Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Meng Wanzhou, has returned to China three years after her arrest in Canada. The “Princess of Huawei” has flown home to China after three years of house arrest in Canada.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou in Canada — at the behest of the United States — sparked a major dispute between Washington and Beijing. China’s subsequent detention of Canadian nationals dubbed the “two Michaels” was widely seen as retaliation for the arrest of Ms. Meng.
Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was freed Friday following an agreement with the US Justice Department to suspend the fraud charges against her that had poisoned Beijing’s relations with Washington and Ottawa.
Ms. Meng — the 49-year-old daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the billionaire founder of world-leading telecoms equipment supplier Huawei — was granted release in a Vancouver court hearing.
The hearing came hours after US prosecutors announced an agreement in New York under which charges would be suspended and eventually dropped. She immediately returned home to China — for the first time since her arrest in Vancouver’s international airport on December 1, 2018.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that two Canadian businessmen, Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, were on a plane home to Canada.
They were arrested and imprisoned on espionage charges in the days after Ms. Meng was detained. Western critics branded their arrest in China as “hostage diplomacy.”
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Chinese embassy in Canada for their constant support,” Ms. Meng told reporters after the hearing in Vancouver.
“Over the past three years, my life has been turned upside down. It was a disruptive time for me as a mother, wife, and a company executive,” she said. “But I believe every cloud has a silver lining. It was an invaluable experience in my life,” she said. “The saying goes, the greater the difficulty, the greater the growth.”
