孟晚舟案秘密“换囚”内幕与美中角力的转折
• 华尔街日报
「孟晚舟事件是日益激烈的美中角力的一个转折点，标志著两国关系从相互戒备转向全面敌对。」
华尔街日报记者 Drew Hinshaw / Joe Parkinson / Aruna Viswanatha
2021年9月24日，华为首席财务官孟晚舟于团队步离加拿大温哥华的寓所。摄：Jimmy Jeong/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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两辆囚车驶入天津滨海国际机场航站楼，车上有两名加拿大人，他们被蒙住眼睛，不辨方向。先前两人已被囚禁了1019天。
在洒满月光的停机坪上，一架没有标志的美国湾流（Gulfstream）飞机等著载他们回家。不远处，加拿大驻华大使在铺著地毯的休息室里踱来踱去。
15个时区之外，一架国航波音777飞机在温哥华国际机场待命。加拿大皇家骑警的武装警官在候机楼里守候。一位脚踩Manolo Blahnik高跟鞋的中国高管从他们身边阔步走过，她身穿Carolina Herrera连衣裙，颜色与中国国旗一般鲜红，她身后跟著一群律师、助手和外交官，他们称呼她孟女士。她也要回家了。
经过三年的绝密谈判，近年来外交史上意义最重大的换囚行动之一正在进行之中。
在天津机场，一名中国官员打电话确认这名女子通过了温哥华航站楼。随后他将两名加拿大囚犯放行。加拿大驻华大使从一个黄色信封中取出二人的护照，并将他们带到一个出入境检查口。
一名中国工作人员在他们的护照上盖了章，并引导他们走到跑道上。
孟晚舟2018年在加拿大被捕时担任中国华为技术有限公司（Huawei Technologies Co.）首席财务官，那时，这家由她父亲创立的通信设备巨头正准备在全球多数大型经济体的5G网络建设竞标中大展拳脚。加拿大应美国的要求在不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华拘押了孟晚舟，美国对孟晚舟提出银行欺诈指控。
孟晚舟今年50岁，是知名商界女强人。她被拘押以及美国为引渡她到纽约受审而采取的种种行动，使她在中国摇身成为民族英雄，成为美国对华敌意日益加深的一个符号。
几天后，作为对孟晚舟被捕事件的反制，两名加拿大人被中方扣押。50岁的康明凯（Michael Kovrig）当时正处于从加拿大外交部暂时离岗的状态，在香港为国际危机组织（International Crisis Group）工作。46岁的斯帕弗（Michael Spavor）当时正经营一家帮助学生、运动员和学者访问朝鲜的机构。在被监禁和受到严厉对待期间，这两个加拿大人被新闻报导和西方领导人同情地称作“两个迈克尔”。两人都否认有任何不当行为。
孟晚舟被捕也成为日益激烈的美中权力角逐的转折点，推动双方关系从相互戒备转向全面敌对。与上个世纪的美苏冷战不同，这次冲突反映的是美国和中国为了控制国际数据流动并最终在全球商业中占据主导地位而进行的争斗。
要求释放被扣押者的谈判也让中国、美国和加拿大之间的关系变得紧张。每个国家都要应对本国的安全关切和国内政治压力。美国向中国领导人习近平施压，要求释放这两名加拿大人，并将二人被捕当做中国政府无视基于规则的国际秩序的证据。习近平则将孟晚舟被拘视为美国遏制中国发展的又一次卑鄙行动。
习近平针对孟晚舟案下达了100多条指示，他与两届美国总统都讨论过两位加拿大人的案件。在孟晚舟获释前，习近平拒绝释放两位加拿大人。加拿大被夹在中间左右为难。
加拿大驻华大使鲍达民（Dominic Barton）在大使馆机密室的白板前花了上百个小时，制定让这两名加拿大人获释的方案，并去监狱中探望他们。他用语速很快的英语传递加密资讯，知道偷听的警卫很难听懂。直到最后一刻，加拿大还在担心消息泄露或美国参议员的一句闲话会破坏这次交换。
本篇报导基于对美国、加拿大和中国现任和前任官员、律师和检察官、前华为高管、熟悉孟晚舟法律团队和孟晚舟下属的人，以及这三个国家的现任和前任外交官的采访。本报导引用了法庭文件、房地产和公司记录、机密外交电报、未公布的照片和参与谈判的政府官员的笔记。
中国驻纽约总领事馆的发言人未回答有关问题。中国外交部发言人曾表示，康明凯和斯帕弗是依据中国法律被拘留和审判的，他们的案件与孟晚舟被捕没有关系。
（一）第一个倒下的人
孟晚舟于2018年12月1日在温哥华著陆，她当时计划在那里只待几个小时。孟晚舟在四个城市拥有住宅，温哥华是其中之一。
这位华为首席财务官托运了七个行李箱，里面装满了在四个国家（包括墨西哥）开会的演示材料。墨西哥那时新上任的总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔（Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador）未理会美国的安全担忧，对华为在该国建设5G网络持开放态度。
孟晚舟还预定了前往布宜诺斯艾利斯的行程，要在那里与她的父亲、华为亿万富翁创始人任正非会合。任正非之前曾表示，他的三个孩子中没有一个拥有足够的远见来继承他的事业。孟晚舟代表她父亲的华为帝国走遍世界，似乎决心证明他是错的。
在孟晚舟走进香港国际机场时，有关她行程的消息通过一条安全线路传到了当时二十国集团（G20）峰会举办地布宜诺斯艾利斯的Palacio Duhau酒店。一位白宫律师在一间套房内的隔音帐篷里接听了电话。之后，这位律师叫醒了博尔顿（John Bolton），告诉他孟晚舟上路了。
作为时任特朗普（Donald Trump）政府的国家安全顾问，博尔顿十分清楚，抓捕孟晚舟可能会扰乱当晚的“特习会”晚宴，这是此次峰会的一场重头戏，但他认为值得冒险。博尔顿长期以来一直主张对华强硬。特朗普当时还不知道这个计划。后来，对于博尔顿是否将此事告诉了特朗普，或者此行动是否已向特朗普完全报备，白宫内部众说纷纭。
当孟晚舟搭上飞往温哥华的航班时，美国联邦调查局（FBI）特工传来了孟晚舟此行装扮的细节：一件黑色Abercrombie & Fitch连帽衫，深色运动裤，长发刚刚过肩。
联邦检察官以银行欺诈罪对孟晚舟和华为提起了密封起诉（sealed indictment），称孟晚舟曾帮助隐瞒该公司在伊朗的业务往来。证据是孟晚舟2013年在香港一家餐厅的包间内向汇丰控股有限公司（HSBC Holdings PLC, 0005.HK, HSBC, 简称﹕汇丰控股）一名高管展示的PPT演示文件。她在演示文件中称，华为没有违反美国对伊制裁。
这一指控的范围很窄，但将服务于一个更广泛的国家安全目标——帮助华盛顿说服美国盟友华为不可信。
在温哥华机场的一间会议室里，六名加拿大警官和边防警察研究了孟晚舟的照片。“没收孟身上的所有电子设备，以保留证据，因为FBI将会提出一项请求，”一名加拿大警员在笔记本上潦草地写道。
引渡孟晚舟的请求是美国政府以加密文件的形式发来的，加拿大当局花了一天多时间才解密。这一延迟意味著同样前往布宜诺斯艾利斯参加G20峰会的加拿大总理杜鲁多（Justin Trudeau）直到在警员们在温哥华机场65号登机口廊桥就位时才被告知美方的这一请求。
上午11点18分，国泰航空（Cathay Pacific Airways）的838号航班滑停在65号登机口。
两名边防警察把孟晚舟护送到一个柜台，在那里，另一名边防警察仔细检查了她的行李。警察提出了一些问题，其中包括：华为是否曾在伊朗销售过产品？他们没收了她的电子设备，并要求她提供密码。按照美国方面的要求，他们把孟晚舟的电子设备分别放入不同的安全袋。这些设备包括一部红色外壳的华为手机，一个黑粉色的256G U盘，一台粉色边框的MacBook以及一台贴有小熊维尼贴纸的iPad。在社交媒体上，小熊维尼有时被用来嘲讽习近平。
“你犯了欺诈罪，现在我们将逮捕你，然后你将被送回美国，”一名警官告诉孟晚舟。
“我？”她说。“你是说我在美国犯了欺诈罪？”
“我不知道细节，”另一名警官回答。“他们对你提出了欺诈指控，涉及你的公司，呃，华为？”
一名警官带著歉意说：“我们只是在协助美国。”
在警察局，孟晚舟被按了手印，她被允许打电话给一名律师，这是华为在仓促之间能找到的唯一会说中文的律师，是一位专利律师。当这名律师赶到警察局时，孟晚舟的呼吸变得剧烈而短促，这让警察很担心，他们将她送到了医院。
与此同时，特朗普和习近平正在布宜诺斯艾利斯吃著阿根廷西冷牛排，搭配2014年份的马尔贝克红酒。这场晚宴的目的是在不断升级的美中贸易战中达成休战协议。两人似乎都不知道孟晚舟被捕。坐在特朗普身边的博尔顿没有提及此事。
据中国政府官员透露，没过多久，习近平就知道了此事，这让他觉得受到了欺骗和侮辱。他刚刚同意采购更多的美国食品和能源。
据了解谈话内容的知情人士说，几天后，特朗普在白宫的一个圣诞晚宴上质问博尔顿。“你为什么要逮捕孟晚舟？”特朗普说。“难道你不知道她是中国的伊万卡·特朗普？”
12月6日，习近平回到北京时，中国外交部官员向他通报了孟晚舟被捕的情况。她被拘留，承受著巨大的精神压力。在《福布斯》（Forbes）杂志的2017中国最杰出商界女性排行榜上，孟晚舟位列第八。
中国公安部手上有一份加拿大人名单，公安部建议习近平从这份名单中挑选两个人。中国外交部在北京召见了加拿大驻华大使，并警告说中国将采取反制措施。
两天后，一名男子试图登上下午2点从中国东北的一个城市飞往韩国的航班，在被拦住后他向加拿大驻中国使馆打来电话。
斯帕弗说：“我正受到讯问。”
当天晚上，加拿大使馆又接到一个电话，是关于康明凯的。他在北京正走在路上，突然被塞进了一辆车里。
加拿大使馆官员等了好几个小时，想获得二人的消息，希望中国有关部门能够释放他们。然后，使馆办公室的传真机响了起来，这预示著事情麻烦了。因为传真是中国外交部喜好用的沟通方式。这台传真机接连发出电文，告知两名涉嫌威胁中国国家安全的加拿大公民被拘留。
加拿大大使在北京与相关官员会面。中方官员要求释放孟晚舟。其中一位中国官员表示，解铃还需系铃人。
一个月后在大雪纷飞的魁北克，杜鲁多在内阁集思会上确立了加拿大政府的立场。那就是逮捕无辜的加拿大公民不会迫使加拿大释放孟晚舟。
杜鲁多对内阁成员表示：“加拿大不接受霸凌。”
杜鲁多是一位自由党领导人，在公开场合有时会表现得有些少年气，但也有强硬的一面。就在他上任之前，伊斯兰国（Islamic State）武装分子绑架了两名加拿大老人。后来，杜鲁多拒绝支付赎金，两人被斩首。
杜鲁多在该内阁会议上说，这是他出任总理以来的最糟糕时刻，但这是正确的决定。
当加拿大驻华大使在公开讲话中说孟晚舟有充分理由反对引渡后，他被杜鲁多解雇了。
为了使孟晚舟获释，华为组建了一个由十多名律师组成的团队，其中不乏一些企业界收费最高的律师。这些人一致认为，孟晚舟被不公平地卷入了美中竞争。
出庭律师Reid Weingarten是华为招募的律师之一，他在2019年初与美国司法部官员会面时带了一份报告。该报告详细说明了辩护团队认为孟晚舟会轻松胜诉的原因。Weingarten之前的客户包括高盛集团（Goldman Sachs Group Inc., GS）的贝兰克梵（Lloyd Blankfein），以及被定罪的性犯罪者爱泼斯坦（Jeffrey Epstein）等。
孟晚舟的律师们表示，将一份六年前的PowerPoint演示文稿提升到银行欺诈指控的层面，这是美国司法部会后悔的不自量力的行为。一些人对检方对该案进行审判的意愿表示怀疑。
然而，他们发现迅速解决问题的希望渺茫。负责该案的联邦检察官们很有信心。如果孟晚舟想认罪，他们愿意谈判，否则就法庭上见。
对白宫来说，该案关系重大。华为是争夺5G控制权的对手，5G无线网络预计将为全球数以十亿计的设备传输数据。这是一场美国不想输掉的较量。
华为5G设备（天线、基站和路由器）不仅比西方竞争对手交付速度更快，而且价格更便宜。该公司当时已经成为世界领先企业。与具有百年历史的通讯设备对手诺基亚公司（Nokia Co., NOK）和爱立信（Ericsson, ERIC）相比，华为是后起之秀。
美国国家安全官员认为华为正在建立可能被中国用来进行全球监听的架构。这些官员对这一危险深信不疑，其他国家认为相关危险是可以控制的。
2009年，美国网络间谍潜入了该公司的网络。美国联邦调查局的分析员担心中国政府可能利用这些网络进行间谍活动，于是向上司发出了警报。美国国防部官员敦促美国电信公司不要使用华为设备。2012年国会的一项调查断定，中国可能利用华为设备进行间谍活动，但没有找到明确的证据证明中国存在这样的行为。
