The daughter of Huawei's founder, a top executive at the Chinese technology giant, was arrested in Canada and faces extradition to the United States, stirring up fears it could reignite a Sino-U.S. trade row and roiling global stock markets.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, 46, who is Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer, threatens to drive a wedge between the United States and China just days after they agreed a 90-day trade war truce in Argentina on Saturday - the day she was detained.

Meng's arrest, revealed late on Wednesday by Canadian authorities, is related to U.S. sanctions, a person familiar with the matter said. Reuters was unable to determine the precise nature of the possible violations.

People familiar with the matter told Reuters in April that U.S. authorities have been investigating Huawei, the world's largest telecoms equipment maker, since at least 2016 for allegedly shipping U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.

The arrest and any potential sanctions on the world's no. 2 smartphone maker could have major repercussions on the global technology supply chain.

U.S. and Asian shares tumbled as news of the arrest heightened anxiety over prospects of a collision between the world's two largest economic powers, not just over tariffs but also over technological hegemony.

Huawei is already under intense scrutiny from Washington and other western governments over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. It has been locked out of the U.S. and some other markets for telecom gear. Huawei has repeatedly insisted Beijing has no influence over it.



Meng, one of the vice chairs on the company's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities and a court hearing has been set for Friday, a Canadian Justice Department spokesman said. Trump and Xi had dined in Buenos Aires on Dec. 1 at the G20 summit.

Huawei, which generated US$93 billion in revenue last year, confirmed the arrest. "The company has been provided very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng," it said in a statement.

She was detained while transferring flights in Canada, it added.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily briefing on Thursday that China had asked Canada and the United States for an explanation of Meng's arrest, but they have “not provided any clarification".

The Chinese consulate in Vancouver has been providing her assistance, he added, declining further comment. On Wednesday, China's embassy in Canada said it resolutely opposed the arrest and called for her immediate release.

In April, the sources told Reuters the U.S. Justice Department probe was being handled by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn.

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn also declined to comment.

Lu Xiang, an expert on China-U.S. relations at the state-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, called Meng's arrest “extremely shocking.”

"If someone from the United States is hoping to use threats to an individual’s personal safety in order to add weight in the talks, then they have most certainly miscalculated," he said.

Arthur Kroeber, founder of Gavekal Dragonomics, said Beijing was unlikely to retaliate against the U.S. business community in China because its interests have partly overlapped with China’s in the trade war, giving Beijing some leverage.

Jia Wenshan, a professor at Chapman University in California, said the arrest "runs a huge risk of derailing the U.S.-China trade talks."

While Meng's arrest comes at a delicate time in U.S.-China relations, it was not clear if the timing was coincidental.

The probe of Huawei is similar to one that threatened the survival of China's ZTE, which pleaded guilty in 2017 to violating U.S. laws that restrict the sale of American-made technology to Iran in efforts to curb Tehran's missile and nuclear programs.

Earlier this year, the United States banned U.S. firms from selling parts and software to ZTE, which eventually paid $1 billion as part of a deal to get the ban lifted.

Huawei has said it complies with all applicable export control and sanctions laws and other regulations.

News of the arrest came the same day Britain's BT Group said it was removing Huawei's equipment from the core of its existing 3G and 4G mobile operations and would not use the Chinese company in central parts of the next network.

In January 2013, Reuters reported that Hong Kong-based Skycom Tech Co Ltd, which attempted to sell embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran's largest mobile-phone operator, had much closer ties to Huawei than previously known.

Meng, who also has used the English names Cathy and Sabrina, served on the board of Skycom between February 2008 and April 2009, according to Skycom records and several other past and present Skycom directors appear to have connections to Huawei.

U.S. Senator Ben Sasse praised the move and said that it was "for breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran." He added: "Sometimes Chinese aggression is explicitly state-sponsored and sometimes it's laundered through many of Beijing's so-called 'private' sector entities."</s>The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada on Wednesday brought the Chinese telecom giant’s business practices under global scrutiny and raised questions about the state of tenuous trade negotiations between the U.S. and China.

Meng, 46, faces extradition to the U.S. after her arrest on suspicion of violating existing sanctions against Iran. Aside from her role as a top Huawei executive, she is the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei is among China’s most influential firms, with revenue of roughly $92 billion in 2017 alone, according to Reuters. The company ranks as the world’s top supplier of telecommunications network equipment and the second-most prolific maker of smartphones, ranking ahead of California-based Apple and trailing only South Korea-based Samsung.

