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  1. #1
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Trump Team Works to Insulate China Talks From Huawei Case

    Trump Team Works to Insulate China Talks From Huawei Case

    By Shawn Donnan
    and Jenny Leonard
    December 9, 2018, 12:50 PM EST Updated on December 9, 2018, 10:48 PM EST

    Lighthizer declares March 1 a ‘hard deadline’ for trade truce
    U.S. ambassador Branstad summoned for Beijing tongue-lashing

    President Donald Trump’s trade team sought to insulate talks with China from a growing dispute over the U.S. pursuit of a Huawei executive on Sunday, but struggled to address financial markets’ fears that a fragile truce with Beijing was at risk.

    The rush of televised interviews with Trump aides ahead of the opening of markets in Asia came amid signs that the dispute over the Dec. 1 arrest in Canada of Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was continuing to escalate.

    They also illustrated the awkward balancing act the Trump administration faces as it tries to maintain pressure on Beijing over what many in the U.S. business community see as legitimate concerns over China’s technology policies.

    The administration has to satisfy both its hawkish instincts and the exigencies of domestic politics, as well as address the growing fears in markets evident last week about the consequences of an all-out trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

    Jitters Over Arrest

    The news of Meng’s arrest in Canada contributed to increasing alarm in financial markets about the lack of specifics in a trade truce announced after Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping dined together in Buenos Aires at the Group of 20 meeting. Under the terms disclosed, Trump agreed to pause increasing tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days while negotiations got under way.

    But Meng’s arrest in Vancouver on the same day the leaders were meeting has prompted alarm in Beijing, where U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad was summoned on Sunday to explain the U.S. request for the executive’s extradition. The White House has insisted that Trump didn’t know beforehand about the arrest, which was first reported on Dec. 5.

    A U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Beijing confirmed that Branstad was called into the foreign ministry on Sunday night, but declined to provide further details.

    Meanwhile at home, the Trump administration is facing growing bipartisan calls from Congress to prosecute a broader case against Huawei that would ban U.S. companies from doing business with China’s largest telecommunications equipment company.

    Security Concerns

    Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Sunday said he’d introduce legislation that would bar Huawei from doing business in the U.S.. At a minimum, Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the U.S. Commerce Department should ban American suppliers from selling to Huawei, as it did for Chinese rival ZTE Corp. earlier this year before reaching a settlement over the company’s repeated violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

    “Both Huawei and ZTE and multiple other Chinese companies pose a threat to our national interest, our national economic interest and our national security interest,” Rubio said.

    Speaking on the same show, Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, said he opposed a total ban on Huawei and insisted that the arrest of Meng was a “criminal justice matter” unrelated to trade talks with Beijing.

    “It is totally separate from anything that I work on,’’ Lighthizer said.

    That message was reinforced by Larry Kudlow, the head of Trump’s National Economic Council, who told Fox News that the Huawei case and the trade discussions were different “and I think President Trump and President Xi will continue to keep that difference.”

    Trade Talks Safe?

    Peter Navarro, a White House trade adviser, also told Fox News that he was confident Lighthizer would be able to negotiate a deal. He also dismissed concerns in financial markets and in the business community about the impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy, and said the possibility of the trade war escalating was a “false narrative.”

    Last week’s sharp decline in markets -- the benchmark S&P 500 stock index in the U.S. sank 4.6 percent, its biggest drop since March -- had more to do with Federal Reserve interest rate hikes than trade, Navarro said, continuing the administration’s public criticism of the U.S. central bank. “The Fed went too far too fast,” he said.

    “We should be optimistic” about the possibility of a deal with China,” Navarro said. “But the markets shouldn’t pin their hopes on that, because that’s not what this is all about.”

    Lighthizer, who like Navarro is seen as a China hawk, set a high bar for a deal and played down the possibility of extending the tariff truce agreed in Buenos Aires beyond March 1.

    Changes Demanded

    U.S. concerns over Chinese intellectual property practices went back to the administration of George H.W. Bush, he said, and China had made commitments many times before that it had failed to live up to.

    Lighthizer warned that the U.S. would proceed with increasing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent if meaningful ”structural changes” related to China’s technology policies and additional market access for U.S. exports weren’t forthcoming by then.

    Trump shared his view of the negotiating time frame being limited to a firm three months, he said. “When I talk to the president of the United States he is not talking about going beyond March. He is talking about getting a deal if there is a deal to be done in the next 90 days,” Lighthizer told CBS.

    Right now it’s unclear exactly how trade talks with China will proceed. It’s even possible that both sides might talk over phone and email rather than hold formal meetings, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified.

