The kidnapping of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou
by Andre Damon - WSWS
8 December 2018
Washington is calling for her extradition to the US.
The claims by US officials that the move has “nothing to do with a trade war” are transparent lies, dismissed even by the media defenders of the action.
Meng’s arrest on December 1 and confinement on tendentious and opaque charges potentially carrying a sentence of 60 years amount to little more than a kidnapping.
The British Financial Times, obviously unnerved by its ally’s action, called the move “provocative,” describing it as,
“the use of American power to pursue political and economic ends rather than straightforward law enforcement.”
It is, in other words, an act of gangsterism, intended to send a message to “allies” and “enemies” alike: do the United States’ bidding or you will end up like Meng, or worse. In pursuit of its geopolitical aims, the United States functions as a rogue state, violating international law with wanton abandon.
It is the chief protagonist in an international descent into lawlessness that recalls the conditions of great power conflict and criminality that led to World War II. The US imposes unilateral and illegal sanctions on any country it deems an obstacle to its hegemonic agenda, and then employs the methods of terror to punish those who defy its dictates.
But after news of Meng’s arrest stunned the world, the New York Times dropped another bombshell the next morning. As Donald Trump was sitting down to dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping last Saturday to arrange a “truce” in the US-China trade war, the US president was unaware that the unprecedented arrest was about to take place. This was despite the fact that figures such as Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator Richard Burr, as well as National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, were alerted to the arrest.
Asked why he did not tell the president, Bolton, who was with Trump at the meeting with Xi, declared inexplicably, “we certainly don’t inform the president on every” notification from the Justice Department.
Meng’s arrest has upended any prospect of a truce in the trade war between the United States and China. The Financial Times warned that,
“That entente already looked likely to come unstuck. After Ms. Meng’s arrest, the deadline for progress looks like a time bomb.”
The fact that such a provocative action could take place, according to the semi-official narrative, without the knowledge of the American president, makes one thing abundantly clear: The US conflict with China is not the product of Trump’s personality or his particular brand of “America First” populism. Rather, a substantial section of not only Trump’s administration, but of the permanent or “deep” state of the intelligence bureaucracy, as well as leading lawmakers, have signed on to Trump’s aggressive anti-China policy.
Responding to news of the arrest, Senator Warner, a leading proponent of internet censorship by US technology companies, praised the action, declaring:
“It has been clear for some time that Huawei… poses a threat to our national security.”
He added, “It’s my hope that the Trump administration will hold Huawei fully accountable for breaking sanctions law.”
Other figures close to the Democrats were quick to praise the move, even going so far as to condemn Trump for not being hard enough on China.
“For too long, American leaders have failed to respond adequately to China’s increasing assertiveness,” wrote New York Times columnist David Leonhardt.
“A more hawkish policy toward China makes sense.”
None of the three leading American newspapers—the Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal —published a single commentary in the least bit critical of the White House’s criminal action.
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