OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has doubled down on extraordinary remarks by his ambassador to China who said Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has “quite good” and “strong arguments” to fight extradition from Canada to the United States.In a series of surprisingly frank comments, John McCallum revealed new details about the strain Meng’s arrest has placed on Canada-China relations, his opinion that her legal chances of fighting the extradition are very good, and allied’ pressure Canada faces to ban Huawei.Speaking to mostly Chinese-language media in his former riding, McCallum expressed regret over the “difficult situation” and hope that if the U.S. cuts a deal with China in which it dropped Meng’s extradition, that China would release two detained Canadians.“I think she has quite good arguments on her side: one, political involvement by comments from Donald Trump in her case; two, there’s an extraterritorial aspect to her case; and three, there’s the issue of Iran sanctions, which are involved in her case, and Canada does not sign onto these Iran sanctions,” said McCallum.“So I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge, and then the judge will decide whether he thinks — he or she thinks that she should be extradited or not.McCallum revealed new details of how angrily China’s leader reacted to Canada’s arrest of Meng.“What I do know is that President Xi Jinping was very angry about this. And so others in the Chinese government have taken the lead from him. And — and I don’t know exactly why. Maybe it is because Huawei is a national flagship company of China. And so it’s not just any company; it’s a special Chinese company, so maybe that is why he is so angry, or there may be other reasons that I don’t know.”McCallum said when the foreign ministry summoned him after the Meng arrest to fo ...
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