到了特朗普政府时期，华为已经建立了令竞争对手似乎难以超越的领先地位。一份在情报官员中流传的分析报告警告说，华为可能将控制全球80%的5G设备市场。国家安全官员担心，这将为中国提供一个监听工具，有可能收集从核电站蓝图到北大西洋公约组织（North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 简称﹕北约）军事计划的各种机密。
国防官员和外交官与美国最亲密的外国伙伴接触，推动对华为的禁令。华为则派出了自己的游说代表、律师和公关公司，声称从未进行过间谍活动，将来也不会进行。华为向特朗普政府提出挑战，要求披露其声称掌握的证据，美国称这些材料是机密，要保护材料来源和获取方法。
白宫转而提供了一点微弱的证据。即2017年北京出台的一项情报法，规定“任何组织和公民都应当支持、协助和配合国家情报工作”。
特朗普政府主张，华为从事间谍活动是受到法律要求的。华为反驳说，该法只在中国适用。
美国外交官将该法打印出来带到世界各地的盟友那里，大声读给被夹在两个超级大国的较量之间左右为难的官员听。英国、韩国、德国、意大利、墨西哥和加拿大在要求禁用华为的压力下退缩了。一些国家在这场不断升级的行动面前不知所措。
华为说自己是一个中国的成功故事，其创始人的动机不是与美国竞争，而是对美国的钦佩。
任正非曾是一名军队工程师，1987年开始在深圳的一间公寓里销售通讯开关；深圳是一个临近香港的内地城市。在他的讲述中，1993年一次穿行美国的灰狗（Greyhound）巴士之旅激发了他的远大抱负。
任正非回忆起在达拉斯参观德州仪器公司（Texas Instruments Inc., TXN）占地6万英亩的总部时的情景。那里的员工加班加点带他参观了一整天的研究设施，展示了新高速设备的技术细节。
在当时全球领先的晶片制造商之一、位于加州的National Semiconductor，他观看了一场光学设备和3G网络交换技术的展览。
任正非雇了一辆出租车，绕著International Business Machines Corp. （IBM）的矽谷研究设施转了一圈，计算园区面积有多少平方公里。他在一篇博客文章中回忆道，他觉得“美国将经久不衰”。
25年后，他的公司在人工智能研究领域处于领先地位，其智能手机品牌的销量超过了苹果公司（Apple Inc., AAPL）。华为在深圳郊外开设了一个占地4平方英里的园区，瑞士风格的有轨电车穿过复刻版的欧洲城堡以及巴黎和意大利维罗纳地标建筑，这里是华为的办公室和研究实验室所在地。
随著华为发展壮大，该公司被来自前员工、竞争对手和美国官员的各种指控所困扰，他们指称该公司的进步依赖于欺骗。华为否认了这些指控，并称其致力于遵守业务所在国适用的法律法规。该公司与指控其窃取商业机密的竞争对手达成了和解，其中包括思科系统（Cisco Systems Inc., CSCO, 简称﹕思科）和Quintel Technology Ltd.。
在美国司法部位于纽约的一个办公室里，涉及华为的搜查令和访谈笔录日积月累。一些公司担心，如果它们把华为告上法庭，中国会进行报复。这令美国司法部越来越认为，华为的竞争优势是不会受到惩罚。
一家银行最终为调查人员提供了美国政府第一起案件的证据，该案件起源于纽约布鲁克林办事处。
2013年，汇丰曾要求华为就一篇新闻报导作出解释，该报导称华为秘密拥有并经营一家在伊朗销售华为产品的公司。后来，孟晚舟在那家香港餐厅告诉汇丰高管，华为遵守了美国的制裁规定。
那次会面结束几个月后，在孟晚舟于纽约肯尼迪国际机场（John F. Kennedy International Airport）转机时，搜查她电子设备的边防人员恢复了一份她关于伊朗问题谈话要点的文本文件。该文件已被删除，但没有从硬碟中清除。
汇丰因其自身的法律失误而不得不向联邦检察官提供了一份关于其与华为业务的档案，其中涉及孟晚舟关于华为在伊朗的交易的说法，因此这份谈话要点文件很有用。
为了保持调查的机密性，联邦调查人员在文件中用代号来指代汇丰。汇丰和其他多家配合美国司法部调查的银行担心它们在华高管的安全以及在华业务关系。
2017年4月，检方向华为发出传票，要求其回答关于是否在受制裁国家开展业务的问题，之后华为高管不再前往美国。
2018年8月，检方针对华为和孟晚舟的检控行动准备就绪。检方一直保密，直到孟晚舟在一个他们有能力采取行动的国家落地。
孟晚舟被软禁在温哥华一栋面朝北岸山脉、价值420万美元的房子里。这是她在温哥华的两处住宅中较小的一处。
美国官员曾希望加拿大能将孟晚舟关在监狱里，直到她被引渡。检方在2018年12月的保释听证会上提出，孟晚舟有潜逃的风险。作为亿万富豪的女儿，孟晚舟至少有七本护照。
然而，一名法官批准了孟晚舟的保释，保释金为1000万加元（约合750万美元），但下令每天晚上11点到次日早上6点她必须待在家里。其他时间则可以自由走动。通过孟晚舟脚踝上佩戴的GPS监控器，有关部门可以查看她的行踪。
后来，出于安全考虑，孟晚舟获得了法院的许可，搬到了一栋价值1230万美元、有七间卧室的别墅，与美国总领事的官邸仅一户之隔。任正非派遣了一个由华为员工组成的团队，帮助处理公共关系和他女儿的辩护事宜。
巴西办事处的一名副总裁和一名驻中国的法务总监最先抵达。他们住在附近的一栋别墅里。华为总部的一名公关经理随后到达，并开始在法院台阶上举行临时新闻发布会，这惹恼了孟晚舟和她的法律顾问。他们担心这名公关经理的公开声明可能会使案件受困，但任正非没有接受他们的反对意见。
到2019年4月时，华为安排了一个更高阶的团队来运作，其中包括任正非的翻译和私人助理，他的私人助理担任联络人。
前欧洲销售主管指导孟晚舟的日常尊巴课程和瑜伽锻炼。私人厨师准备了注重健康的膳食。一位花匠为餐桌安排花束。任正非试图鼓励他的女儿在等待释放期间攻读博士学位。
这群助手和助理被称为“萨布丽娜团队”（Sabrina's Team），萨布丽娜（Sabrina）是孟晚舟用过的一个英文名。
孟晚舟外出时，一组由法院指派的安保人员会跟著她；这些安保人员在她家院子里搭了帐篷驻守。时尚精品店为她的私人购物之旅提供方便。孟晚舟与朋友们在皇朝海鲜酒家（Dynasty Seafood）用餐，这群温哥华的中国精英们在那里品尝点心、观赏城市景观。
华为之前已在加拿大通讯设备市场立足，包括建了一个5G研究中心。孟晚舟被捕后不久，华为加大了在温哥华的广告宣传力度，许多公交车站、广告牌和购物中心都能看到华为的广告条幅，其中很多用中文写著该公司的新口号——华为：智慧新高度。
2019年3月6日，即孟晚舟被捕三个月后，她在安保人员和电视台摄像机的簇拥下进入法庭参加引渡听证会。
法院外的台阶上，反对中国政府在香港采取压制行动的抗议者点燃了一面中国国旗。一些人举著标语牌，上面用大写字母写著“EXTRADITE MENG!”，意思是“引渡孟晚舟”。
这场法庭听证会只持续了几分钟，标志著一场旷日持久的法律战的开始。孟晚舟每次去法院，路上都会有一名维吾尔族护士拿著康明凯和斯帕弗的照片，抗议他们被拘。
在位于中朝边境的中国东北部城市丹东一所监狱，斯帕弗和另外20来个囚犯被关在315号牢房。晚上，他们像沙丁鱼一样并排入睡。天气炎热时，拥挤的囚室内十分闷热，夜里又很凉。餐食很少且一成不变：白菜、鸡蛋和米饭。
斯帕弗是卡尔加里人，21岁时去了韩国，教过英语。他对威权主义的朝鲜产生了极大的兴趣，并开始组织前往朝鲜的旅行。在2013年和2014年，他为曾效力于芝加哥公牛队（Chicago Bulls）的前篮球明星丹尼斯·罗德曼（Dennis Rodman）策划了三次朝鲜之旅；罗德曼本人对这个神秘国度及其领导人金正恩（Kim Jong Un）很感兴趣。
斯帕弗以完美的朝鲜口音在韩国的派对上给客人留下深刻印象。
康明凯和斯帕弗曾在北京的一次晚餐上见过一面。这两名同在海外的加拿大人聊到了中国、朝鲜和中朝两国之间的关系。
20世纪90年代中期，康明凯大学毕业后去了布达佩斯，加入了西方人涌入曾经封闭的中欧国家的浪潮。他当过记者，在一个朋克乐队里唱过歌，之后回到了加拿大，并在外交部门任职。
在北京市第一看守所里，关押康明凯的监室没有窗户，日光灯全天24小时不熄。他在那里被关押了近六个月，没有呼吸到一丝新鲜空气。为了打破单调的生活，他想出了一套锻炼流程，每天做俯卧撑和6分钟平板支撑，并在狭小的空间里走7000步。
在康明凯被关押的头前个月里，看守所方面对他进行了最长10个小时的讯问。他们多次就康明凯在加拿大驻中国大使馆的工作进行了提问。
2019年6月，在看守所待了150多天后，康明凯获准往家里寄一批信件。大使馆对这些手写信件进行了扫描，并通过电子邮件发送给他在多伦多的妻子。
44岁的纳吉布拉（Vina Nadjibulla）是2001年在哥伦比亚大学（Columbia University）认识康明凯的，当时两人都在该校学习国际关系。纳吉布拉目前是一名国际安全分析员。她在战乱中的喀布尔长大，父母一个是苏联的犹太人，一个是阿富汗的穆斯林；她在联合国从事冲突预防工作。康明凯是在联合国日内瓦办事处的大会堂（U.N. Assembly Hall）向她求婚的。
康明凯后来进入了加拿大外交部门工作，纳吉布拉则从事塞拉利昂的战后重建工作。康明凯被捕时，这对夫妇已经分居。但两人都曾承诺，如果对方在国外工作期间遭到绑架，他们将出手相助。
事件发生后，纳吉布拉将自己的事情暂时放到一边，在多伦多、华盛顿和渥太华之间奔走，向能够帮助康明凯获释的官员请愿。2019年6月，杜鲁多邀请纳吉布拉到他的办公室，纳吉布拉读了康明凯写的一些信。
“如果说这个地狱中还有微弱的一线希望的话，那就是：创伤在我的脑海中挖出了心理痛苦的深洞，”一封信中写道。“我发现自己用对你和对生命的爱填满了那些深渊，这种爱巨大而深沉，比我经历过的任何爱都更深刻、更令人欣慰。”
“来吧，在精神上陪我坐坐，伴我同行，”康明凯写道。“帮我减少孤独感。让我分享我对你的爱，我们会一起渡过这个难关。”
大约在那一周后，杜鲁多抵达日本大阪，出席G20峰会。他开始游说那位能够释放这两个加拿大公民的人——自毛泽东时代以来最有权势的中国领导人习近平。
（二）幸运的突破口
在与西方国家领导人会面时，习近平很少开玩笑，也很少露出笑容。他常常以长篇大论开场，其中的谈话要点与他的公开声明几乎一模一样。他在讲话时严格按照拟定的文稿，以至于他的翻译只是读出事先备好的英文文本。讲完之后，习近平会问：“你不同意吗？”
白宫官员在分析闭门会谈的文字记录时，往往难以理解习近平是否说了一些他事先准备好的声明之外的实质性内容。
在双方的交谈中，特朗普会尝试用六、七种方式直截了当地问一个具体问题，习近平会重复同样的模糊回答。
全球其他一些领导人闲聊时会互称对方的名字，比如唐纳德（Donald）、安格拉（Angela）、弗拉基米尔（Vladimir）。而习近平即使在非公开会议上也坚持使用“总统先生”、“总理女士”和其他尊称。
在整个2019年上半年，杜鲁多一直未能与习近平会面。加拿大驻华外交官被拒之门外。中方对杜鲁多的答复令人沮丧：若中国国家元首习近平与杜鲁多直接对话，将有悖外交礼仪，杜鲁多只是加拿大的政府首脑，而加拿大的国家元首是当时的英国女王伊丽莎白二世（Queen Elizabeth II）。
中国政府通过贸易限制来表达自身立场。中国针对加拿大菜籽油颁布了进口禁令。2019年5月，中国禁止从加拿大的两个顶级屠宰场进口猪肉。在当年G20峰会召开前三天，中国禁止了所有加拿大肉类产品进口。
杜鲁多让特朗普在大阪G20峰会上与习近平会面时为康明凯和斯帕弗说话。
在他们会面时，特朗普递给习近平一张纸，上面列出了被关押在中国的美国人的名字。这些用中文和英文书写的人名中也包括斯帕弗和康明凯。
特朗普略带恭维地说，如果中国能帮助这些人回国，“那将是一个伟大的姿态”。
习近平在查看这些人名的同时直言不讳地指出，他与特朗普上一次会面是孟晚舟被捕的那天。
杜鲁多是偶然得到的机会。智利是G20峰会的受邀国，但该国代表没有出席预定的大会。这使得加拿大代表的座位按字母顺序排在中国和巴西之间——习近平坐在杜鲁多的右边。
杜鲁多向习近平递了一张手写的中文字条。字条上写著：我们得沟通一下。杜鲁多建议他们挑选两名亲信开始私下交流。
两人走到会场的一侧，通过翻译进行了寒暄并握了手。
数天之后，咨询公司麦肯锡（McKinsey & Co., Inc.）的前全球管理合伙人鲍达民（Dominic Barton）带著一个薄薄的文件夹进入了北京市有警卫把守的钓鱼台国宾馆。他的此次会晤是非正式和秘密的。他先前告诉秘书自己休假去了。
这位60岁的加拿大人是在中国经济奇迹的浪潮中发迹的，他在中国生活和工作了十多年，与中国企业家、高管和党的领导人建立了联系。他写过两本关于中国的书籍，并曾在北京的清华大学（Tsinghua University）任教。
