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(Bloomberg) -- In a sudden resolution to a diplomatic crisis between the U.S., China and Canada, a top Huawei Technologies Co. executive flew home as China released two jailed Canadians.
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For almost three years, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was under house arrest in Vancouver as she battled extradition to the U.S. on fraud charges. Across the Pacific, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor -- detained within days of Meng’s December 2018 arrest -- languished in Chinese jails, pawns caught in a geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China.
The seemingly intractable impasse came to a rapid resolution Friday after Meng struck a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. authorities to resolve criminal charges against her. Within hours, the Supreme Court of British Columbia discharged her and Meng immediately left for the airport to board a chartered Air China flight back to Shenzhen, home to the Chinese technology giant’s headquarters.
Shortly after, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the two Michaels, as they’re known in Canada, were also on their way home.
“There is going to be time for reflections and analysis in the coming days and weeks,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. “But the fact of the matter is I know that Canadians will be incredibly happy to know that right now, this Friday night, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are on a plane and they’re coming home.”
China on Saturday reiterated its stance on the issue, saying the arrest of Meng was a political persecution against Chinese citizens with a purpose to suppress Chinese high-tech companies. What the U.S. and Canada did is a typical arbitrary detention, state broadcaster CCTV said on Saturday, quoting Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that his government welcomed China’s decision to release the two Canadians “after more than two-and-a-half years of arbitrary detention.”
The long-running case became a symbol of the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, throwing into stark relief the risk faced by those who get caught in the middle. Within days of her arrest, Chinese authorities jailed two Canadians, triggering a diplomatic showdown that has cost billions of dollars in lost trade and plunged bilateral relations to their worst point in decades.