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Too many China threads, but none really related to this post.

Yesterday Meng Wanzhou returned to China after having been arrested by Canadian authorities on the basis of an extradition order.

There is so much that can be said on this matter, but I will stick to key points only.

• An NY court issued an arrest warrant on 22 August 2018 based on U.S. charges of committing fraud by misleading the HSBC bank on her company’s dealings in Iran.
• Canadian police, abiding by the extradition request, arrested Meng on 1 December 2018 while she was changing planes at Vancouver airport.
• China made their concerns about her arrest known, and when Canada did nothing China made a tit for tat arrest of 2 Canadian citizens on equally flimsy grounds.
• On 11 December Meng was released on bail and placed under house (read Mansion) arrest.
• Lots of legal argy-bargy took place in the interim with zip being resolved to this day.

What's unusual about this case?

• Meng is the only individual ever arrested for a violation of the US' Iran sanctions.  Until her arrest, companies were only fined, occasionally massively and also for pattern behavior over many years, eg most large international banks including UBS ($100M), Lloyds TSB ($350M for 12 years of cover-ups), Credit Suisse ($536M), Barclays ($298M), ING Bank ($619M), HSBC ($1.26B), BNP Paribus (8.9B); plus lesser fines to Companies such Amazon and even Berkshire Hathaway.
• The DoJ had no actual evidence that could incriminate Meng, aside from the fact that the issues related to events as far back as 2007 and were well known.
• The coincidence that Canada was most affected by US Tariffs in 2018 (including an proposed additional tariff on Canadian made cars several days after the NY arrest warrant was issued), and that these were dropped in 2019 just before Canada began hearings on Meng's case.  That's hand in glove with the coincidence of the US-China trade war getting underway a month prior to Meng's arrest warrant being issued.
• There is little doubt that Huawei, as a company, has a past history of IP theft, but linking Meng to this is drawing a very long bow, and this was never the original basis for her arrest.

Meng's release remains conditional.

The USA will continue to go after Huawei, but their actions are ill placed.  Huawei lead in IP on 5G and 6G and will now pursue a stronger home grown approach rather than international collaboration.  It's never a good idea to give a competitor a reason to beat you rather than play with you.