Huawei’s rise to dominance has generated controversy. The firm became prominent in the 1990s amid allegations of copying rival technology and undercutting prices. The U.S. government has largely banned the use of Huawei equipment by its agencies, and intelligence officials have warned that Beijing may have the ability to tap into the firm’s equipment to spy on users.

Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. government pressured allies to limit their use of Huawei technology due to security concerns. The Trump administration has argued that Huawei has benefited from market manipulation and other unfair practices. Australia and New Zealand recently banned Huawei from building 5G networks in their countries.

The dispute over Meng’s arrest comes just days after the U.S. and China agreed to a temporary truce on their escalating trade conflict. The U.S. has slapped tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese goods in what the Trump administration says is an effort to crack down on intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices. Beijing has responded with retaliatory measures.

Meng’s arrested caused global markets to tumble and prompted a stern response from China, which has demanded her immediate release. The exact circumstances of her arrest were unclear.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that U.S. officials were investigating Huawei’s ties to Iran.</s>OTTAWA -- As details of American allegations against a Chinese executive were revealed Friday in a Vancouver court, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada's ambassador in Beijing had briefed the Chinese foreign ministry on her arrest.

Freeland said that Ambassador John McCallum has assured the Chinese foreign ministry that due process is being followed in Canada and consular access will be provided to Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. She was arrested at the Vancouver airport on Saturday after a request by the United States.

Freeland refused to discuss details of the case, citing the imperative of keeping politics out of a live court proceeding -- one that clearly has massive geopolitical ramifications.

The case will likely intensify pressure on the Trudeau government, which is being urged to refuse to allow Huawei products in Canada's next-generation 5G telecommunications networks.

A Canadian prosecutor told a Vancouver court on Friday that the United States asked Canada to arrest Meng because the U.S. alleges she violated sanctions on Iran.

The allegation against Meng came in a packed Vancouver courtroom during a hearing on whether she should be released on bail before an extradition process. The Crown lawyer told the hearing that the U.S. alleges Huawei Technologies used subsidiary Skycom to do business with Iran, violating sanctions against that country.

Meng is being accused of fraud by the U.S. government, which wants her extradited from Canada to face the charge.

The Crown says Meng is alleged to have said Huawei and Skycom were separate and she allegedly lied to an executive of an unnamed financial institution, which it asserts put the institution at risk.

China's foreign ministry has pushed Canada to reveal the reason for the arrest and the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa has branded Meng's arrest a serious violation of human rights.

Freeland highlighted McCallum's elevated diplomatic status as a former Liberal cabinet minister, and characterized his conversation with the Chinese as positive.

"I have not spoken directly to Chinese officials but John McCallum, our ambassador to China -- our very senior ambassador to China -- has spoken with Chinese officials," Freeland said Friday in a teleconference from meetings in Berlin. "And he has assured China that due process is absolutely being followed in Canada and consular access for China to Ms. Meng will be provided, and that we are a rule-of-law country, and we will be following our laws as we have thus far in this matter, and as we will continue to do."

Freeland reiterated what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday: that Meng's arrest was part of an independent legal process that is separate from politics.

"The Chinese are well aware of John's seniority," she said. "They have had a good conversation with John. John has been very clear with the Chinese authorities -- as we are with Canadians -- that this was a matter handled as a part of our rule-of-law process; it was done without any engagement on involvement in the political level because we respect the independence of our judiciary."

McCallum was clear that Chinese consular officials will have access to Meng "just as we seek consular access for detained Canadians around the world, including in China."

Meng's father, the billionaire Ren Zhengfei, founded Huawei Technologies Ltd. in 1987 and established it in the southern China city of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong.

Among other things, it is working with Telus and Bell Canada to develop equipment for fifth-generation wireless networks that are expected to transform telecommunications around the world over the next decade or more.

Huawei has become the world's biggest supplier of equipment used by phone and internet companies. But the company has faced widespread allegations that is it is an espionage organ of the Chinese military and security services -- an accusation the company strongly denies.

The U.S. has led a charge to ban the use of Huawei products among its allies, particularly the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that also includes Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. So far, New Zealand and Australia have banned the company from their 5G networks; Britain has expressed concerns and is considering measures.

Asked this week about a possible Canadian ban on Huawei, Trudeau said he would defer to the advice of his intelligence agencies.