鲍达民当时并不是外交官。但杜鲁多相信，鲍达民可以打破这个外交僵局，把康明凯和斯帕弗带回国。
一位顾问曾告诉杜鲁多，鲍达民与中国官员首次会晤顺利的可能性为40%，会晤融洽以至于安排第二次会谈的可能性为40%，有20%的可能性会谈崩。
在同这位顾问一起走进钓鱼台国宾馆会议室时，满头银发的鲍达民向两位外交部官员微笑。一位年长的中共官员开始宣读一叠文件，中间会停顿以便翻译跟上他，带来了戏剧性的效果。
“你们逮捕了孟晚舟。”
“你们是美国的走狗。”
鲍达民打断了该官员的话，这位由习近平任命的外交部官员抬起头，翻回到第一页。然后他开始从头重读。这位官员在三个小时内宣读了一份充斥著谩骂声的稿子，每当鲍达民提出抗议，他都会从头重读。
鲍达民要求暂停会谈，他走到走廊上。“我想我们正遭遇那5%的可能性，”那位顾问说，他坦言结果比预期要差。
鲍达民在最后一小时的威吓中保持沉默。这位中国官员重点提到了加拿大1999年颁布的《引渡法》（Extradition Act）第23条第3款，该条款授权加拿大司法部长可取消引渡案件。
“你连自己国家的法律都不懂！”这位官员说。
会晤结束时，鲍达民询问中国外交部是否会参加在渥太华举行的第二次会谈。这位官员说，不会，但欢迎这些加拿大人再次来北京。
这是鲍达民给杜鲁多带来的唯一好消息。
“好吧，”杜鲁多在与鲍达民通电话时说。“嗯，那还可以。”
几周后，鲍达民被任命为加拿大驻中国大使。他迎来的第一次考验是在北京人民大会堂与习近平的一次会晤。在此次会晤中，鲍达民用他不太流利的普通话发表了一次简短的讲话。这次会晤仅持续了短短一分钟。
“我在中国的使命是解决这个问题，”鲍达民说。“我想让孟女士和我们的人回国。”
习近平说：我以前不知道你会说普通话。
“我不会……就只能说这么几句，”鲍达民回答道。
习近平笑了笑。他说，要修复一段关系需要两个人的努力。
中国外交部长王毅随后提出了有些刺耳的建议。
王毅拍了拍鲍达民的背，说：你有很多工作要做，你得刻苦练习了！
不久之后，鲍达民首次到访中国的一所监狱。在狱警陪同下，他经过了一间审讯室，审讯室里有一把金属椅子，上面配有绑带。
狱警告诉斯帕弗有人探望。
两人在一间接待室见面，他们被要求不要讨论斯帕弗的案件。斯帕弗带著手铐，鲍达民隔著一张桌子身体向他倾斜。鲍达民说：“我的语速会很快，这样可以偷偷聊一些案子的事儿。”他说：“我想讨论四件事。但首先，你有什么事情想说吗？”
斯帕弗没睡好，看起来有些呆滞。他说：“这要持续到什么时候？每天我醒来，情况还是一样。”
鲍达民说他也不知道。他迅速说了为了释放斯帕弗所做的努力，以及斯帕弗父亲的身体情况。他的父亲在卡尔加里，身患重病。
当狱警发现提到孟晚舟时会打断对话，鲍达民换了话题之后还会聊回这个案子。
鲍达民还去了北京的监狱探望康明凯。康明凯很愤怒，指著狱警说他们虐待。他们收走了康明凯的眼镜，称监狱规定禁止金属物品。
他说：“记下他们的号码。”他身高超过1.9米，穿著的囚服太小不够长。他说“记下来！”
康明凯在信中称，这个监狱就是混凝土沙漠。
他还要求了解他的释放情况。“这事什么时候能得到解决？”
2019年12月3日，北约领导人在白金汉宫举行的香槟招待会上觥筹交错时，康明凯和斯帕弗正准备度过他们在狱中的第二个圣诞节。
招待会在绿色客厅（Green Drawing Room）举行，这是一个长长的行廊，铺著深红色的地毯，装饰著丝绸墙纸和镶有金框的英国君主照片。凯特·米德尔顿（Kate Middleton）和威廉（Prince William）王子在一群负责捍卫西方的北约官员中穿行。杜鲁多与女王进行了私下交谈。
杜鲁多的首席外交政策顾问David Morrison乘机与白宫幕僚长马尔瓦尼（Mick Mulvaney）说了几句话。当天早些时候，杜鲁多向特朗普讲述了两个迈克尔正在遭受的苦难。美国同意在华盛顿举行会谈，加拿大对这个开头表示欢迎。
白宫已经恢复了与北京方面的换囚谈判。在博尔顿之后担任国家安全顾问的奥布莱恩（Robert O'Brien）不久前在曼谷参加了一次亚洲领导人会议。
在会上，他为两名加拿大囚犯准备的几本书让中国总理李克强感到意外。给康明凯的书是劳拉·希伦布兰德（Laura Hillenbrand）描写二战囚犯路易斯·赞佩里尼（Louis Zamperini）的《坚不可摧》（Unbroken），给斯帕弗的书是一本刘易斯（C.S. Lewis）的小说，以及每人一本《圣经》。这些书里有手写的标记，让这两个被囚禁的人放心，全世界都知道他们的遭遇。
奥布莱恩在传递这些书的同时，也传递了一个外交资讯：华盛顿想要对话。
几天后，中国驻美使馆临时代办在白宫旁边的艾森豪威尔行政办公大楼（Eisenhower Executive Office Building）低调会见了美国国家安全委员会工作人员。这位中国代表说，美国无权要求释放这两位加拿大公民，“这不关美国的事。”
不过，中国政府愿意先考虑另一项人员交换，以建立互信。美国可以加速驱逐中国银行股份有限公司（Bank Of China Ltd.,简称﹕中国银行）经理许国俊，他因腐败相关指控被中国有关部门通缉。
作为回报，美国人希望中国释放台裔美国牧师林大卫（David Lin），以及纽约州长岛的华裔美国商人李凯。前者在中国传教后被判终身监禁，后者因间谍罪正在服10年刑期。
当年圣诞节几天前，一个加拿大代表团在马尔瓦尼的白宫办公室碰面。那时美国政府官员正忙于处理特朗普的第一次弹劾听证会。
加拿大驻美国代理大使希尔曼（Kirsten Hillman）和鲍达民、Morrison围在美国司法部负责国家安全的助理部长德默斯（John Demers）和副国家安全顾问博明（Matt Pottinger）旁边近身交谈。博明说，孟晚舟越早被引渡，康明凯和斯帕弗就能越早获释。
该加拿大代表团认为，孟晚舟的上诉可能会持续数年，几乎肯定会以达成协议告终。他们说，如果是这样的话，美国越早同意达成协议，对康明凯和斯帕弗就越有利。
在2020年春季举行了几次影片会议后，德默斯告诉这些加拿大外交官，美国司法部正在考虑一份暂缓起诉协议：如果孟晚舟承诺不再犯下其他联邦罪行，检方不会推进指控。
问题的症结在于，孟晚舟必须承认有不当行为。她的律师说，孟晚舟绝不会同意，因为她没有做错任何事。
鲍达民和他在北京最亲密的助手经常在加拿大大使馆下面的一个房间里工作，这个房间的墙壁包有金属，以防御电子监控。这个房间名为Salle de Deux Innocents（两个无辜者的房间），以加拿大前总理皮耶·杜鲁多（Pierre Trudeau）与一位朋友搭便车穿越毛泽东时代的中国后写的一篇游记命名。
鲍达民和他的助手开会时，翻阅了写有一些官员姓名的翻页本页面，他们希望这些官员能说服中国，看到与美国司法部解决孟晚舟案的逻辑。
孟晚舟被捕几个月前，两国还在寻求达成一项自由贸易协定。现在，国事活动邀请已寥寥无几。鲍达民原本以在中国能达成协议而知名，现在，连老熟人也不回他电话。一位官员称：“我们已经开始期待美国走出这一步，但我们与你有50年的关系。”
鲍达民向一位同事透露，这项任务不仅仅是举步维艰。情况在朝著羞辱的方向发展。
2020年春天，鲍达民曾希望能在华为创始人任正非那里碰碰运气。他获得了与任正非约好在华为深圳总部见面的机会，在那里他发现任正非对他女儿的前景颇为乐观。
任正非通过他的翻译说，孟晚舟很快就会回家了。她的律师有很多理由对她的引渡提出上诉，他们相信其中会有一个理由成立。他说，相信加拿大的法律体系会做正确的事。
孟晚舟、她的律师团队和华为对胜诉充满信心，他们甚至已经打点好行装，包下了波音公司（Boeing Co., BA）生产的第787架波音787飞机，这架纪念性的梦想客机将把她从温哥华送回家。
2020年5月27日孟晚舟案法庭听证会的几天前，她的助手们在不列颠哥伦比亚省最高法院大楼的台阶上排练，计划届时拍摄一张照片，即华为的同事以及家庭工作人员与孟晚舟一起，在想像中的支持者面前摆出胜利手势。
听证会当天的上午，他们遇到的却是大声奚落、举著标语牌的人群，标语上写著“抵制华为”和“释放加拿大人康明凯和斯帕弗”。
孟晚舟的代表律师在法庭上告诉法官，美国的引渡请求是错误的。根据加拿大法律，只有在加拿大和美国都属于犯罪行为，才符合引渡条件。
这些律师表示，尽管美国检察官指控孟晚舟犯有银行欺诈罪，但该案实际上是关于美国对伊朗的制裁，而加拿大没有制裁伊朗。此案主审法官驳回了该申诉。
当时康明凯的妻子纳吉布拉观看了法官判决，还做了笔记。她花了大量时间跟踪此案进展。在这场听证会的法官作出裁决之后，她前往华盛顿向官员们介绍情况。
纳吉布拉每个月都会给康明凯寄一封信，传递朋友们的问候。她在信中加入了一些隐晦的资讯，比如“我漫步在我们以前常去的地方”，意思是她一直在游说联合国的官员。
纳吉布拉还发来一些营养和健身方面的建议。康明凯开始在饭菜里撒上监狱食堂的奶粉和芝麻粉，以增加蛋白质摄入量；他尝试做单腿深蹲来强化核心力量。康明凯的生活过于封闭，以至于他都不知道疫情正在扰乱这个世界。
康明凯每个月阅读二三十本书，他研读了哲学和地缘政治类书籍，看了托尔斯泰、卡夫卡等名家的经典作品，以及曼德拉（Nelson Mandela）的狱中自传《漫漫自由路》（The Long Walk to Freedom）。他和斯帕弗都读了维克多·弗兰克（Viktor Frankl）关于奥斯威辛集中营生活的沉思《追寻生命的意义》（Man's Search for Meaning）。
斯帕弗把书分享给很少有机会读到这些书的狱友。作为回报，他们帮他学写汉字。
康明凯的家信中夹杂著书评，妻子纳吉布拉会把他的评论转发给一个由身在美国、加拿大及亚洲的朋友和同事组成的非正式读书会。
经过几个月的请求，康明凯获中国狱警允许给家人打电话。纳吉布拉接听了。
“V，是你吗？”他说。
2020年夏天，疫情在全球范围内蔓延之际，FBI特工逮捕了五名学术研究人员，这五人大多被指控在签证申请中撒谎。特朗普（Donald Trump）政府官员认为他们正利用美国的研究来推动中国的军事发展。五人都做了无罪抗辩。
上述逮捕行动促使中国恢复了与美国的“换囚”秘密讨论，相关讨论先前在疫情下陷入了沉寂。北京方面想要换回中国研究人员。华盛顿方面想要换回一些美国人——以及康明凯和斯帕弗。
美国国家安全委员会、国务院和司法部官员与中国外交部外交官和公安部人士开了一场影片会议。美国坚持使用Microsoft Teams而不是中国软体举行此次会议。
中国外交部的一位官员说，他们是学者，他们只是在做研究。
美国表示愿意释放这些研究人员，并加快遣返因腐败指控而被中国通缉的银行家许国俊。
作为交换条件，美方希望中方释放商人李凯和牧师林大卫，以及自2018年以来被中国阻止离境的美国姐弟Cynthia Liu和Victor Liu。美方还要求中方允许另外三名美国公民离开中国，其中包括两名儿童。
这场拟议的人员交换行动是以七名中国人换七名美国人外加上述两名加拿大人，将成为冷战以来规模最大的换囚行动之一。
当美国官员提出康明凯和斯帕弗的名字时，中国公安部的一位官员说，中国人民不会允许康明凯和斯帕弗回家，除非孟晚舟能回家。
美国司法部的一位官员鼓励中国官员与孟晚舟的律师商量接受美国联邦检察官的提议，以承认存在不当行为换取自由。这位美国官员说，说服她签字。
但谈判失败。美国不会在不管那两名加拿大人的情况下只把美国人带回来。孟晚舟则对美国检察官的提议不感兴趣。
孟晚舟告诉自己的律师，她绝不会承认有不当行为。如果有必要，在她的法律团队为美国引渡案打官司的同时，她愿意在温哥华待上几年。华为的声誉当时正面临风险。
那年夏天，华为超越三星电子（Samsung Electronics Co., 005930.SE），成为全球最大的智能手机制造商。作为首席财务官，孟晚舟得保护她父亲建立的这个帝国。
但华为帝国那时已经开始倾斜。
特朗普在2020年签署了新的出口限制，阻止华为购买用美国设备生产的计算机晶片；他开始将华为称为“间谍为”（Spyway）。这些限制措施后来扩大到世界各地使用美国技术的制造商。华为开始缺少生产智能手机所需的晶片，而智能手机约占该公司收入的一半。
华为还失去了让其手机和平板电脑产品下载Google软体的许可证。随著销量骤降，华为考虑转向电动汽车。
加拿大在北约反情报简报会上讨论了康明凯和斯帕弗被捕事宜。与杜鲁多交谈过的西方领导人听说了这两人在监狱里的悲惨处境。许多细节都来自纳吉布拉。
世界上最富有的那些国家一个接一个地向美国的立场靠拢，切断了与华为的联系。
2020年7月，英国宣布到2027年将禁止华为进入该国网络。两周后，法国表示将停止为华为5G设备更新许可证，实际上封禁了该公司。到10月，英国议会国防委员会表示将加快实施对华为的禁令。
