to arguments from some in China that the detention itself was a cynical attempt to improve negotiating terms. China has pushed Canada to release the CFO, or at least provide details on what she’s being charged with.
Canada has made something of a surprising move, granting her bail on Tuesday in Vancouver. This may calm the situation somewhat, though many in China are still furious at the arrest, and many are concerned it risks important business ties between China and the West.
Officials are also concerned that China might start detaining some Americans in retaliation, to the point where there is consideration being made for issuing a “travel advisory” for people going to China to watch out for getting arbitrarily detained.
The art of the very bad deal. Trump is nuts if he thinks this enhances Washington’s bargaining power. This arrest only complicates further a very complex and tenuous situation.
David Mulroney, a Canadian imperialist who thinks he knows China, claims on the CBC that China is playing the ol’ kill the chicken the scare the monkey trick by trying to intimidate Canada into releasing Meng.
Classic projection.
I still doubt that this is Trump’s doing. He’s been dealt a hand by his own Cabinet, and, the POTUS has long been the teleprompter-in-chief rather than the brains. Trump is just an anathema because among other things he can’t stick to a teleprompter.
Its doubtful Trump was aware of the Meng arrest. His cabinet just kind of dropped it on him and dared him to invite a Chinagate to go along with Russiagate if he didn’t play escalation. No surprise Kelly is gone, though.
CNN was quick to point out the ‘First Daughter’ connection, comparing Meng arrested in Canada with Ivanka theoretically arrested in Hong Kong. However, the provisional arrest request came from a U.S. District Judge in Eastern New York State, anti-Trump territory. Trudeau, ever the anti-Trump was only to eager to deliver. Canada’s Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould has been curiously silent and unapproached for comment.
https://www.cnn. com/2018/12/06/opinions/arresting-huawei-exec-is-a-case-of-spectacularly-bad-timing-andelman/index.html
Spoofing Trump’s trademark ‘Xi dinner roast’ trick was also incomplete. Trump didn’t spring the news over dessert the way he did with the Syrian cruise missile attack, nor are there any safeties in place against blowback as in the Syrian cruise missile attack.
The anti-Trumpists have possibly made a serious mistake, threatening the First Daughter by proxy. Chinese President Xi probably isn’t to happy either. Canadians with a clue may also not be pleased.
Kidnapping Chinese officials and business people for political ransom might set a nasty precedent for the useless United snakes of America….
Oh, there may be nastier.
This ZeroHedge article reads like the Deep State suicided a Chinese American physicist for setting up what was essentially a tech patent-and-talent scouting firm with China. This would seem to be a normal thing to do, but not for China.
“Zhang Shoucheng Was Being Touted For A Nobel Prize in Physics; Why Did He Kill Himself?” – Stephen Mosher, The Epoch Times, 12/10/2018.
https://www.zerohedge. com/news/2018-12-10/zhang-shoucheng-was-being-touted-nobel-prize-physics-why-did-he-kill-himself
The stakes are apparently nothing less than the foundation technologies of hi-tech, today’s and tomorrow’s.
“This is What The “Trade” War With China Is Really All About” – Tyler Durden, Tue, 12/11/2018
https://www.zerohedge. com/news/2018-12-10/what-trade-war-china-really-about
China has reportedly backed off their China 2025 plan.
One murdered journalist shouldn’t mess up our relations with the Saudis, according to Trump. One abducted CFO shouldn’t impact China’s trade, if they act consistently with Trump’s principles. Even if she did violate unilateral US sanctions on Iran, she doesn’t live in the US and was only traveling in Canada. The US is the law-breaker here, and Canada was complicit in her wrongful abduction. Negotiating with hostage-takers sets dangerous precedents.
It wasn’t that it was just a violation of sanctions, they committed fraud and used US banks to facilitate this fraud. Which makes it bank fraud which is taken very seriously. The act of fraud was agreeing to NOT transfer these dual use technology to parties unless we said they could, while doing it anyway. They agreed with the US to only use this technology, which was developed in the US, in a strictly agreed upon manner. By violating this agreement they committed fraud, regardless of what the sanctions say. They committed fraud by using cut-outs to transfer the tech to a third party knowing the third party was going to transfer it to Iran in violation of the agreements they made. In the process they used US banks to transfer the money, that was involved in the Fraud. So they actually did in fact violate US and international law in the process, it actually amounts to theft of property (or more technically theft by conversion) and the use of banks to facilitate this theft makes it bank fraud.
