My Take | US fears China may turn extradition tables
- Consul general knows how Washington bosses go after foreign enemies and rivals, and is worried Beijing might learn from the master
US Consul General Kurt Tong’s warning about the government’s extradition bill is laughable and self-serving. He is psychologically projecting the widespread use and abuse of extradition and extrajudicial rendition by Washington to go after foreign rivals and enemies under the guise of American laws.
Western critics habitually round on Asian governments’ use the law to silence critics and opponents. That’s true. But few countries – rather no country – can match America for this type of “lawfare” against foreigners.
It’s true that the bill as it currently stands has problems, but these are issues that Hong Kong and mainland people are capable of resolving among ourselves. And Americans should be the last to talk about extradition abuse. A case in point: Huawei. Anti-China individuals and other gullible people tend to buy into the US propaganda that the case against the telecoms giant’s No 2, Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, is a law-and-order case after the “commie princess” allegedly defrauded banks to break American sanctions against Iran.
But you need to place this extradition case, now being played out in a Canadian court, in context. This means looking at the history of American prosecutions against dozens of other multinationals for breaching sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and asking why these habitually targeted the company, but not a single executive.
This also means looking at the long history of the American war on Huawei dating back a decade and which continues and actually intensifies today. Just as Meng appeared in a Vancouver court this week to fight extradition, Tong’s boss, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was blasting the British government for refusing to exclude her company from its 5G network development and threatening to cut off security and intelligence sharing.