华为北美公共事务负责人Vincent Peng辗转于美国、加拿大和中国，寻找游说者与国会议员和外交官接触，帮助释放孟晚舟。
特朗普在11月输掉了2020年的总统选举，在新政府即将上台之际，Peng在圣诞节几天前给鲍达民打电话。他说，华为打算在拜登（Joe Biden）那里试试运气。
拜登首次以总统身份进行的双边会晤是2021年2月23日的美加会晤，当时加拿大总理杜鲁多首先要谈的就是让康明凯和斯帕弗获释。“这两个人在监狱里，” 杜鲁多说。“他们遭受牢狱之灾是因为加拿大正在履行对美国的承诺……我们要解救他们。”
“我不会干涉司法程式，”拜登答复说。“其他任何事，我都乐意出力。”
拜登上台后，习近平希望重启美中关系，孟晚舟被拘案便是其中一个议题。但从所有迹象来看，美中关系仍不稳定。
在2021年3月份的阿拉斯加会议上，中国最高级别外交官员杨洁篪公开指责美国鼓动其他国家攻击中国。在非公开场合，美国国务卿布林肯（Antony Blinken）提到康明凯和斯帕弗，称严肃的国家不会用绑架作为谈判筹码。
当月，康明凯和斯帕弗因间谍罪闭门受审。判决结果直到后来才宣布。
（三）两位领导人
随著拜登上台执政，习近平开始视此案为美中关系修复的障碍之一。习近平认为，中国已经表现出足够的决心对抗西方的挑衅。
他指定外交部副部长谢锋来结束孟晚舟案的僵局。彼时，习近平已亲手写下100多份关于孟晚舟案的指示给下属。
2021年7月，美国司法部撤销了对上述五名中国研究人员的指控，缓和了两国的紧张关系。几天后，谢锋参加了在天津举行的美中高层会议，这是三个多月以来的首次此类会议。
在围绕疫情和人权问题的激烈交锋中，美国副国务卿舍曼（Wendy Sherman）表示，如果孟晚舟与美国检方达成和解，美国国务院不会阻止孟晚舟回到中国。
这正是谢锋所寻求的保证。
天津会议两周后，鲍达民得知斯帕弗将在丹东接受宣判。鲍达民的团队将多名盟国外交官邀请至法院。如果加拿大无法阻止判决，希望全世界做个见证。
来自美国、日本、德国、澳大利亚和新西兰的外交人员与鲍达民一起前往法庭。在法庭上，鲍达民与位于北京的加拿大驻华大使馆开通了影片通话，讲述了诉讼过程。
法官以间谍罪判处斯帕弗11年有期徒刑，依据是在斯帕弗手机上发现多张导致其被入罪的照片。鲍达民给斯帕弗的家人打了电话，然后与记者做了沟通。
这位大使说：“通过集体出席和共同发声，我们向中国和中国政府传递了一个强烈的信号：全世界都在关注这件事。”
一个月后，鲍达民应召前往美国大使馆的安全室，阅读了拜登与习近平通话的文字记录。这两位领导人再次相互施压，要求释放囚犯。
北京方面表示，这是两位领导人达成的共识。
后来，鲍达民去青海访问一个特殊儿童服务组织，当结束访问时，他突然接到一个电话。助理递给他一个手机并说：“谢锋现在要和你通话！”鲍达民随即进入一辆蓝色面包车。
谢锋通过翻译向鲍达民询问了完成孟晚舟案延期起诉协议的细节。当时的症结在于美国将如何描述她的不当行为。鲍达民转述了一些潜在措辞，谢锋打断了他，说起了英语。
很好，他说。
孟晚舟不会明确承认撒谎，只会说她对汇丰的陈述“不真实”。
鲍达民将手机连上充电器，并取消了接下来的参观。他和谢锋一直在通电话，仔细讨论这桩很容易失败的交易的细节。这一切都取决于一个关键问题：习近平会同意吗？
来自中共中央办公厅的一份手写信带来了决定。习近平同意了。
9月19日晚，孟晚舟的一位新律师通过电子邮件向美国司法部发送了一份事实陈述。孟晚舟将承认她在2013年告诉汇丰的事情是不真实的。
五天后，孟晚舟在温哥华通过影片电话会议参加了纽约布鲁克林的庭审。她对指控不认罪，并接受了延期起诉协议。
同一天，鲍达民到监狱探望康明凯。他得知他将通过影片电话与康明凯和斯帕弗说话。斯帕弗已乘坐火车抵达北京。
一名安全官员对鲍达民称：“你将有幸告诉他们，他们要回家了。”
康明凯和斯帕弗依次与他通话。鲍达民在与斯帕弗通话时，努力让自己的嗓音保持稳定。
“你要回家了，”他说。
斯帕弗看上去一脸茫然。
“真的吗？”
由于担心节外生枝，妨碍换囚计划，加拿大驻中国大使馆只有少数精挑细选的外交官知道此事。大使馆工作人员安排好了行程。一位外交官的妻子自愿烘焙花生酱饼干，让他们在回家的路上吃。
在温哥华，孟晚舟和她的律师要在2021年9月24日下午4点的最后期限前完成与美国司法部达成协议的文书工作。
在这桩美国案件结案后，加拿大援引了《引渡法》第23条第3款，这项条款允许加拿大政府终止对孟晚舟的羁押。
在中国，斯帕弗和康明凯戴著手铐、蒙著眼睛抵达天津机场。鲍达民在贵宾休息室等待。
当这两名加拿大人通过中国的出入境检查站时，温哥华机场的工作人员把孟晚舟刚盖过章的护照递给她。她拥抱了一名律师，并向中国领事官员作了告别。
孟晚舟在飞行途中得知，康明凯和斯帕弗也已获释。
飞机在深圳宝安国际机场降落时是当地时间的晚上，孟晚舟走下舷梯。她在红色Carolina Herrera连衣裙上别了一枚中国国旗徽章，向等待的人群挥手致意。深圳的摩天大楼上打出她的名字。
在停机坪的红地毯上，孟晚舟胜利地举起双手，并感谢了一个人：中国领导人习近平。
康明凯和斯帕弗乘坐的飞机降落在阿拉斯加的安克雷奇。在被雨水冲刷过的跑道上，康明凯弯腰亲吻地面。斯帕弗开玩笑说，他俩应该等飞到加拿大后再亲。
杜鲁多和少数随行人员在卡尔加里（斯帕弗的故乡）迎接他们归来。二人还拿到了迎接者带来的外带Tim Hortons咖啡。
康明凯继续飞往多伦多。纳吉布拉在那里迎候他，他们在一架加拿大皇家空军飞机旁拥抱。
第二天，中国允许刘氏姐弟返回美国。
斯帕弗回家后发现在自己的床上难以入睡，他已经习惯了在狭小的牢房里挤在几十个囚犯身旁入眠。斯帕弗目前仍居住在加拿大，经常与鲍达民通电话。
康明凯和纳吉布拉在西班牙、加拿大和荷兰逗留期间，花了几周时间合写了一本关于这场磨难的书。他们希望此书能为其他囚犯及其家人提供一份路线图。朋友们说，尽管他们计划离婚，但从某些方面来说，二人现在比以往任何时候都更亲密。
康明凯和斯帕弗回国三个月后，鲍达民辞去了大使职务，成为英澳矿业集团力拓股份有限公司（Rio Tinto Ltd., RIO.AU, RIO.LN, RIO）董事长。中澳两国长期陷于贸易争端，但中国上个月同意与力拓合作开发一个20亿美元的铁矿石项目。
孟晚舟最近升任华为董事长，轮值6个月。她不再踏足西方国家。
美国和加拿大说服另外66个国家签署了一项反对任意拘留的宣言，以防止类似国际争端的发生。
面对美国所谓的“人质外交”的卷土重来（不仅是中国，伊朗、委内瑞拉、朝鲜和土耳其也是如此），拜登在今年夏天宣布其为国家紧急事件。他签署了一项行政命令，授权美国对参与在海外非法扣留美国人的任何人实施制裁。
针对美国案件中的银行欺诈和其他指控，华为表示不认罪。检方周一公布了对两名中国情报人员的指控，称他们试图贿赂一名美国执法人员，以获取案件知情人士所说的华为调查的机密资讯。
加拿大在5月份宣布华为构成了国家安全风险，禁止华为在该国建设5G网络。华为发言人说，这是在美国施压下做出的政治决定。
“我们以前怀抱全球化理想，立志为全人类服务，”任正非8月在一篇公司内部文章中写道。“现在我们的理想是什么？活下来，哪里有钱就在哪里赚一点。”
此后，华为被逐出了多数欧洲和北美5G网络市场。
英文原文：Inside the Secret Prisoner Swap That Splintered the U.S. and China
Inside the Secret Prisoner Swap That Splintered the U.S. and China
Detention of a Chinese executive to stand trial in the U.S. provoked a standoff between global rivals and opened an acrimonious new era
4:30 a.m., Sept. 25, 2021, Tianjin, China
A pair of prison vans approached the terminal at Tianjin Binhai International Airport carrying two Canadians, blindfolded and disoriented from 1,019 days in captivity.
On the moonlit tarmac, an unmarked U.S. Gulfstream jet waited to take them home. Nearby, the Canadian ambassador paced the carpeted lounge.
Fifteen time zones away, an Air China Boeing 777 stood ready at Vancouver International Airport. Armed officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police kept watch in the terminal. A Chinese executive in Manolo Blahnik heels strode past them, carrying a bag with a Carolina Herrera dress shaded the same vibrant red as China’s flag and trailed by an entourage of lawyers, aides and diplomats who called her Madam Meng. She, too, was headed home.
One of the most significant prisoner swaps in recent diplomatic history was under way, after a top-secret negotiation that was three years in the making.
At the Tianjin airport, a Chinese official was on the phone to confirm the woman’s passage through the Vancouver terminal. He then cleared the Canadian prisoners. The Canadian ambassador fumbled for their passports in a yellow envelope and ushered the men to an immigration checkpoint.
A Chinese guard stamped the passports and directed them to the runway.
When Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada in 2018, she was chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies Co., a telecommunications giant founded by her father that was poised to win the race to build 5G networks in most of the world’s largest economies. Canadian authorities took Ms. Meng into custody in Vancouver, British Columbia, on behalf of the U.S., which had filed bank-fraud charges against her.
The detention of the 50-year-old celebrity businesswoman, and U.S. efforts to extradite her for trial in New York, transformed her into a national martyr in China and a symbol of America’s growing hostility to its nearest rival.
