Nov 22, 2021
In December of 2018, Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were arrested in China, allegedly on spying charges. This happened days after Canada's detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US. Meng was accused of lying to British bank HSBC about Huawei's affiliate Skycom and its connections to Iran, which put the bank afoul of US sanctions. Meng fought the US's extradition request, and in September 2021, the Biden administration worked out a deferred prosecution agreement with Meng in return for her admission that she misled HSBC about Huawei's relationship with Skycom. In this episode of China Unscripted, we are joined by Fen Hampson, the chancellor’s professor at Carleton University and president of the World Refugee & Migration Council, and Mike Blanchfield, the international affairs writer for The Canadian Press. They are the authors of the book: The Two Michaels: Innocent Canadian Captives and High Stakes Espionage in the US-China Cyber War.