Just days after President Trump announced a “BIG leap forward” in relations between the U.S. and China, tensions between the two economic heavyweights are escalating once more. This time, the focus of the friction is on Meng Wanzhou, scion of a Chinese telecommunications giant.
On Saturday, Canadian authorities arrested Meng, the daughter of the founder of Huawei. Meng is the company’s chief financial officer. A Canadian Justice Department spokesman acknowledged Wednesday that law enforcement took her into custody at the request of the U.S., which is seeking her extradition for allegedly violating its sanctions on Iran.
The arrest came the same day as Trump’s self-described “extraordinary” meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. But it would not be until days later, on Wednesday night, that news of the arrest surfaced publicly — and at that point, Beijing’s reaction bore little resemblance to that meeting’s hopeful tone.
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