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Opinion | Why the Meng Wanzhou saga may not be the last of its kind
- The misguided anger and recklessness Donald Trump hijacked is still simmering in the US and elsewhere, including China – albeit for different reasons
- China’s development momentum and the US abuse of state power are a highly combustible mix, and that fundamental has not changed
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The US has ended its extradition case against Meng Wanzhou, and Huawei’s chief financial officer is now free after being detained in Canada for nearly three years. She arrived back in Shenzhen to a hero’s welcome. The outpouring of support has been massive; her case struck a chord with many people, as it should.
Huawei was pulling ahead in 5G technology, seen as perhaps the next big thing to redefine industry, commerce, finance, and life in general.
At the height of the US-China trade war, the Trump administration gambled on Meng’s extraordinary detention, betting that this could help it destroy Huawei and give it a bargaining chip to extract more trade concessions from China.
Euphemistically, Meng’s extradition case was trumped up in an evidentiary vacuum. Realistically, it was gangsterism initiated by a vain, insecure bully who happened to be occupying the White House.
As former US president Donald Trump often boasted, “I alone can fix it.” Yes, he did things his own way, and nothing stroked his fragile and outsize ego quite like such a bullying stunt to shock the world.
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How the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou soured China's relations with the US and Canada
How the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou soured China's relations with the US and Canada
But this was not Trump’s doing alone. He had a voter base that enabled him, a minority of the US population that is entitled, angry and apparently free from the need for facts and responsibility.
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