    The president last week opened the door a potential extension of the negotiating time frame. Other members of Trump’s trade team, including Kudlow, have said a tariff escalation could be further delayed if sufficient progress was made after 90 days.

    China Summons U.S. Ambassador Over Huawei CFO

    China has summoned the U.S. Ambassador in a protest over the arrest of Huawei CFO. Stephen Engle reports.

    Derek Scissors, a China expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said China’s formal protests about the Huawei case were not necessarily a sign that the broader trade talks would disintegrate.

    But Lighthizer’s portrayal of March 1 as a hard deadline wasn’t encouraging, said Scissors, calling the time frame “unrealistic for anything substantial to happen” given the complexity of the issues.

    “If the US really does hold to that, the talks are either going to produce fake outcomes or they are dead already,” he said.

    — With assistance by Ben Brody, and Peter Martin

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...om-huawei-case
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    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Jailed Huawei executive will learn her fate Monday as China demands her release

    By Julia Horowitz, CNN Business
    Updated 10:35 PM ET, Sun December 9, 2018

    New York (CNN Business)China's anger is growing over the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive wanted by the United States. What happens next will be decided Monday by a Canadian court.

    Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has been detained in Vancouver since December 1 and faces extradition to the United States. She's accused of helping Huawei, one of the world's biggest makers of smartphones and networking equipment, dodge US sanctions on Iran, according to Canadian prosecutors.

    The arrest of Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, has put a new strain on the tense relationship between Washington and Beijing just as the two sides are trying to negotiate an end to their damaging trade war. It has also highlighted the intensifying clash over technology between the world's top two economies.

    Meng appeared in court in Vancouver on Friday at a hearing to determine whether she should be released on bail. The judge, after hearing arguments from Meng's lawyer and the prosecutors, didn't make a decision. The hearing is set to resume Monday.

    The Chinese government has started ramping up the pressure on the United States and Canada over the arrest, demanding Meng's release.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry said over the weekend that it had summoned both US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad and Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum to address Meng's detention, which it described as "lawless, reasonless and ruthless."

    Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng warned that Canada would face "serious consequences" if it did not release Meng immediately and expressed "strong protest against the US's unreasonable direction to Canada" to detain her.

    Health concerns

    Meng, 46, is a high-profile executive at one of China's most important tech companies. In addition to her role as CFO, she serves as a deputy chairperson on Huawei's board.

    The United States alleges that Meng helped Huawei get around US sanctions on Iran by telling financial institutions that a Huawei subsidiary was a separate company, according to Canadian prosecutors. The US Justice Department has declined to comment on the case.

    Much rides on the outcome of her bail hearing, which continues Monday. US stocks plunged last week, in part because of Meng's arrest and uncertainty about what it means for the trade talks between the United States and China. Asian markets fell at the open on Monday and US stock futures were pointing lower.

    Meng's attorney David Martin argued in court Friday that she should be released on bail while she waits for an extradition hearing because of health concerns including severe hypertension.

    She was taken to a hospital to be treated for hypertension after she was arrested, Reuters reported Sunday, citing court documents.

    Martin also said Meng has ties to Canada and is not a flight risk. Her links to Vancouver go back at least 15 years and she has significant property holdings in the city, he added.

    Meng's family is seeking to remain in Vancouver if she's released on bail, according to Martin. Her husband is proposing to bring their daughter to Vancouver for school during the trial.

    Huawei hopeful courts will reach 'right conclusion'

    Martin also claimed the case against Meng had not been fully laid out, even though the United States signed off on her arrest warrant months ago. A US federal judge issued a warrant for her arrest on August 22.

    The attorney argued that Meng wouldn't breach any court order to remain in Canada because doing so would embarrass her personally, and would also humiliate her father, Huawei and China itself.

    In a statement after the hearing, Huawei said: "We will continue to follow the bail hearing on Monday. We have every confidence that the Canadian and US legal systems will reach the right conclusion."

    The company has said it was "not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng" and that it "complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates."

    Should Meng's extradition to the United States go ahead, the process could take months.

    The United States has 60 days from the date of a provisional arrest to provide Canada with its formal extradition request and supporting documents. Canada's Justice Department then has 30 days to weigh the request and greenlight an extradition hearing in which the request is weighed by a judge.

    Alberto Moya, Scott McLean, Jethro Mullen, Yong Xiong and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/09/tech/...ons/index.html
    Last edited by Judy; 12-10-2018 at 05:59 AM.
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