Keep in mind that they absolutely did in fact agree not to transfer this tech and they used third party cut-outs so that banks were effectively being tricked into committing a crime. That is bank fraud along with theft by conversion.
Let me put it this way. Let’s say that you and I agree to a joint venture where I will distribute a product that you created and designed. I have agreed that I will only sell this product to people in my own country. Instead I sell it to people in my country who I know are in fact buying it on behalf of people in a country that you, for whatever reason, don’t want it sold two. Wouldn’t you admit that this would be fraud on my part? I have deceived you and violated our contract, at the same time I’ve involved the banks in this deception. And Furthermore, since I used US banks to commit this fraud wouldn’t that be the definition of bank fraud and why wouldn’t it fall under US jurisdiction?
Apparently it was the US sanctions before the 2015 deal with Iran-these sanctions are NOT legal, and all your extra words do nt make them so.
What do you mean by “not legal”? Any group can enter a contract with any other group and it’s legal. That’s why I say that the sanctions don’t matter. They made a legal agreement between two companies and one of them violated the agreement and committed fraud.
One more time. If I have a product and you agree to only sell that product to XY or Z and then you break our agreement by using Y to sell to ABC and D you have committed fraud. And if you involve a bank in the process it’s now bank fraud.
Where are you getting that it somehow matters whether the sanctions are legal? The agreement is legal and this company could walk away from that agreement any time they wanted to. If we insist on a rules change and they agree to that rule change and violate it, then it’s fraud. Why would the legality of sanctions matter, in a case of fraud where one party clearly violated a contract and used a third party cutout and banks to violate the terms of the contract that THEY agreed to?
If you agree to a contract, use fraud to violate that contract and use banks to facilitate that fraud you will be arrested. What makes you think that China should be allowed to break it’s contracts with the US while fraudulently using third party cutouts and while deceiving our banks in the process? If ;they don’t want to do business under those new conditions they can break the contract, they can claim we broke the contract, they can do all kinds of things legally if we change the terms. What they can’t do is commit fraud and claim they are not violating our laws.
The fact that they were using third party cutouts to do this shows that they fully understood they are committing fraud. How is it any different than contract fraud without the sanctions? That’s my point, the sanctions don’t matter. The actually agreement that was in place was clearly violated via fraud and the use of banking during the commission of the crime. Regardless of whether or not you think the sanctions are legal, there clearly was an agreement in place that they would not transfer this tech to Iran.
And as for “Extra words” why do you guys bitch about someone who tries very hard to make sure people understand what they are saying? If it’s too long for you to read then don’t read it. Am I supposed to use extra small words for you too?
Do yourself a favor and read the link to the article.
Short Term Thinking Dooms U.S. Anti-China Strategy
It is unprecedented that an officer of a large company is personally indicted for the alleged sanction violations by a subsidiary company:
The US rarely arrests senior businesspeople, US or foreign, for alleged crimes committed by their companies. Corporate managers are usually arrested for their alleged personal crimes (such as embezzlement, bribery or violence) rather than their company’s alleged malfeasance.
…
Meng is charged with violating US sanctions on Iran. Yet consider her arrest in the context of the large number of companies, US and non-US, that have violated US sanctions against Iran and other countries. In 2011, for example, JPMorgan Chase paid US$88.3 million in fines for violating US sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet chief executive officer Jamie Dimon wasn’t grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody.
The U.S. indicted dozens of banks for violating its sanction regime. They had to pay huge fines (pdf) but none of their officers were ever touched.
We called this U.S. operation a hostage taking to blackmail China. President Trump confirmed that this is indeed the case:
U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters on Tuesday he would intervene in the U.S. Justice Department’s case against Meng if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/short-term-thinking-dooms-us-anti-china-strategy.html#more
I get what you are saying, but there’s no evidence that Huawei gave Iran U.S. tech like ZTE was found to.
