
Why Canada Will Bear the Brunt of the American War on Huawei - laurex
https://thediplomat.com/2018/12/why-canada-will-bear-the-brunt-of-the-american-war-on-huawei/
======
graeme
I'm Canadian. I rather suspect China is taking action against our nationals in
order to teach a lesson to _others_ : "think twice before you try to extradite
our royalty to Americans"

They probably understand strongarm tactics won't work on us and are
counterproductive. But, I'm sure other small countries are taking notes.

~~~
Maskawanian
I really wish we would take a reciprocal foreign policy. For every one of our
people they detain without legit cause, we do the same.

~~~
eximius
They don't give a shit about their people. We do. That's not going to end
well.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _They don 't give a shit about their people_

Beijing doesn’t care about the average Chinese. But its elites? It cares as
much as any other government.

~~~
eximius
Eh, I can buy it. But how many Chinese elites can we find to arrest in North
America?

Aside from the fact that it's morally reprehensible...

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Agree on its reprehensibility. Detaining random foreign nationals isn’t a game
I want us to play.

------
theredbox
The world should have been much more assertive towards China instead the
US,Japan,South Korea are fighting each other for "peanuts".

Not talking about the EU in the first place that's just a union of interests
where the stronger eat the weaker for breakfast and bend to China whenever
they hear mandarin.

------
Antonio123123
There is only accumulation of power.

I believe China to be a mercantile culture, that was helped by the more
developed states. But instead of valuing the relations, China only values them
if it can see profit.

Also China values the relations if the profit of China is bigger that the
profit of the other state.

In the mercantilist others must be loosers, as opposed to mutual benefits when
all play nice.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I believe China to be a mercantile culture_

“Mercantilism is a national economic policy that is designed to maximize the
exports of a nation” [1]. This is what China _used_ to be. (Starting, mostly,
with Deng Xiaoping.) Xi prioritising force projection and jingoism is a shift
_away_ from mercantilism.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism)

~~~
Antonio123123
Mercantilism not only targets exports. It also tries to halt all non necessary
imports, so the country retains as much value as possible.

They are nationalist, and want to gain things at the expense of others all the
time (I don't have first-hand experience but I believe it to be so).

So when I say China is mercantilist, I am referring more to their approach to
relations as a zero-sum game.

------
duhast
This is how I see it: 1) US signed disarmament treaty with Iran and EU 2) US
unilaterally leaves the treaty and introduces sanctions against Iran 3)
Chinese company continues to sell goods to Iran 4) Executive of said company
is taken to prison during flight transit in Canada and will be extradited to
US where she is at risk of receiving life-long sentence

The bit I don't understand is how can US impose laws that apply to non-US
companies/individuals? Lets even assume this is all legal under US laws and
hence Canada has no choice but to extradite this person given their bilateral
extradition treaty. What I suspect we will continue to see more going forward:
1) US will continue to introduce laws that effectively apply to everyone
everywhere and use extradition treaties to enforcement them 2) These laws will
be exercised selectively in cases where US economic or political interest is
at stake. 3) Other countries will follow. 4) This sets bad undemocratic
precedence where law introduced in one country is used to prosecute people
that never stepped foot on that country soil. 5) Cost and risk of doing
business will increase.

~~~
hubbins
Huawei/Skycom was allegedly selling US products to Iran. It’s not about
selling anything to Iran.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Huawei /Skycom was allegedly selling US products to Iran_

Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology [1], markets products in America
[2], has issued dollar-denominated debt [3] and then went and violated
sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions. This is a far cry from
extraterritorial enforcement for either the U.S. or Canada.

[1] [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-
ag...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-
working-with-huawei-1.1137006)

[2] [https://www.huawei.com/us/](https://www.huawei.com/us/)

[3]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/26/huawei-
is-under-u-s-criminal-investigation-for-illegal-iran-sales-
analysis/#328e6ec0420e)

~~~
duhast
_> Huawei stole a Canadian company's technology [1]_

I can believe that. But how is this related?

 _> markets products in America_

 _> has issued dollar-denominated debt_

 _> and then went and violated sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions._

I don't believe any of this is true for Huawei incorporated in China. US
subsidiaries of Huawei most likely follow the US law or otherwise their execs
would get arrested.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I don 't believe any of this is true for Huawei incorporated in China. US
> subsidiaries of Huawei most likely follow the US law or otherwise their
> execs would get arrested._

American criminal law, like most criminal law, pierces corporate veils.
Sanctions law, in particular, is an absolute responsibility law that traces
liability to decision makers.

The analogy would be an American company violating Chinese laws while selling
products in China and borrowing in renminbi and then getting pissed off when
their executive is arrested by a neighbouring country. "The other entity broke
the law" would be as silly a defense in that case as it is here.

And if we don't want to use American sanctions laws as a baseline, the alleged
violations all happened while U.N. sanctions were in effect.

~~~
duhast
_> And if we don't want to use American sanctions laws as a baseline, the
alleged violations all happened while U.N. sanctions were in effect._

UN sanctions cover mostly military and nuclear equipment - I don't believe
that either ZTE or Huawei participated in arms sales to Iran. US accuses both
of integrating and reselling modem chipsets made by companies like Broadcom.

This looks to me like trade war where law is used instrumentally and public
opinion is shaped to make it look differently to what it actually is.

------
blfr
_China’s economy is at a tenuous juncture in its development and that shocks
potentially threaten the achievement of key goals_

Say what you want about Trump but he knows when he has leverage.

 _It can hardly be lost on the Chinese that Canada, a rule of law country, is
simply carrying out contractual obligations_

Authoritarians don't believe in the rule of law.

Not just in the sense that they don't have respect for it and wouldn't
implement it. They don't believe other governments actually don't have
influence over the judiciary. Often for good reasons because courts are
sometimes willing to bend the rules for the benefit of the government.

~~~
latch
> They don't believe other governments actually don't have influence over the
> judiciary

This doesn't strike me as a reasonable generalization. It implies too much
stupidity. I think Mr Putin and Mr Xi are well educated and have a grasp of
how the world works well beyond what we lay people think we know.

~~~
blfr
It's not stupidity. It's distrust.

They don't believe there isn't some backchannel for the regular government
(the executive mostly) to influence a court ruling when it really needs to.