Days later, the two Canadians were seized in retaliation for Ms. Meng’s arrest. Michael Kovrig, 50, was on leave from Canada’s Foreign Ministry to work for the International Crisis Group in Hong Kong. Michael Spavor, 46, ran a business that helped students, athletes and academics visit North Korea. During their incarceration and harsh treatment, the two men were sympathetically shorthanded in news reports and by Western leaders as “the two Michaels.” Both men denied any wrongdoing.
The arrests marked a turning point in the growing power competition between the U.S. and China, helping shift it from mutual wariness to full-blown animosity. Unlike last century’s Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the prisoner skirmish reflected a U.S.-China battle for control of the international flow of data and, ultimately, primacy in global commerce.
Negotiations to free the prisoners strained relations between China, U.S. and Canada. Each nation navigated its own security concerns and domestic political pressures. The U.S. pressed Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release the two Canadians and cited their arrest as evidence of Beijing’s disregard for the international rules-based order. Mr. Xi saw Ms. Meng’s detention as another underhanded attempt by the U.S. to contain his country’s advance.
Mr. Xi penned more than 100 notes about her case, and he discussed the Michaels with two U.S. presidents. Mr. Xi refused to free them until Ms. Meng was released. Canada was caught in the middle.
Dominic Barton, the Canadian ambassador, spent hundreds of hours at a whiteboard in an embassy safe room charting proposals to get his countrymen released and visiting them in prison. He delivered coded messages in rapid-fire English he knew eavesdropping guards would struggle to understand. Until the final moments, Canada worried that a news leak or a stray remark from a U.S. senator would scuttle the exchange.
This account is based on interviews with current and former U.S., Canadian and Chinese officials, lawyers and prosecutors, former Huawei officials, people familiar with Ms. Meng’s legal team and her staff, as well as current and former diplomats of the three countries. It draws from court documents, real-estate and corporate records, classified diplomatic cables, unpublished photographs and notes of government officials involved in the negotiations.
A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in New York declined to answer questions. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has said that Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor were detained and tried in accordance with Chinese law, and their case was unrelated to Ms. Meng’s arrest.
Meng Wanzhou planned to spend only a few hours in Vancouver when she touched down on Dec. 1, 2018. It was one of four cities where she kept a home.
The Huawei CFO checked seven suitcases, packed with presentation material for meetings in four countries, including Mexico. The country’s newly inaugurated president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was open to Huawei building 5G networks in his country, brushing off U.S. security concerns.
Ms. Meng also booked a stop in Buenos Aires, where she would join her father, Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s billionaire founder. Mr. Ren had once announced that none of his three children was visionary enough to succeed him. Ms. Meng, who crisscrossed the world representing her father’s empire, seemed determined to prove him wrong.
Around the time Ms. Meng walked into Hong Kong’s international airport, word of her itinerary passed over a secure line to the Palacio Duhau hotel, site of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires. A White House lawyer took the call in a soundproof tent set up in a suite. Afterward, the lawyer woke up John Bolton: Ms. Meng was en route.
Mr. Bolton, then-national security adviser in the Trump administration, knew Ms. Meng’s arrest could disrupt the summit’s marquee event that evening, a dinner between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Yet Mr. Bolton, a longtime China hawk, felt it was worth the risk. The president didn’t yet know about the plan. White House staffers later debated whether Mr. Bolton had told Mr. Trump or if it hadn’t fully registered with the president.
While Ms. Meng was on her flight to Vancouver, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents passed along details of her travel outfit: a black Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie, dark sweatpants, her hair just past the shoulders.
Federal prosecutors had a sealed indictment against Ms. Meng and Huawei for bank fraud, alleging she had helped disguise the company’s business dealings in Iran. The evidence was in a PowerPoint presentation Ms. Meng showed an executive of HSBC Holdings PLC in the back room of a Hong Kong restaurant in 2013. Huawei, she claimed in her presentation, wasn’t violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.
The charge was narrow, but it would serve a broader national security objective—to help Washington convince U.S. allies Huawei couldn’t be trusted.
In a briefing room at the Vancouver airport, six Canadian police officers and border guards studied photos of Ms. Meng. “Seize any electronic devices on MENG to preserve evidence, as there will be a request from FBI,” a Canadian constable scrawled in a spiral notebook.