The new director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service flagged issues surrounding 5G technology in a major speech this week in which he described the threat to Canada's national security posed by "economic espionage" from "hostile states."

David Vigneault did not name China or Huawei in his speech, but he noted that "many of these advanced technologies are dual-use in nature in that they could advance a country's economic, security or military interests."

"In particular, CSIS has seen a trend of state-sponsored espionage in fields that are crucial to Canada's ability to build and sustain a prosperous, knowledge-based economy," he added. "I'm talking about areas such as A.I., quantum technology, 5G, biopharma, and clean tech."

On Thursday, former prime minister Stephen Harper told Fox Business News that while he was in power he became increasingly concerned about allowing the use of equipment from Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom-equipment manufacturer.

"These are organizations, ultimately, tightly tied to the Chinese security apparatus, and we think there are some real, serious issues there," Harper said. "The United States is encouraging western allies to essentially push Huawei out of the emerging 5G network, and my personal view is that is something that western countries should be doing in terms of our own long-term security issues."</s>The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the arrest of an executive of Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies (all times local):

A Japanese official has cast doubt over reports that Japan plans to exclude Chinese telecoms equipment makers Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp. from government purchases due to security concerns.

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported Friday that Tokyo might take the action following the lead of the U.S. and some other countries.

The report, citing unnamed sources, said government officials planned to meet to discuss such a move.

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A senior official at the government office in charge of cybersecurity said Japan has not made such a decision. He said some new policy may be announced next week but it would likely not be what was being reported.

The dramatic arrest of a Chinese telecommunications executive has driven home why it will be so hard for the Trump administration to resolve its deepening conflict with China.

The Huawei Technologies executive, Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, faces extradition to the United States. A bail hearing was set for Friday.

In the short run, her arrest heightens skepticism about the trade truce that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached last weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Share markets were rattled by fears that the 90-day cease-fire won’t last.

Huawei has been a subject of U.S. national security concerns that extend well beyond tariffs or market access. Washington and Beijing are locked in a clash between the world’s two largest economies for economic and political dominance for decades to come.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>TOKYO (AP) — World financial markets took another plunge Thursday on concerns that the arrest of a senior official at Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei could hinder progress in China-U.S. trade talks.

The price of oil also fell even though OPEC was expected to agree on a production cut to support the energy market.

KEEPING SCORE: The DAX in Germany fell 2.4 percent to 10,933 and France's CAC 40 dropped 2.2 percent to 4,836. The FTSE 100 in Britain lost 2.2 percent to 6,767. U.S. futures also augured a downbeat start for Wall Street after markets were closed Wednesday to mourn the death of former President George H.W. Bush. The contract for the Dow lost 1.6 percent and that for the S&P 500 declined 1.5 percent.

ASIA'S DAY: Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tumbled 2.5 percent to 26,156.38 and Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 1.9 percent to 21,501.62. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2 percent to 5,657.70, while South Korea's Kospi sank 1.6 percent to 2,068.69. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.7 percent to 2,605.18. Shares also fell in Taiwan and all other regional markets.

HUAWEI: The news of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's arrest sent shares sharply lower. Shares had rallied Monday following President Donald Trump's agreement with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the weekend to hold off on further retaliatory moves in a festering trade war. But they've since fallen back amid confusion over what the two sides agreed to and whether the deal will enable Beijing and Washington to resolve longstanding, profound differences over technology policy and other issues. China demanded Meng's immediate release.

ANALYST'S TAKE: "We are closely watching the developments in Asia after reports that Canada has arrested the Huawei CFO facing U.S. extradition for allegedly violating Iran sanctions. This headline is quite significant as the U.S. government is attempting to persuade allies to stop using Huawei equipment due to security fears, and this headline could weigh negatively on tech stocks," said Stephen Innes, head of trading at Oanda in Singapore.

OPEC'S MOVE: OPEC countries gathered Thursday to find a way to support the falling price of oil, with analysts predicting the cartel and some key allies, like Russia, would agree to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day. OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia indicated it was in favor of such a cut. The expectation did not keep the price of oil from falling, however, as investors focused on the potential economic disruption from any escalation in the U.S.-China trade war. Benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.45 to $51.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped $1.48 to $60.08 per barrel.

CURRENCY: The dollar slipped to 112.80 yen from 113.20 yen. The euro was flat at $1.1345.

Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</s>TOKYO (AP) — World financial markets took another plunge Thursday on concerns that the arrest of a senior official at Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei could hinder progress in China-U.S. trade talks.

The price of oil also fell even though OPEC was expected to agree on a production cut to support the energy market.

KEEPING SCORE: The DAX in Germany fell 2.4 percent to 10,933 and France's CAC 40 dropped 2.2 percent to 4,836. The FTSE 100 in Britain lost 2.2 percent to 6,767. U.S. futures also augured a downbeat start for Wall Street after markets were closed Wednesday to mourn the death of former President George H.W. Bush. The contract for the Dow lost 1.6 percent and that for the S&P 500 declined 1.5 percent.

ASIA'S DAY: Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tumbled 2.5 percent to 26,156.38 and Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 1.9 percent to 21,501.62. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2 percent to 5,657.70, while South Korea's Kospi sank 1.6 percent to 2,068.69. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.7 percent to 2,605.18. Shares also fell in Taiwan and all other regional markets.

HUAWEI: The news of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's arrest sent shares sharply lower. Shares had rallied Monday following President Donald Trump's agreement with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the weekend to hold off on further retaliatory moves in a festering trade war. But they've since fallen back amid confusion over what the two sides agreed to and whether the deal will enable Beijing and Washington to resolve longstanding, profound differences over technology policy and other issues. China demanded Meng's immediate release.

ANALYST'S TAKE: "We are closely watching the developments in Asia after reports that Canada has arrested the Huawei CFO facing U.S. extradition for allegedly violating Iran sanctions. This headline is quite significant as the U.S. government is attempting to persuade allies to stop using Huawei equipment due to security fears, and this headline could weigh negatively on tech stocks," said Stephen Innes, head of trading at Oanda in Singapore.

OPEC'S MOVE: OPEC countries gathered Thursday to find a way to support the falling price of oil, with analysts predicting the cartel and some key allies, like Russia, would agree to cut production by at least 1 million barrels per day. OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia indicated it was in favor of such a cut. The expectation did not keep the price of oil from falling, however, as investors focused on the potential economic disruption from any escalation in the U.S.-China trade war. Benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.45 to $51.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped $1.48 to $60.08 per barrel.

CURRENCY: The dollar slipped to 112.80 yen from 113.20 yen. The euro was flat at $1.1345.

Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</s>China’s Huawei Technologies Co. is planning to overhaul its global software systems as it tries to avoid a ban in the U.K. and other European markets, after previous piecemeal fixes failed to assuage national security concerns, according to people familiar with the matter.

Huawei is set to commit at least $2 billion in spending to make its equipment less vulnerable to hacking and snooping, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private.

Huawei will offer to transform the way it engineers software, instead of merely applying one-off changes and workarounds in response to specific demands from companies and governments, and that work will continue until all security concerns are assuaged, they said.

The pledge comes at a critical moment for Huawei’s ambitions in Europe, its second-biggest market outside of Asia. European phone companies are on the cusp of ordering tens of billions of euros worth of equipment for fifth-generation wireless networks and Huawei has spent more than a decade positioning itself to win much of that work.

Its plans are now under threat as Western governments grow increasingly concerned that Huawei’s systems could be used as a Trojan horse by Chinese intelligence. Its reputation suffered a further blow when Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 following allegations it had violated sanctions against Iran, amid a wider tussle on trade between the U.S. and China.

Huawei declined to comment. The company has always maintained that it’s independent and doesn’t give the government access to its equipment.

Company officials will present the details of the software revamp to Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre in coming days before it presents it to the public, said one of the people.

The measures would move beyond smaller-scale fixes it has made in response to a critical July report by a body staffed with intelligence officials and industry representatives.

In a sign of how tenuous Huawei’s position in the U.K. has become, the head of foreign intelligence agency MI6 said on Monday the government needs to decide whether Huawei should be banned from the country’s 5G networks.

In the last four months it has received bans on 5G from the U.K.’s intelligence-sharing allies Australia and New Zealand, led by a campaign from the U.S., where it is also banned.</s>TOKYO (AP) — Asian stock prices skidded Thursday following the arrest of a senior official at Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei that could derail progress in China-U.S. trade talks.

KEEPING SCORE: Hong Kong's Hang Seng index tumbled 2.7 percent to 26,081.73 and Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 2.5 percent to 21,373.83. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2 percent to 5,657.60, while South Korea's Kospi sank 1.6 percent to 2,068.56. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 1.7 percent to 2,6043.91. Shares also fell in Taiwan and all other regional markets.

