The release of Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is a great victory for China, said a French former business leader, as it was “really the first time” that a country stood up to the “long-arm jurisdiction(长臂管辖) of the United States” in such a way.
Meng was arrested by Canadian authorities at the request of the US at Vancouver International Airport on Dec 1, 2018. She was accused of misrepresenting the Chinese telecom company’s relationship with Skycom in a PowerPoint presentation to HSBC in 2013 and putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Iran. Meng and Huawei always denied the accusations.
Through the unremitting efforts of the Chinese government, Meng finally returned to her home country safely after almost three years under house arrest in Vancouver. Meng, 49, arrived at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport on Saturday night, where she expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for securing her safe return.
The high-profile arrest of Meng has stirred a debate over punitive(惩罚性的) measures taken by the US against foreign businesses and individuals. “In fact, in all Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases, I have never seen such a thing,” Pierucci said in an interview with the China Global Television Network, referring to Meng’s case. “It shows that (the) negotiation has been very, very tough, and that the Department of Justice has really bent a lot to accommodate this kind of an agreement,” he said.
Frederic Pierucci, a former executive of energy and transport group Alstom, had his own experience of being accused by the US. He was arrested by US authorities at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport during a routine business trip in 2013. Pierucci was detained(拘留) on foreign bribery(贿赂) charges for five years, saying that he was held as an “economic hostage”. Alstom eventually paid a massive fine and was forced to sell its core business to US rival General Electric.
Pierucci, who gave a first-hand account of Washington’s cracking down on Alstom in the name of fighting corruption in his book The American Trap, said he was not as lucky as Meng. “I didn’t have the chance to have my company support me like she had. I realized that I was really alone, and that if I wanted to avoid spending 15 years in prisons in the US, I had to make the choices that I made. So this is a huge difference,” Pierucci said.
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