Ms. Meng’s extradition request had arrived from Washington on a password-protected file that Canadian authorities needed more than a day to unlock. The delay meant Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, also attending the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, was told of the request only around the time officers took positions at the Vancouver airport’s Gate 65 jet bridge.
At 11:18 a.m., Cathay Pacific Flight 838 rolled to a stop at the terminal gate.
Two border guards escorted Ms. Meng to a counter where another guard combed through her luggage. Officers asked questions, among them: Did Huawei ever sell products in Iran? They collected her electronics and demanded her passwords. One by one, they slid her devices into security bags, as the U.S. had requested: a red-cased Huawei phone, a black-and-pink 256-gigabyte thumb drive, a pink-framed MacBook and an iPad with a sticker of Winnie-the-Pooh, a character sometimes used on social media to mock Mr. Xi, China’s leader.
“You have committed fraud, we’re arresting you, and then you will be sent back to the United States,” a police officer told Ms. Meng.
“Me?” she said. “You’re saying I committed fraud in the United States?”
“I don’t have details,” another officer replied. “They have a fraud charge against you regarding your company, uh, Huawei?”
An officer added, apologetically, “We’re only assisting the United States.”
At the police station, Ms. Meng was fingerprinted, and allowed a phone call to the only Chinese-speaking lawyer Huawei could find on short notice, a patent attorney. As the attorney dashed to the station, Ms. Meng began to gasp for air, worrying officers who sped her to a hospital.
Messrs. Trump and Xi were dining on Argentine sirloin, accompanied by a 2014 Malbec. The goal of the dinner was to reach a truce in an escalating U.S.-China trade war. Neither man appeared aware of Ms. Meng’s arrest. Mr. Bolton, seated near Mr. Trump, didn’t mention it.
Mr. Xi learned shortly after, according to Chinese government officials, and it struck him as deceptive and an insult. He had just agreed to buy more U.S. food and energy.
Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Bolton days later at a White House Christmas dinner, according to people familiar with the conversation. “Why did you arrest Meng?” the president said. “Don’t you know she’s the Ivanka Trump of China?”
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials briefed Mr. Xi on the arrest when he returned to Beijing on Dec. 6. Ms. Meng, ranked China’s eighth most powerful businesswoman by Forbes magazine, was in custody and under severe distress.
China’s Ministry of Public Security, which had a list of Canadian names, proposed two for him to select. Canada’s ambassador was summoned to a Foreign Ministry office in Beijing and warned China would retaliate.
Two days later, a call came to the Canadian embassy from a man stopped while trying to board a 2 p.m. flight to South Korea from a city in China’s northeast.
That night, the embassy got another call, this one about Michael Kovrig. He had been walking in Beijing when he was bundled into a vehicle.
For hours, embassy officials waited to hear from the two men, hoping authorities would release them. Then came the whir of the office fax machine, signaling trouble. Fax was the preferred channel of China’s Foreign Ministry. The machine spat out back-to-back missives announcing the detention of two Canadian citizens suspected of threatening national security.
Canada’s ambassador met with officials in Beijing. They asked for Ms. Meng’s release. “He who ties the knot must untie it,” one of them said.
A month later, Mr. Trudeau cemented his government’s position at a snow-drenched cabinet retreat in Quebec. Arrests of innocent Canadian citizens wouldn’t force Ms. Meng’s release.
“Canada cannot be bullied,” he told his cabinet members.
The prime minister, a liberal leader who in public appearances sometimes appeared boyish, had a harder side. Just before he assumed office, Islamic State militants had abducted two elderly Canadians. Mr. Trudeau later refused to pay a ransom, and they were decapitated.
It was his worst moment as prime minister—and the right decision, Mr. Trudeau said at the cabinet retreat.
When Canada’s ambassador to China said in public remarks that Ms. Meng had a strong case to fight her extradition, Mr. Trudeau fired him.
To free Ms. Meng, Huawei assembled a team of more than a dozen lawyers, including some of the corporate world’s highest-paid. They all agreed she was unfairly trapped in the rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
One of Huawei’s recruits—trial lawyer Reid Weingarten, whose clients had included Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd Blankfein and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—carried a report into a meeting early in 2019 with Justice Department officials. It detailed reasons the defense team believed Ms. Meng would easily win her case.
Elevating a six-year-old PowerPoint presentation to a charge of bank fraud was an overreach the Justice Department would regret, according to Ms. Meng’s lawyers. Some doubted prosecutors had the appetite to go to trial.
Instead, they found little hope for a swift resolution. Federal prosecutors in the case were confident. If Ms. Meng wanted to plead guilty, they were ready to talk. Otherwise, they would see her in court.
The White House had a lot riding on the case. Huawei was on the other side of a contest for control of 5G, the wireless network slated to ferry data to billions of devices worldwide. It was a fight the U.S. didn’t want to lose.
Huawei was offering to deliver its 5G equipment—antennas, base stations and routers—more quickly and less expensively than its Western competitors. The company, a relative newcomer compared with century-old telecom rivals Nokia Corp. and Ericsson AB, had become a world leader.
U.S. national security officials were convinced of a danger other nations thought could be managed—that Huawei was assembling the architecture China could use to conduct worldwide surveillance.
In 2009, U.S. cyberspies had infiltrated the company’s networks. FBI analysts, worried Beijing could use those same networks to spy, alerted their bosses. Defense Department officials urged U.S. telecom companies to steer clear of Huawei. A 2012 congressional investigation concluded China could use Huawei equipment for espionage but didn’t find clear evidence it had.
By the time of the Trump administration, Huawei had built a seemingly insurmountable lead over its rivals. An analysis that circulated among intelligence officials warned Huawei would control 80% of the global market for 5G equipment. National security officials feared that would hand China a surveillance tool with the potential to collect all manner of secrets, from the blueprints of nuclear plants to military plans of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Defense officials and diplomats reached out to America’s closest foreign partners and pushed for Huawei bans. The company dispatched its own lobbyists, lawyers and public-relations firms to say it had never conducted espionage and never would. Huawei challenged the Trump administration to reveal the evidence it claimed to hold, material the U.S. said was secret to protect its sources and methods.
The White House instead offered a slim thread of evidence. In 2017, Beijing had introduced an intelligence law that said “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.”
Huawei, the Trump administration argued, was bound by law to spy. The company countered that it applied only in China.
U.S. diplomats took printouts of the law to allies around the world, reading it aloud to officials caught up in what many saw as a feud between superpowers. The U.K., South Korea, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Canada balked at pressure to ban the company. Some were baffled by the escalating campaign.
Huawei said it was a Chinese success story whose founder was motivated not by rivalry with America but admiration for it.
Mr. Ren, a former army engineer, started out in 1987 selling telecom switches from an apartment in Shenzhen, a small city overshadowed by neighboring Hong Kong. In his telling, a 1993 Greyhound bus trip across the U.S. stirred grand ambitions.
In Dallas, Mr. Ren recalled visiting the 60,000-acre headquarters of Texas Instruments Inc. Employees there clocked overtime to take him on a daylong tour of research facilities, revealing technical details of new high-speed devices.
At National Semiconductor in California, at the time one of the world’s leading chip makers, he saw an exhibition of optical devices and 3G network switching technologies.
Mr. Ren hired a taxi to drive around the Silicon Valley research facility of International Business Machines Corp. to calculate how many square kilometers it encompassed. He felt “the United States will prosper forever,” he recalled in a blog post.
A quarter-century later, his company was a leader in artificial-intelligence research and had a smartphone brand that sold more units than Apple Inc. Huawei opened a 4-square-mile campus outside Shenzhen that featured Swiss-style trams zipping past replicas of European castles and landmarks of Paris and Verona, Italy, that housed Huawei offices and research labs.
As the company grew, it was stalked by allegations—from former employees, rival corporations and U.S. officials—that its advance relied on deceit. Huawei denied the allegations and said it was committed to complying with laws in global markets. The company settled lawsuits with competitors that accused it of stealing trade secrets, among them Cisco Systems Inc. and Quintel Technology Ltd.
Paperwork for search warrants and interview notes piled up in a Justice Department office in New York. Some companies were afraid China would retaliate if they took Huawei to court, feeding a view at the department that Huawei’s competitive advantage was impunity.
A bank ended up providing investigators with evidence for the government’s first case, which originated in the Brooklyn, N.Y., office.
In 2013, HSBC had asked Huawei to explain a news report claiming it secretly owned and operated a company that sold its products in Iran. Afterward, Ms. Meng then told the HSBC executive in the Hong Kong restaurant that Huawei adhered to U.S. sanctions.
Months after the meeting, border agents searching Ms. Meng’s electronics during a transit through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York recovered a text file of her talking points concerning Iran. It had been deleted but not erased from the hard drive.
The file became useful when HSBC, on the hook for its own legal missteps, had to give federal prosecutors a dossier on its business with Huawei, including what Ms. Meng had said about her company’s dealings in Iran.
Federal investigators assigned a code name to keep the probe secret. HSBC and other banks cooperating with the Justice Department feared for the safety of their executives in China, as well as business ties there.
Prosecutors in April 2017 served Huawei with a subpoena to answer questions about whether it conducted business in sanctioned countries, and company executives subsequently halted travel to the U.S.
In August 2018, prosecutors readied an indictment against Huawei and Ms. Meng. They kept it under seal until she landed in a country within their reach.
Ms. Meng’s jail in Vancouver was a $4.2 million house facing the North Shore Mountains. It was the smaller of her two homes in the city.
U.S. officials had hoped Canada would keep Ms. Meng behind bars until her extradition. The billionaire’s daughter, who had been issued at least seven passports, was a flight risk, prosecutors argued during her December 2018 bail hearing.
Instead, a judge had granted her bail, set at 10 million Canadian dollars, equivalent to $7.5 million, and imposed a curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Otherwise, she was free to roam. A GPS monitor on her ankle kept Ms. Meng tethered to authorities.
Later, she received court permission to move, for security reasons, to a $12.3 million, seven-bedroom villa, two doors from the home of the U.S. consul general. Mr. Ren dispatched a team of Huawei employees to help with public relations and his daughter’s defense.
A vice president from the Brazil office and a China-based legal director were the first to arrive. They stayed in a villa nearby. A PR manager from Huawei’s headquarters followed, and he began holding impromptu news conferences on the courthouse steps, irritating Ms. Meng and her legal advisers. They worried his public statements could jeopardize the case, but Mr. Ren overruled their objections.
By April, Huawei had a more senior team in place, including Mr. Ren’s translator and personal assistant, who served as a liaison.
The former head sales executive in Europe directed Ms. Meng’s daily Zumba classes and yoga workouts. Personal chefs prepared health-conscious meals. A florist arranged bouquets for the dining table. Mr. Ren tried to prod his daughter into pursuing a Ph.D. while she waited for her release.
The cast of helpers and aides was known as Sabrina’s Team, after one of the English-language names she used.
When Ms. Meng stepped out, a set of court-appointed bodyguards, stationed in a tent pitched on the property, trailed her. Fashion boutiques accommodated her private shopping tours. She dined with friends at the Dynasty Seafood restaurant, where the city’s Chinese elite enjoyed dim sum and city views.
Huawei had built a foothold in Canada’s telecom market, including a 5G research center. Shortly after Ms. Meng’s arrest, the company ramped up its advertising around the city, draping bus stops, billboards and shopping malls in banners, many in Chinese, featuring its latest slogan—Huawei: a higher intelligence.
