How three prisoners from China and Canada returned home after over 1,000 days
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where you can upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is lesson number 412. JR, the producer, has uploaded the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/402.
Today, we’ll continue the story of Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels. If you haven’t listened to Lesson 411 , go ahead, and do that now. That lesson features the first half of the story that you’ll need to understand today’s lesson. But to summarize… in December 2018, the chief financial officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada, charged with violating economic sanctions against Iran . In retaliation, China arrested two Canadians and charged them with espionage. Each side held their respective prisoners for almost three years. In today’s lesson, we’ll talk about how they all made it safely home.
Three prisoners go home in a non-exchange
Where we left off last week, Meng Wanzhou was detained in Vancouver. The U.S. Department of Justice believed she lied to her bank about business dealings Huawei had in Iran. You’ll remember that she was arrested and detained at her vacation home in Vancouver, Canada while awaiting extradition to the United States.
Meanwhile , the U.S. Department of Justice was negotiating with Ms. Meng and her lawyers on the charges against her. In legal cases like this, there isn’t always a trial. There is sometimes a settlement. In a settlement, the person who is charged admits to some amount of wrongdoing and agrees to a penalty. In exchange, there isn’t a trial, and the penalty is often less than the maximum that would otherwise have been doled out.
The U.S. wanted Ms. Meng to admit that she had misled her bank about her ties to Iran, but for years she wasn’t willing to do so . However, just before a Canadian judge was scheduled to rule on her extradition, she changed her position. She agreed to sign a statement of facts. In this statement of facts, she admitted to most of the allegations against her. In exchange, the United States agreed to what is called a “Deferred Prosecution Agreement.” Under this agreement, they agreed not to prosecute her for these crimes, unless she breaks additional laws in the future.
In other words, if she admitted to misleading HSBC, her bank, then she would be released. And, so, that is what happened. She agreed to the statement of facts and prosecutors agreed to let her go back to China.
On Friday afternoon, September 24, she went to the airport in Vancouver to return home. At 4:30 pm, wearing a black polka-dot dress, she boarded an Air China flight headed for Beijing. The Chinese ambassador to Canada was on board, as were several Huawei executives.
Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the Canadians arrested in China, didn’t initially fare as well. As you learned last time , their detention facilities were not luxury vacation homes. But just minutes after Meng Wanzhou left Vancouver, a plane carrying the two Michaels departed from Beijing, heading for Canada. In fact , their release was so rushed, they weren’t even told they were going home until minutes before they boarded the plane. About an hour later, Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, told his country the good news.
Somewhere over the Pacific, the two planes would have passed each other, one carrying a Chinese citizen to Beijing, the other carrying two Canadian citizens to Calgary. Their lives were different, their charges were different, and certainly, their experiences in detention were very, very different. But they were all caught up in a three-way international drama, and all three returned to their homes on September 24.
In Beijing, Ms. Meng was given a hero’s welcome, as throngs of cheering citizens greeted her back in her native country. In Canada, Justin Trudeau met the two Michaels on the tarmac in Calgary, Alberta to welcome them home.
The standoff is resolved, but tensions remain. First, on the list… did China take the two Michaels hostage in retaliation? As an observer, I would have to say the answer is obviously yes. The two Canadians were arrested right after Ms. Meng was arrested, and they were freed just minutes after her plane left Canada.
Both America and Canada, however, are going out of their way to say this was not a hostage exchange. They insist that the U.S. and Canada made independent judicial decisions about Ms. Weng’s case. In a completely unrelated matter, they were advocating for the release of the two Michaels. Coincidentally, both matters were resolved just minutes apart.
The U.S. and Canada don’t want this to seem like a hostage exchange because of the message that would send to other countries around the world. If this were widely seen as a hostage situation, then China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Belarus, or other adversaries would know that they could also get what they want by just taking citizens hostage and mistreating them for a few years. Therefore, the U.S. and Canada are maintaining an official fiction that the two cases were unrelated.
What did the U.S. get out of this ordeal? The statement of facts signed by Ms. Meng might help in the government’s broader case against Huawei, both officially in court and unofficially in the global opinion. (Already, three quarters of Canadians oppose using Huawei’s 5G networking equipment.) This may also deter other companies from misleading banks regarding economic sanctions in the future.
What did China get out of this ordeal? China sent its own message to smaller countries. In the future, small countries might be forced to take sides in a conflict between the U.S. and China. So, China made sure that small countries know that if they choose the wrong side, then their citizens visiting or living in China will pay the price.
Dig deeper
If you liked this story, go to the transcript and at the very bottom of the page. You’ll see a link to a great podcast episode from The Wall Street Journal about this topic. They interview a reporter who did a lot of original reporting on both sides, and especially surrounding the final moments when the deal came together. It’s a good episode if you want to hear more about the topic.
By the way, that goes for all of our lessons. If you like the topic, go to the bottom of the transcript and you’ll see links to English articles I use to prepare the lesson. It’s a great way to get more vocabulary and practice the topics you enjoy the most. And it’s available to anyone logged in as a member of any level, including the free level.
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