The closest the allegations have ever came to be substantiated were some Reuters investigations in 2012-13 that found Huawei-Skycom offered Iran some U.S. tech and Iran rejected the deal. Iran has no interest in losing its telecom suppliers.
If the Eastern New York District Court based their warrant on old news reports that found nothing, that’s shades of Steel dossier. The court based a serious action on a dubious news report.
Huawei is not mentioned by name in the ZTE case but a company is named and given a code name. I can’t remember what the exact code was, something like Company 1A-2 or something like that. To hide the name of the company but it let’s the lawyers know who they were talking about. That company was fingered by ZTE as being a company who was knowingly using cutt-outs. It was well documented and it sure looks like that company was Huawei, there wasn’t really anyone else it could have been and this pretty much confirms it.
I will be astonished if they went after one of the top execs in the world without having hard evidence. Why would they arrest her with a weak case when we know that there are tons of other “crimes” that would work just as well. That’s if they are just trying to strong-arm China.
Its not astonishing in hindsight; the U.S. is consolidating its Empire for the Eurasian century. They’ve trotted out that old American standby; “Sue you” as a geopolitical weapon.
The billion-dollar fine and board surrender of ZTE didn’t do enough to convince other foreign tech leaders to stop their business in Iran. Deeper than that, there’s the demand for illicit spying cooperation and surrendering real independence.
Methodically harassing China would certainly put Sweden (Nokia) and Finland (Ericsson) on notice.
Eric Zuesse over at Strategic Culture has an interesting article about how the U.S. is expanding the definition of illegal trade beyond just U.S. goods.
https://www.strategic-culture. org/news/2018/12/14/us-demands-europe-to-join-its-war-against-russia.html
A weak case is in some ways perfect for this new-old kind of economic weapon. It could take years to litigate and totally wreck even billion-dollar companies, as well as their home national economies.
Meng is expected to be in court for years defending herself. Canada’s extradition laws don’t require a high standard of proof or offer much Charter protections even for Canadian citizens. Huawei in Canada is also under pressure to exit, or be kicked out. This makes committing to business with them in Canada very difficult.
Short Term Thinking Dooms U.S. Anti-China Strategy
It is unprecedented that an officer of a large company is personally indicted for the alleged sanction violations by a subsidiary company:
The US rarely arrests senior businesspeople, US or foreign, for alleged crimes committed by their companies. Corporate managers are usually arrested for their alleged personal crimes (such as embezzlement, bribery or violence) rather than their company’s alleged malfeasance.
…
Meng is charged with violating US sanctions on Iran. Yet consider her arrest in the context of the large number of companies, US and non-US, that have violated US sanctions against Iran and other countries. In 2011, for example, JPMorgan Chase paid US$88.3 million in fines for violating US sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Yet chief executive officer Jamie Dimon wasn’t grabbed off a plane and whisked into custody.
The U.S. indicted dozens of banks for violating its sanction regime. They had to pay huge fines (pdf) but none of their officers were ever touched.
We called this U.S. operation a hostage taking to blackmail China. President Trump confirmed that this is indeed the case:
U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters on Tuesday he would intervene in the U.S. Justice Department’s case against Meng if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/short-term-thinking-dooms-us-anti-china-strategy.html#more
I’m not in any way saying that we should have put those sanctions in place. What I’m saying is that China can’t really bitch too much because this company was in fact violating our laws by using those third party cut-outs. They knew they were violating the law too, that’s why they used the third party to violate the contract. Nobody in the UN is going to look at this and blame America when it was in fact this company who was violating the terms of the agreement. Furthermore, because of how they did it, they are basically caught red handed. And Meng is charged with fraud in regards to the sanctions, not violating the sanctions themselves there is a big difference. Notice that everyone says “in regards” to the sanctions. However, the sanctions are in effect simply a new contract and she agreed to abide by the rule change. So again the sanctions themselves are not the issue and she is not being charged with violating the sanctions specifically, she is being charged with fraud for using the third party to violate the rules they themselves agreed to. The issue is that they did in fact agree to the rule change and then used fraud and deception to violate the new agreement. Whether anyone else believes we should have changed the rules is beside the point. We did change the rules and they did in fact agree to the rule change and they did if fact commit fraud when the violated the new rules.