On March 6, 2019, three months after her arrest, bodyguards and TV cameras followed Ms. Meng into court for her extradition hearing.
On the courthouse steps, protesters opposing Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong set fire to a Chinese flag. Some held placards scrawled in all caps, “EXTRADITE MENG!”
The court hearing lasted just a few minutes, marking the start of a protracted legal battle. Each time Ms. Meng went to court, she passed a Chinese nurse, a member of China’s Uyghur minority, holding pictures of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor, the two Michaels, to protest their detention.
In the northeastern city of Dandong, on the North Korea border, Michael Spavor lived with some 20 other inmates in Cell 315. At night, they slept side by side like sardines. The overflowing compound was sweltering on hot days and cold after dark. Meals were meager and unchanging: cabbage, eggs and rice.
Mr. Spavor, a Calgary native, traveled to South Korea at age 21 and taught English. He became fascinated with the authoritarian state of North Korea and began arranging tours. In 2013 and 2014, he planned three trips for Dennis Rodman, the former Chicago Bulls basketball star who had his own interest in the secretive country and its leader, Kim Jong Un.
Mr. Spavor impressed party guests in South Korea with his pitch-perfect North Korean accent.
The two Michaels had met once at a dinner in Beijing. The expatriates chatted about China, North Korea and relations between the two countries.
Mr. Kovrig had gone to Budapest after college in the mid-1990s, joining a wave of Westerners who flooded into once-closed Central European countries. He worked as a reporter and sang in a punk band before returning home to join Canada’s diplomatic service.
Fluorescent lights glowed 24 hours a day in Mr. Kovrig’s windowless cell at Beijing’s No. 1 Detention Center. For almost six months, he was confined without a whiff of fresh air. To break the monotony, he devised a daily workout of push-ups, six-minute planks and 7,000 steps around the tiny space.
Prison authorities spent the first months of Mr. Kovrig’s incarceration conducting interrogations that stretched to 10 hours. Over and over, they questioned his work at the Canadian embassy in Beijing.
In June 2019, after more than 150 days in prison, Mr. Kovrig was allowed to send a batch of letters home. The embassy scanned the stack of handwritten notes and emailed them to his wife in Toronto.
Vina Nadjibulla, a 44-year-old international security analyst, met Mr. Kovrig while they were studying international relations at Columbia University in 2001. She was raised in wartime Kabul, the daughter of a Soviet Jew and an Afghan Muslim, and had found her calling in conflict prevention at the United Nations. Mr. Kovrig proposed to her in the U.N. Assembly Hall.
He entered Canada’s foreign service, and she worked on the reconstruction of postwar Sierra Leone. The couple had separated by the time of Mr. Kovrig’s arrest. But each had promised to help the other if they were ever kidnapped during their work abroad.
Ms. Nadjibulla put her life on hold, flying between Toronto, Washington and Ottawa to petition officials who could help free Mr. Kovrig. In June, Mr. Trudeau invited Ms. Nadjibulla to his office, and she read from her husband’s letters to his family.
“If there is one faint silver lining to this hell, it’s this: trauma carved caverns of psychological pain through my mind,” one letter said. “I find myself filling those gulfs with a love for you and for life that is vast, deep and more profound and comforting than what I’ve ever experienced.”
“Come sit with me and walk with me in spirit,” Mr. Kovrig wrote. “Help me feel less isolated. Let me share the love I have for you and we’ll get through this together.”
About a week later, Mr. Trudeau arrived in Osaka, Japan, for the G-20 summit. He set out to lobby the one person who could release his two countrymen—Mr. Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
2 .LUCKY BREAK
In meetings with Western leaders, Mr. Xi seldom joked and rarely smiled. He usually began with a monologue of talking points almost identical to his public statements. He so resolutely stuck to scripted remarks that his interpreter simply read aloud from a prepared English text. When finished, Mr. Xi would ask, “Don’t you agree?”
White House officials analyzing transcripts from closed-door talks often struggled to understand whether Mr. Xi had said anything of substance beyond his prepared statements.
In their conversations, Mr. Trump would try six or seven ways of bluntly asking a specific question, and Mr. Xi would repeat the same vague responses.
Other world leaders traded small talk and called each other by their first names—Donald, Angela, Vladimir. Even behind closed doors, Mr. Xi stuck to “Mr. President” or “Madam Prime Minister” and other honorifics.
Throughout the first half of 2019, Mr. Trudeau had failed to get an audience with Mr. Xi. His diplomats in China were frozen out. The Chinese reply to Mr. Trudeau was frustrating: It would breach protocol for Mr. Xi, China’s head of state, to speak with Mr. Trudeau, merely the head of government of Canada, whose head of state was Queen Elizabeth II.
Beijing expressed itself through trade restrictions. China blocked shipments of Canadian canola oil at its ports. In May, it barred pork from two of Canada’s top slaughterhouses. Three days ahead of the G-20 summit, it stopped all Canadian meat from entering China.
Mr. Trudeau asked Mr. Trump to speak up for Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor when the U.S. president met with the Chinese leader at the summit in Osaka.
At their meeting, Mr. Trump handed Mr. Xi a sheet of paper that listed the names of Americans being held in China. The names, written in Chinese and English, also included Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.
“It would be a great gesture,” Mr. Trump said with a stroke of flattery, if China could help these people get home.
Scanning the names, Mr. Xi pointedly noted that the last time the two leaders had met was the day of Ms. Meng’s arrest.
Mr. Trudeau got his opening by chance. Chile was a guest at the G-20 meeting, but its representative didn’t attend a scheduled assembly. That left Canada seated alphabetically between China and Brazil—and Mr. Xi seated to the right of Mr. Trudeau.
The Canadian prime minister passed a note, handwritten in Chinese, to Mr. Xi. “We have to communicate,” it said. Mr. Trudeau proposed they select two confidants to begin backchannel talks.
The two men stepped to the side of a conference floor, exchanged pleasantries through a translator and clasped hands.
Days later, Dominic Barton, the former global managing partner of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., carried a thin folder of notes into the gated Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing. His meeting was unofficial and secret. He told his secretary he was on vacation.
The 60-year-old Canadian had risen in the slipstream of China’s economic miracle, and through more than a decade living and working in the country had ties with Chinese entrepreneurs, executives and party leaders. He had written two books on China and taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Mr. Barton wasn’t a diplomat. Yet Mr. Trudeau believed he could break the diplomatic logjam and bring home the two Michaels.
An adviser had informed the prime minister that there was a 40% chance Mr. Barton’s first meeting with Chinese officials would go well, a 40% chance it would go well enough for a second visit and a 20% chance it would go sour.
The silver-haired executive smiled at a pair of Foreign Ministry officials when he and the adviser entered the meeting room. An elderly Communist Party official began reading from a stack of pages, pausing with dramatic effect for the translator to catch up.
“You have arrested Madam Meng.”
“You are lapdogs of the United States.”
Mr. Barton interrupted, and the ministry official, appointed by Mr. Xi, looked up and flipped back to the first page. Then he began rereading from the beginning. For three hours, the official read from an invective-laced script, circling back to the top each time Mr. Barton protested.
Calling for a timeout, Mr. Barton stepped into the hallway. “I think we’re in the 5%,” the adviser said, acknowledging the worse-than-expected outcome.
Mr. Barton held his tongue through the last hour of hectoring. The Chinese official focused on Section 23(3) of Canada’s 1999 Extradition Act, which gave the country’s justice minister authority to cancel an extradition.
“You don’t even know your own law!” the official said.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Barton asked if China’s Foreign Ministry would attend a second meeting in Ottawa. No, the official said. But the Canadians were welcome to return to Beijing.
That was the only good news Mr. Barton had for the prime minister.
“OK,” Mr. Trudeau said in their phone call. “Well, that’s something.”
Weeks later, Mr. Barton was named Canada’s ambassador to China. His first test was a meeting with Mr. Xi in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. The ambassador delivered a short speech in his halting Mandarin during an exchange that lasted barely a minute.
“My mission here is to resolve this issue,” Mr. Barton said. “I want to get Madam Meng and our people home.”
“I didn’t know you spoke Mandarin,” Mr. Xi said.
“I don’t…that’s the only Mandarin I know,” the executive replied.
Mr. Xi smiled. “It takes two people to repair a relationship,” he said.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, then offered his own rough-edged advice.
“You got a lot of work to do,” Mr. Wang said, slapping Mr. Barton’s back. “You better exercise hard!”
Shortly after, Mr. Barton made his first visit to a Chinese prison. Guards escorted him past an interrogation room holding a metal chair with straps.
Guards told Mr. Spavor that he had a visitor.
The two men met in a reception room, and they were told not to discuss Mr. Spavor’s case. Mr. Barton leaned across a table toward the handcuffed prisoner. “I’m going to talk to you very fast to be able to smuggle some stuff in about the case,” he said. “Here are the four things I want to discuss. But first, is there anything you want to put on the agenda?”
Mr. Spavor, struggling with sleep, looked numb. “How long will this go on?” he said. “Every day I wake up, and it’s the same.”
Mr. Barton said he didn’t know. He spoke rapidly about efforts to free him and of the health of Mr. Spavor’s father in Calgary, who had fallen seriously ill.
When guards caught mention of Ms. Meng, they interrupted, and Mr. Barton switched subjects before returning to the case.
Mr. Barton also went to the Beijing prison to see Mr. Kovrig, who was livid and gesturing at guards he said were abusive. They had taken away his glasses, citing rules against metal objects.
“Take their numbers!” he said, his 6-foot-4 frame stretching out of his too-small prison uniform. “Write them down!”
In his letters, Mr. Kovrig had called the prison a concrete desert.
He also demanded to know about his release. “When will this get done?”
Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor were headed toward their second Christmas behind bars when NATO leaders mingled at a Dec. 3, 2019, Champagne reception in Buckingham Palace.
It was hosted in the Green Drawing Room, a long, crimson-carpeted hallway decorated with silk wallpaper and gold-framed pictures of England’s monarchs. Kate Middleton and Prince William filtered through the crowd of NATO officials charged with defending the West. Mr. Trudeau spoke privately with the queen.
The prime minister’s chief foreign policy adviser, David Morrison, grabbed a word with White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Earlier in the day, the prime minister had told Mr. Trump about the ordeal the two Michaels were enduring. The U.S. agreed to a meeting in Washington, an opening Canada welcomed.
The White House had already resumed prisoner-exchange talks with Beijing. National security adviser Robert O’Brien, who followed Mr. Bolton, had recently been in Bangkok for a meeting of Asian leaders.
He surprised China’s premier, Li Keqiang, at the meeting with books for the two Canadian prisoners: “Unbroken,” Laura Hillenbrand’s profile of World War II prisoner Louis Zamperini, for Mr. Kovrig, a C.S. Lewis novel for Mr. Spavor and a Bible for each. The books contained handwritten notes reassuring the two captives that the world knew of their suffering.
As Mr. O’Brien passed on the books, he also relayed a diplomatic message: Washington wanted to talk.
Days later, China’s deputy chief of mission in Washington met discreetly with National Security Council staff at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. Washington had no right to demand the Canadians’ release, the Chinese delegate said: “This is not a U.S. matter.”
Beijing, however, was willing to consider another exchange first, to build trust. The U.S. could accelerate the deportation of Bank of China Ltd. manager Xu Guojun, who was sought by Chinese authorities for corruption-related charges.
