China has
demanded that Canada release the arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou or face
consequences.
Vice Foreign
Minister Le Yucheng separately summoned both the US and Canadian ambassadors
and lodged a "strong protest" urging her release.
The ministry
described Ms Meng's arrest as "extremely nasty".
Ms Meng,
Huawei's chief financial officer and daughter of the firm's founder, is accused
of breaking US sanctions on Iran.
She was held
in Vancouver last Saturday and faces extradition to the US, where she could be
jailed for up to 30 years if found guilty.
China
insists that she has not violated any laws.
On Friday Ms
Meng appeared before a Canadian court, which adjourned a decision on whether or
not to allow bail until Monday.
What has
China said?
Ms Meng's
arrest while she was changing planes in Vancouver last Saturday was a serious
breach of her rights, Reuters quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
It
"ignored the law" and was "unreasonable", it said.
"China
strongly urges the Canadian side to immediately release the detained person...
otherwise Canada must accept full responsibility for the serious consequences
caused," the statement added.
On Sunday,
Le Yucheng made similar demands to the US, warning: "China will respond
further depending on US actions."
What
happened during Friday's court appearance?
The Supreme
Court of British Columbia was told that Ms Meng had used a Huawei subsidiary
called Skycom to evade sanctions on Iran between 2009 and 2014.
The court
was told that she had publicly misrepresented Skycom as being a separate
company.
It heard a
Canadian prosecutor say that Ms Meng was accused of "conspiracy to defraud
multiple financial institutions".
The
prosecutor said she had denied to US bankers any direct connections between
Huawei and SkyCom, when in fact "SkyCom is Huawei".
Ms Meng
could be a flight risk and thus should be denied bail, he added.
Why was the
arrest significant?
The arrest
has put further strain on US-China relations. The two countries have been
locked in trade disputes, although a 90-day truce had been agreed on Saturday -
before news of the arrest came to light on Wednesday.
Huawei is
one of the largest telecommunications equipment and services providers in the
world, recently passing Apple to become the second-biggest smartphone maker
after Samsung.
Canadian
Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Friday that China had been assured
that due process was being followed and Ms Meng would have consular access
while her case was before the courts.
Ms Freeland
reiterated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that Ms Meng's arrest had
"no political involvement".
Who is Meng
Wanzhou?
Meng
Wanzhou, 46, joined Huawei as early as 1993, when she began a career at her
father's company as a receptionist.
After she
graduated with a master's degree in accountancy from the Huazhong University of
Science and Technology in 1999, she joined the finance department of Huawei.
She became
the company's chief finance officer in 2011 and was promoted to vice-chair a
few months before her arrest.
Ms Meng's
links to her father, Ren Zhengfei, were not known to the public until a few
years ago.
In a
practice highly unusual in Chinese tradition, she adopted her family name not
from her father but her mother, Meng Jun, who was Mr Ren's first wife.
Some Western
governments fear Beijing will gain access to fifth-generation (5G) mobile and
other communications networks through Huawei and expand its spying ability,
although the firm insists there is no government control.
Japan is
expected to ban government use of products made by Huawei and ZTE over
cybersecurity concerns, local media reported on Friday. It would follow moves
by New Zealand and Australia to block Huawei.
US National
Security Adviser John Bolton said his country has had "enormous concerns
for years" about the practice of Chinese firms "to use stolen
American intellectual property, to engage in forced technology transfers, and
to be used as arms of the Chinese government's objectives in terms of
information technology in particular".
"Not
respecting this particular arrest, but Huawei is one company we've been
concerned about," he said.
What are the
Iran sanctions?
US President
Donald Trump last month reinstated all the US sanctions on Iran that had been
removed under a 2015 nuclear deal.
Mr Trump had
been fiercely opposed to the deal, which saw Iran limit its controversial
nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The
re-imposed sanctions hit oil exports, shipping and banks - all core parts of
Iran's economy.
Although
there are some waivers, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the US
will "aggressively" target any firm or organisation "evading our
sanctions".
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