There is a huge difference under the law between violating sanctions by transferring your own products and committing fraud in the process of violating contracts in regards to products you do not own. As I stated this is also considered theft by conversion. They do not technically own these products that were transferred to Iran, they simply have a licensing agreement.
People here seem convinced that this company didn’t actually violate any laws, but they actually did commit fraud. The other tech giant involved in the last case was actually the one who snitched on them. They went on record as claiming that this company was using third party contractors to transfer this tech. Now like I said, I don’t agree with the sanctions, but people should understand what is actually going on here. The US actually does have pretty good legal standing in this case, whether they agree with it or not.
Of course behind all this is the 5G market that the US is trying to keep China out of and again for somewhat valid reasons. China does in fact add malware and spyware to most of their phones/androids/etc and that is a security risk. The Chinese government itself has a key to the back door on all these phones as well. They do have good encryption otherwise, but what good is that encryption if the Chinese government can open it any time they want? (And yes the US would love to have this backdoor themselves so it’s hypocritical)
I’m in no way saying the US acted in good faith with the sanctions, I’m saying that they do have a very good legal case in regards to fraud regardless of what anyone here thinks of the sanctions.
Now is it wise to arrest this woman? Probably not but that’s completely different than saying they have no legal grounds to do so.
Not exactly. Not even the pro-Israel outfit UANI appears to have found a smoking gun. They do have a hit list of telecoms that do business in Iran.
https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran. com/tech-and-telecom
Huawei through its Iran Skycom subsidiary did almost sell restricted tech to Iran, but the Iranians themselves flagged it.
https://www.reuters. com/article/us-huawei-skycom-idUSBRE90U0CC20130131
The U.S. has not delivered an official extradition notice. They have 60 days to present that with documentation.
Its probably a very poor case, but will not matter. The Canadian extradition process has long been broken to circumvent Charter protections to expedite requests with minimal legal protection even for Canadian citizens.
https://www.canadianlawyermag. com/author/michael-spratt/canadas-extradition-process-is-broken-15693/
Ok, I guess it is a bit more complicated than I originally understood. However Jim makes some good points also about this being a matter of inconsistent enforcement. Typically the individuals in corporations are not liable for the actions of the corporation, unfortunately. And Canada shouldn’t have done dirty work for the US, especially when the crazy Iran sanctions are at all involved.
It is very strange that they went after someone that high up, that’s the best point Jim makes. It’s basically unheard of, but I also think that’s why the US prosecutors picked a case that is easy to prove. I don’t think they would make a move like this unless they had the evidence and the crime was fairly blatant.
Still it’s incredible that they would target someone so high up. Time to bust out the popcorn and watch the show, it’s going to be interesting.
US President Donald Trump said that he would intervene in the arrest of Chinese Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou if that would be to the benefit of US interest, in an interview with Reuters on December 11th.
Plain and simple Kidnapping, Trump is holding a Chinese female executive hostage in order to negotiate a deal. https://southfront.org/trump-is-going-to-use-detained-cfo-of-huawei-to-negotiate-deal-with-china/
The kidnappers now demand a ransom. Didn’t see this coming.
This wct of simple kidnapping fits neatly with the Clintonite crowd mentaliy. Legally, the dumb judge acted as if not knowing the fact that prior to Iran deal most countries had traded with Iran, observing only UN sanction, not US sanctions. After the deal was signed, and then adopted by UN SC — the provisions of the deal were adhered to. After US cancelled the deal, basically violating UN SC resolution, many countries are continuing compliance with resolution and that international treaty is still in force. Thus arrest for pre-deal unilateral sanctions makes no sense. But arresting a daughter of the company founder felt always as an extortion, and now it is in the open.
