White House, seat of the Presidency of the United States (Photo: Disclosure)
The White House said on Monday that the near-simultaneous release of a senior executive at Chinese company Huawei and two Canadians detained shortly after his arrest was not a prisoner exchange, but said the two cases were mentioned during a phone call between the presidents. from China and the United States a few weeks ago.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou returned to China from Canada on Friday after signing a deal with U.S. prosecutors to close a bank fraud case, which was a hot spot between China and the United States.
Within hours of news of the deal, the two Canadians who had been arrested shortly after the executive’s arrest were released in China and returned to Canada. China has denied the arrests have any connection.
When asked if the White House would be involved in negotiating a “prisoner swap,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the premise.
An agreement reached between the prosecutor’s office and Meng was “an action of the Ministry of Justice, which is an independent Ministry of Justice. This is a law enforcement problem,” Psaki said, adding : “There is no link”.
But Psaki also confirmed that in a phone call on September 9, Chinese leader Xi Jinping raised the case and that US President Joe Biden lobbied for the release of two Canadians, businessman Michael. Spavor and his former ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig, who had been detained in China for more than 1,000 days.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Steve Holland, Michael Martina, Jeff Mason, David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis)
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