WALL STREET: Markets were closed in the U.S. on Wednesday for a day of mourning following the death of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. The future contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 1.3 percent to 24,712.00 and the future for the S&P 500 lost 1.2 percent to 2,668.30.

HUAWEI: The news of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's arrest sent shares sharply lower. Share prices rallied early in the week following President Donald Trump's agreement with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the weekend to hold off on further retaliatory moves in a festering trade war. But they've since fallen back amid confusion over what the two sides agreed to and whether the deal will enable Beijing and Washington to resolve longstanding, profound differences over technology policy and other issues. China demanded Meng's immediate release and warned the case might lead to retaliation against American and Canadian executives in China.

ANALYST'S TAKE: "We are closely watching the developments in Asia after reports that Canada has arrested the Huawei CFO facing U.S. extradition for allegedly violating Iran sanctions. This headline is quite significant as the U.S. government is attempting to persuade allies to stop using Huawei equipment due to security fears, and this headline could weigh negatively on tech stocks," said Stephen Innes, head of trading at Oanda in Singapore.

TECHNOLOGY STOCK: Technology shares declined, with Japan's Nintendo Co. down 4.3 percent; Samsung Electronics Co. lost 1.8 percent; ZTE Corp. declined 5.8 percent and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. dropped 4.6 percent in morning trading.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude lost 55 cents to $52.34 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell 0.7 percent to $52.89 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped 52 cents to $61.06 per barrel.

CURRENCY: The dollar slipped to 112.70 yen from 113.20 yen. The euro inched up to $1.1349 from $1.1343.

Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama</s>As the daughter of the company's founder, Meng Wanzhou was known internally as the "princess" of telecoms giant Huawei and possible heir to the throne, but now finds herself a pawn in the US-China trade clash.

Meng, Huawei's chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada at the request of the United States, which seeks to extradite her in a move that could blow tensions between the two powers wide open.

Her arrest follows a US probe into the company's alleged violations of sanctions against Iran.

The affair is a major setback for a woman who had been rising through the company founded by her father Ren Zhengfei, sparking speculation in recent years that she would some day assume full control.

Doing so would make her one of the world's top female corporate bosses.

Huawei is the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world after Samsung Electronics, having overtaken Apple earlier this year, and is ranked 72nd on the Fortune Global 500 with revenues of nearly $90 billion in the most recent fiscal year.

Its officials have taken pains to stress that the company is a meritocracy, but there seems little doubt that family ties aided Meng's rise.

Ren, 74, a former People's Liberation Army engineer, founded the company with a few thousand dollars in 1987, growing it into one of the world's leading suppliers of hardware for telecommunications networks.

Meng has sought to stress her own "humble" beginnings, with Chinese media reporting that she once penned an internal memo claiming that her first tasks at the Shenzhen-based company involved secretarial work -- answering phones and acting as a typist.

But Meng, reported to be in her mid-40s, went on to earn a Chinese management degree and later joined Huawei's finance department.

According to Chinese media, Meng kept her head down for years, to such an extent that few knew who her father was. This may have been aided by the fact that she took her mother's surname from a young age, for reasons that remain unclear.

"He is a CEO at work, and a father at home," Meng once said of Ren, to emphasise that competence, not connections, determined one's path at Huawei.

In interviews, she has referred to him as "President Ren", rather than "father".

But Meng's career soon took off and she rose to top financial positions.

Huawei credits her for re-organising the company's financial and IT architecture beginning in the early 2000s, so that the company could cope with its rapid global growth.

Little is publicly known about the un-listed Huawei's internal operations, however, and Meng remained an obscure figure until 2011, when the company unveiled its top leadership for the first time with Meng listed as CFO.

From there, she began to assume a higher-profile financial role.

In contrast to the often colourless male executives who populate the upper ranks of China Inc., Meng is known for an easy smile and good English, and appears to have taken not one but two English names -- "Cathy" and "Sabrina".

Despite being dubbed the "Princess of Huawei", she is said to be respected among company rank and file as approachable and self-deprecating.

She also appears to have eschewed the socialite lifestyle of her much-younger half-sister, Annabel Yao, a ballerina studying at Harvard University.

Speculation that Meng was being groomed for Huawei's pinnacle has increased in recent years.

