The fragile truce in the US-China trade war faced an immediate test after Washington dramatically stepped up its campaign against Huawei, one of China’s important technology champions, over allegations of violating Iran sanctions.
As Donald Trump sat with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to agree a trade detente at the weekend, Canada was acting on requests from the US to arrest Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the company’s founder and a former People’s Liberation Army officer.
The arrest has threatened a major diplomatic incident that many experts say is as much about Huawei as concerns about Iran. Two western diplomats said the US was pursuing Ms Meng as part of a criminal probe into whether Huawei and an affiliate group under her supervision sold US-made equipment to Iran that were deemed to have violated US sanctions.