A case of international intrigue ends as three prisoners return home<\/p>\n
Hi there, I’m Jeff and you are listening to Plain English, where you can upgrade your English while learning about current events and trending topics. JR is the producer, as always, and he has uploaded this full lesson to PlainEnglish.com\/411. <\/p>\n
Coming up today\u2026the case of three people caught up in a controversy of global proportions. A high-profile tech executive in China and two Canadians named Michael lived in detention for over 1,000 days. They were pawns in a global conflict between America, China, and Canada. Today and on Monday, we’ll talk about what happened and how they came home. The English expression we’ll review today is “against your will.” And we have a song of the week from JR.<\/p>\n
This is a story of three people caught up in the American-Chinese rivalry. Meng Wanzhou is the chief financial officer (the CFO) of Huawei, a Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. Michael Spavor is a Canadian who formed a non-governmental organization (an NGO), that supports cultural and business exchanges between China and North Korea. And Michael Kovrig is a former<\/a> Canadian diplomat who works at a pro-peace think tank.<\/p>\n They all have something in common: they were detained by a foreign government and held for over 1,000 days. They also have this in common: they went home on September 24, 2021. Here’s what happened.<\/p>\n Relations between the U.S. and China have been strained for some time. The U.S. accuses China of human rights violations, intellectual property theft, and unfair trade practices. China, for its part, believes the U.S. is interfering in its domestic policies and is unfairly trying to prevent China from rising to great-power status politically, technologically, and economically. One of the flashpoints in the strained relationship is a company called Huawei. <\/p>\n Some of you may have Huawei phones. Huawei is the world’s second-largest<\/a> manufacturer of smartphones, behind Samsung. But the company also makes something else: the critical network equipment needed to support Internet and cell phone service, including the new 5G wireless connection that carriers are eager to roll out<\/a> .<\/p>\n Huawei is a privately held company; it is not owned by the government. Still, the U.S. government suspects that<\/a> there may be secret ways for the company or China to spy on activity that takes place<\/a> using Huawei data transfer equipment. The company insists that this isn’t possible and that it would never share customer data with the Chinese government in any case. Regardless, under<\/a> both the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. has tried to pressure countries to use other suppliers for its upgrade to 5G networking.<\/p>\n In addition to this, the U.S. alleges that Huawei purposely lied to a bank to get around<\/a> economic sanctions against Iran. The sanctions prevent banks from making loans and facilitating payments to companies working in Iran. Banks that use the American financial system are not allowed to work with companies with ties to Iran. And banking customers must truthfully disclose their activities and relationships to their banks, so the banks can follow the rules.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Huawei lied to its bank, HSBC. The allegations say that Huawei told HSBC that certain economic activity was for itself when really it was for a subsidiary that did business in Iran. If that really happened, then those false statements would be bank fraud. <\/p>\n In December 2018, Meng Wanzhou, the CFO and daughter of Huawei’s founder, was traveling from China to Argentina to attend a conference. She changed planes in Vancouver, where she owns a home. When she got off the plane, Canadian police arrested her, acting on an American warrant. The charges were bank fraud.<\/p>\n China was furious. China believed that the arrest was political and that the U.S. was using her arrest as part of its geopolitical campaign against Huawei. But China wasn’t just furious with America for issuing the arrest warrant, they were furious with Canada for enforcing it.<\/p>\n Days later, two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were arrested in China and accused of spying and providing state secrets to external actors. It was clearly an act of retaliation against Canada.<\/p>\n For over 1,000 days, Ms. Meng was held in Vancouver, and the two Michaels were held in China, their fates intertwined. But they were not treated equally. Meng Wanzhou spent her days in one of her two multi-million-dollar mansions in Vancouver; though she had to wear an ankle bracelet, she was free to go out and wander the city during the day. She was monitored around the clock by private security. To add insult to injury, she had to pay for the security guards. She took English lessons with an online tutor to pass the time. She also spent her days oil painting, reading, and working, according to Huawei. Her husband and family were able to visit.<\/p>\n This isn’t to say her life was a breeze, she was still facing the possibility of a trial in an American court, and she was detained against her will<\/a> in a country not her own. But she had a team of American lawyers, Canadian lawyers, and Chinese lawyers working on her case and living in her neighborhood. Most people convicted of these crimes don’t face any jail time.<\/p>\n The two Michaels did not live in a mansion in China during their detention, and they did not have international teams of lawyers fighting on their behalf<\/a> . They couldn’t even talk to their families on the phone, much less see them in person. They were moved to detention facilities, where they faced harsh conditions, including up to<\/a> eight hours of interrogation per day and lights on 24 hours. The two Michaels weren’t placed together. They were allowed very limited visits from Canadian consular services: one brief visit every couple of months. <\/p>\n