Dharamshala, 27th September: After reaching an agreement with US prosecutors over a bank fraud case, Meng Wanzhou was released from legal imprisonment in Canada. Meng Wanzhou, the high-profile top executive of telecom giant Huawei who was detained in Canada for over three years, received a hero’s welcome upon her arrival in Shenzhen on a special plane sent by the government on Saturday, in what is being hailed as a major victory for China’s ruling Communist Party. Meng, 49, Huawei’s deputy chair of the board, chief financial officer, and daughter of the company’s founder Ren Zhengfei, ascribed her release to President Xi Jinping’s Communist Party of China (CPC).

After striking a deal with US authorities over a bank fraud case that had left her in legal limbo for over three years, she was released from legal imprisonment in Canada on Saturday. Officials, Huawei employees, and health officials wearing Personal Protective Equipment suits met her when she arrived at Shenzhen airport on a special jet organized by the government.

Two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor, who were arrested in China in December 2018 in a tit-for-tat retaliation to Meng’s arrest, were taken out of prison and flown to Canada around the time her flight left Shenzhen, in what observers described as “hostage diplomacy.” Both Canadians have been charged with endangering China’s national security. Some vital Canadian goods were also halted in China. Beijing has maintained that their detentions have nothing to do with Meng’s case.

Significantly, there has been no official announcement from China about their release, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed their freedom. Following Meng’s arrest, the two were taken into custody. Beijing detained Kovrig, a consultant, and Spavor, an analyst and former Canadian ambassador, and modified Canadian drug smuggler Robert Lloyd Schellenberg’s 15-year prison sentence to death.

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