In 2013, it was rumoured that Ren's son, Ren Ping, was the patriarch's favoured successor, which Ren Sr. took pains to deny in an internal email that was later leaked.

But Ren Ping is not currently listed on the company's board and mention of him in Chinese media has been rare in recent years.

It remains unclear whether Meng is married, but Chinese media previously have reported that she has two children.

Even if a deal is reached to release her, it remains a question whether Huawei -- or Chinese authorities -- would permit the continued rise of an executive who will now always be linked to US accusations of company wrongdoing and a symbol of bilateral trade tension.</s>BEIJING: Chinese state-run media on Friday (Dec 7) condemned the arrest in Canada of a top executive of telecoms giant Huawei on a US extradition request as a "despicable rogue's approach" to contain Chinese high-tech ambitions.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the company's founder, has angered the Chinese government and raised concerns that it could disrupt a trade war truce between the world's two biggest economies.

Canada defended the arrest on Thursday, saying there was no political motivation, and a senior advisor to US President Donald Trump denied it was linked to US-China trade talks.

But Chinese media cast the move as an assault on the development of the country's high-tech industry.

"The Chinese government should seriously mull over the US tendency to abuse legal procedures to suppress China's high-tech enterprises," said the nationalist tabloid Global Times in an editorial.

"Obviously, Washington is resorting to a despicable rogue's approach as it cannot stop Huawei's 5G advance in the market," it said.

READ: Huawei CFO to appear in Canada court in US extradition case



READ: Who is Meng Wanzhou, 'heiress' to Huawei?



The China Daily warned that "containing Huawei's expansion is detrimental to China-US ties".

US authorities have not disclosed the charges she faces following a publication ban sought by Meng, but "one thing that is undoubtedly true and proven is the US is trying to do whatever it can to contain Huawei's expansion in the world simply because the company is the point man for China's competitive technology companies," the daily said.

Meng's arrest follows a US probe into the company's alleged violations of Iran sanctions. She faces a bail hearing in Canada on Friday.

Though China's technology sector is still reliant on certain US exports like microchips, Beijing wants to transform the country into a global tech leader - with a technological prowess rivalling the United States - in a plan dubbed "Made in China 2025".

Huawei is one of the world's largest telecommunications equipment and services providers. Its products are used by carriers around the world, including in Europe and Africa.

But its US business has been tightly constrained by worries it could undermine American competitors and that its cellphones and networking equipment, used widely in other countries, could provide Beijing with avenues for espionage.

Australia, New Zealand and Britain have followed suit this year by rejecting some of the company's services over security concerns.

Japan too plans to ban government use of telecom products made by Huawei and Chinese tech firm ZTE, reported Japanese media Yomiuri Shimbun on Friday.

READ: Explainer: What is China's Huawei Technologies and why is it controversial?



Chinese netizens have criticised Meng's arrest on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, where online trolls sometimes deliberately incite nationalist fervour or pro-government stances.

Some users viewed the incident as part of the trade war - and a broader conspiracy to keep down China's technological development.

"One of the most important reasons why the US started the trade war was to attack China's technology sector and its 'Made in China 2025' plan," wrote one Weibo user.

The goal is to keep China stuck in "low-end industries and force China into the middle income trap."

The detention of Meng appears to be a "game of politics", wrote another user.

Earlier this year, ZTE nearly collapsed after Washington banned US companies from selling crucial hardware and software components to it for seven years, though the ban was lifted after it agreed to pay a US$1 billion fine.

Some analysts say Meng's arrest could be used as a bargaining chip, but White House trade advisor Peter Navarro denied it was linked the US-China trade negotiations.

"The two issues are totally separate," Navarro told CNN.

But CNN, quoting an unnamed official, said that the United States saw the arrest as providing leverage in trade talks.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also denied "any political involvement or interference" in Meng's arrest.

"I can assure everyone that we are a country (with) an independent judiciary," Trudeau told a tech conference in Montreal.

Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, said he knew that Canada was planning to arrest Meng, but he declined to discuss specifics of the case.

But, he added, the United States has had "enormous concerns for years" about the practice of Chinese firms to "use stolen American intellectual property" and being used as "arms of the Chinese government's objectives in terms of information technology in particular."

"So not respecting this particular arrest, but Huawei is one company we've been concerned about," he added.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs demands that Canada and the United States clarify the reasons behind the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, also asking for her immediate release.