What actions like this insure is — less and less goodwill left in China. There are many businesses that were urging more conciliatory position in negotiating with US. Their numbers are dwindling with each insult and acts of bullying. There seem to be part of our elite addicted to the sense of power and thrill humiliation of others provides them with. They are sure of invincibility, and people like Pompeo are actually ridiculing Trump
by using his terminology and ideas to reinterpret them in neocon terms — so respect for sovereignty of nations extends to only one country, US. Clinton global domination and globalism on stereoids are pouring out of the mouths of people round Trump. Globalism has never been more articulated and more demanded.
It is possible that our credit bubble is so dangerous to our financial
oligarchs — that any large conflict would do. Something to justify crash of financial system that is under strain everywhere. In Europe weak leaders are more then happy to take orders — while pathetically pretending to be insulted. They want to be subservient, as it will be excuse for the failure of their economies and finance on life support. UK populace may blame EU, while French blame Macron. Restlessnes is everywhere — same restlessness that brought Trump to power. Paralysis is everywhere, and here at home — the deep state is so disturbed that ALL they do is trying to insure control of foreign policy. We have no domestic initiatives, no pkans for ecknomic reforms or revival. The empty factories littering our landscape will remain so — as nobody cares. They are thorn between idea to look like they are innocent of Yemeni genicide, while insuring US stays involved to get its share of flesh. And besides Yemen optics, they want to spend money on “training” Kurds in nation building, and are already brazenly advocating occupation of Yemen. Besides picking fights with Russia, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Phillipines, etc. etc. The leadership is nerdy as all they do is coming up with the most creative explanations for stupidity that we call our foreign policy.
Canada is particularly vulnerable to any global ill will. Unfortunately U.S. nationalists and globalists share the same agenda on nixing Canadian independence, if for different reasons.
Trade with China (and India rising) can make or break a small middle power like Canada. Yet the Canadian economy is structured to serve the U.S. alone; oil, grain, and now telecom must go through imperial filters.
Monopoly kills economies. This arrangement will work out no differently. Canada’s contribution to North American wealth is severely curtailed to the detriment of the whole.
Short Term Thinking Dooms U.S. Anti-China Strategy
The string of U.S. accusations and measures against China are partly to protect the market share of U.S. companies against better and cheaper Chinese products and partly geopolitical. Neither has anything to do with protecting the international rule of law.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/short-term-thinking-dooms-us-anti-china-strategy.html#more
Interesting article from MoA, but Canada seems to be the target over China. Canada really isn’t that big a market for the Middle Kingdom. Rather, the U.S. appears to be consolidating Imperial satellites like a jealous (and somewhat abusive) suitor.
Europe is being discouraged from getting too close to Russia, and especially, Russian energy and resources. Saudi Arabia’s Murderer Prince is soundly tamed after acting on CIA intel given to him by Kushner. Brazil is soft-couped.
Russia has even flown long range bombers to ‘visit’ Venezuela, perhaps to discourage a possible Brazilian intervention on behalf of the U.S..
The U.S. does not want Canadian competition, either abroad or within Canada itself, and China subs for Russia here. Huawei itself is being strongly encouraged to leave Canada, with the help of Canadian U.S. imperialists.
Here are some more links.
https://journal-neo.org/2018/12/08/canada-takes-a-hostage-free-meng-wanzhou/
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/446285-china-us-economy-huawei/
Thanks. The Huawei threat is more than market competitiveness, though. Perhaps the Five Eyes can’t easily surveil the world with China salting clean telecom gear all over the place.
Lets be realistic; would you trust Chinese switchgear? Nope.
You’d triple check that and anything it was connected to. Especially since the only time Huawei was implicated in spying was when Snowden revealed the had NSA hacked into then planted backdoors in Huawei gear.
So China has no incentive to plant backdoors in their tech, because they would be caught. This does not rule out ‘front doors’ for governments that can legally demand them, but they would be exclusive front doors. So China also has an incentive to make more secure telecom gear as well.
That was the critical beef with Chinese telecom in Iran; they allowed Iran to spy on its citizens, but presumably made it harder for the U.S. and Israel to operate.
The better China and other more neutral nations get at making secure telecom, the less universal global surveillance.
Surveillance standards then become a local problem between peoples and their government. Not the best deal for the average Iranian, but people in the West are used to having rights.
Some might see that possible trend as a problem worth kidnapping and even killing over.