In return, the Americans wanted David Lin, a Taiwanese-American pastor imprisoned for life after proselytizing in China, and Kai Li, a Chinese-American businessman from Long Island, N.Y., who was serving 10 years for espionage.
A few days before Christmas, a Canadian delegation met in Mr. Mulvaney’s office at the White House, where administration officials were preoccupied with Mr. Trump’s first impeachment hearings.
Canada’s acting ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, and Messrs. Barton and Morrison squeezed next to John Demers, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security, and Matt Pottinger, deputy national security adviser. The sooner Ms. Meng was extradited, Mr. Pottinger said, the sooner the two Michaels could be freed.
The Canadian delegation said Ms. Meng’s appeal could last years and would almost certainly end in a plea deal. If so, they said, the sooner the U.S. agreed to a plea deal, the better for Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor.
After several videoconference calls through the spring of 2020, Mr. Demers told the Canadian diplomats that the Justice Department was considering a deferred prosecution agreement: Prosecutors wouldn’t move forward with charges if Ms. Meng pledged not to commit other federal crimes.
The sticking point was that Ms. Meng would have to admit wrongdoing. Her lawyers said she would never agree because she had done nothing wrong.
Mr. Barton and his closest aides in Beijing frequently worked in a room below the Canadian embassy that had metal-coated walls to repel electronic surveillance. It was named the Salle de Deux Innocents—the Room of Two Innocents—for a travelogue written by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau after he hitchhiked with a friend across Mao-era China.
In meetings, Mr. Barton and the aides toggled through flipboard pages with names of officials they hoped could persuade China to see the logic of settling Ms. Meng’s case with the Justice Department.
Months before her arrest, the two countries had pursued a free-trade agreement. Now, the invitations to state functions slowed to a trickle. Mr. Barton, known for his ability to strike deals in China, couldn’t get calls returned, even from longtime acquaintances. “We have come to expect this from the U.S., but we have a 50-year relationship with you,” one official said.
The mission wasn’t just faltering, Mr. Barton confided to a colleague. It was lurching toward humiliation.
In spring 2020, Mr. Barton hoped for better luck with Mr. Ren, the Huawei founder. He secured an appointment at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters, where he found Mr. Ren upbeat about his daughter’s prospects.
Madam Meng would be home soon, Mr. Ren said through his translator. Her lawyers had many grounds to appeal her extradition, and they believed one would stick. “I trust the Canadian legal system will do the right thing,” he said.
Ms. Meng, her legal team and Huawei were so confident of a win that they had her bags packed and chartered the 787th Boeing 787 ever made, a commemorative Dreamliner jet that would bring her home from Vancouver.
Days before Ms. Meng’s May 27, 2020, court hearing, her assistants staged a rehearsal for a planned photo on the steps of British Columbia’s Supreme Court building. Huawei colleagues and household staff joined Ms. Meng, flashing victory signs in front of an imagined crowd of supporters.
On the morning of the hearing, they were met instead by a jeering crowd hoisting signs: “Boycott Huawei” and “Free Canadians Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor.”
In the courtroom, Ms. Meng’s lawyers told the judge that the U.S. extradition request was faulty. Under Canadian law, the extradition could proceed only if the offense was a crime in both Canada and the U.S.
Although U.S. prosecutors had charged Ms. Meng with bank fraud, the lawyers said, the case was in fact about U.S. sanctions on Iran, and Canada had no such sanctions. The judge declined the appeal.
Vina Nadjibulla, Mr. Kovrig’s wife, was watching the judgment and taking notes. She had spent hundreds of hours following the case. After the judge’s decision, she went to Washington to brief officials.
Each month, she sent Mr. Kovrig a letter with regards from friends. She included such cryptic messages as, “I was walking in our old stomping grounds,” meaning she had been lobbying officials at the U.N.
Ms. Nadjibulla sent nutritional and fitness advice. Mr. Kovrig began sprinkling milk powder and sesame powder from the prison canteen on meals for a protein boost; he tried pistol squats to strengthen his core. His life was so closed he didn’t understand that a pandemic was disrupting the world.
Mr. Kovrig read 20 to 30 books a month—on philosophy and geopolitics, classics from Tolstoy to Kafka and Nelson Mandela’s prison autobiography, “The Long Walk to Freedom.” He and Mr. Spavor read copies of Viktor Frankl’s meditation on life in Auschwitz, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
Mr. Spavor shared his books with cellmates, who were rarely allowed them. In return, they helped him learn to write Chinese characters.
Mr. Kovrig’s letters home included book reviews, and Ms. Nadjibulla forwarded his recommendations to an informal book club of friends and colleagues in the U.S., Canada and Asia.
After months of requests, Chinese prison guards allowed Mr. Kovrig to call his family. Ms. Nadjibulla answered.
“V, is that you?” he said.
In the summer of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic spread worldwide, FBI agents arrested five academic researchers, most of them charged with lying on visa applications. Trump administration officials believed the students were exploiting U.S. research to advance China’s military. All pleaded not guilty.
The arrests prompted China to resuscitate secret prisoner-swap discussions with the U.S., which had gone silent in the pandemic. Beijing wanted its researchers back. Washington wanted its Americans—and the two Michaels.
A videoconference linked officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Justice Department with Chinese Foreign Ministry diplomats and the Ministry of Public Security. The U.S. insisted on using Microsoft Teams rather than Chinese software for the meeting.
“They are students,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said. “They are just studying.”
The U.S. offered to return the researchers, as well as speed up the deportation of Xu Guojun, the banker sought by China on corruption charges.
In return, the Americans wanted Kai Li, the businessman, and David Lin, the pastor, as well as Victor Liu and Cynthia Liu, American siblings blocked from leaving China since 2018. The U.S. also asked China to allow the exit of another three U.S. citizens, including two children.
The proposed exchange—seven Chinese for seven Americans, plus the two Canadians—would make it one of the largest prisoner swaps since the Cold War.
When U.S. officials raised the names of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor, a Ministry of Public Security official said, “The Chinese people would not allow the Michaels to go home unless Madam Meng does.”
A Justice Department official encouraged the Chinese officials to talk with Ms. Meng’s lawyers about accepting the offer from federal prosecutors: freedom in exchange for an admission of wrongdoing. Persuade her to sign, the U.S. official said.
The talks fizzled. The U.S. wouldn’t bring home the Americans without the two Canadians. Ms. Meng wasn’t interested in the prosecutors’ offer.
The Chinese executive told her lawyers she would never admit wrongdoing. She was willing to remain in Vancouver for years, if necessary, while her legal team fought the U.S. extradition. The company’s reputation was at stake.
That summer, Huawei swept past Samsung Electronics Co. to become the world’s top smartphone maker. As chief financial officer, Ms. Meng had to protect the empire her father had built.
But Huawei was already tipping.
Mr. Trump, who began referring to Huawei as “Spyway,” signed off on new export restrictions in 2020 that blocked the company from buying computer chips produced with U.S. tools. The restrictions extended to manufacturers using American technology worldwide. Huawei started to run low on chips it needed to churn out smartphones, which made up around half its revenue.
Huawei also lost the license to load Google software on its phones and tablets. As sales plunged, Huawei considered shifting into electric cars.
Canada discussed the arrest of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor at NATO counterintelligence briefings. Western leaders who spoke with Mr. Trudeau heard about the harrowing prison conditions endured by the two Michaels. Many of the details came from Ms. Nadjibulla.
One by one, the world’s wealthiest countries gravitated toward the U.S. position and cut ties with Huawei.
In July 2020, the U.K. announced it would ban the company from its networks by 2027. Two weeks later, France said it would stop renewing licenses for Huawei 5G equipment, effectively barring the company. By October, the U.K. Parliament’s defense committee said it would accelerate the Huawei ban.
Huawei’s head of public affairs in North America, Vincent Peng, bounced between the U.S., Canada and China, scouting for lobbyists to reach lawmakers and diplomats to help free Ms. Meng.
Mr. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election in November, and as the clock ticked down to a new administration, Mr. Peng called Mr. Barton a few days before Christmas. He said Huawei was going to try its luck with Joe Biden.
Mr. Biden’s first bilateral meeting as president was with Canada on Feb. 23, 2021. The first item on Mr. Trudeau’s meeting agenda was the release of Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor. “These two guys are in prison,” the prime minister said. “They are there because we are living up to our commitments to you….We need to get them out.”
“I will not interfere with the judicial process,” Mr. Biden replied. “Everything else, I am here for you.”
Ms. Meng’s detention was one area where Mr. Xi hoped he could reset U.S.-China relations under the new president. Yet from all appearances, the relationship remained volatile.
At a March 2021 meeting in Alaska, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, publicly accused the U.S. of persuading other countries to attack China. In private, Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up the two Michaels, saying serious countries don’t kidnap people to use as bargaining chips.
That month, Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor were tried for espionage in closed-door hearings. Verdicts and sentences wouldn’t be announced until later.
3 .TWO PRESIDENTS
As Mr. Biden took office, the Chinese leader came to see the case as an obstacle to restoring U.S.-China ties under the new administration. Mr. Xi felt his country had demonstrated sufficient resolve against Western provocation.
He tapped Xie Feng, a vice foreign minister, to bring the prisoner standoff to an end. Mr. Xi by then had sent more than 100 handwritten notes to underlings about Ms. Meng’s case.
In July 2021, the Justice Department dropped charges against the five Chinese researchers, a decision that lowered tensions between the two countries. Days later, Mr. Xie joined a gathering of senior U.S. and Chinese officials in Tianjin, the first such meeting in more than three months.
Between testy exchanges about Covid-19 and human rights, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said her department wouldn’t block Ms. Meng’s return home if she settled with U.S. prosecutors.
That was the assurance Mr. Xie was seeking.
Two weeks after the Tianjin meeting, Mr. Barton learned that Mr. Spavor would be sentenced in Dandong. The ambassador’s team invited diplomats from allied countries to gather at the courthouse. If Canada couldn’t stop the sentencing, it wanted the world as a witness.
Mr. Barton was joined by diplomats from the U.S., Japan, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. In the courtroom, Mr. Barton opened a video call to the Canadian embassy in Beijing and narrated the proceedings.
The judge sentenced Mr. Spavor to an 11-year term for espionage, based on the number of incriminating photos authorities claimed they found on his phone. Mr. Barton called Mr. Spavor’s family and then spoke to reporters.
“Our collective presence and voice sends a strong signal to China and the Chinese government that all the eyes of the world are watching,” the ambassador said.
A month later, Mr. Barton was summoned to the U.S. Embassy safe room to read transcripts of a call between Messrs. Biden and Xi. The two leaders had again pressed each other to release the prisoners.
It was, according to Beijing, “the consensus of the two presidents.”
Mr. Barton got an unexpected call while he was wrapping up a visit to an organization serving children with special needs in Qinghai, one of China’s poorest provinces. An aide handed him a phone and said, “Xie Feng wants to speak to you now!” Mr. Barton stepped into a blue van.
Mr. Xie spoke through a translator and quizzed Mr. Barton over details for completing the deferred prosecution agreement with Ms. Meng. The snag was how the U.S. would characterize her wrongdoing. Mr. Barton relayed some potential wording, and Mr. Xie cut him off, breaking into English.
That’s good, he said.
Ms. Meng wouldn’t explicitly admit to lying—only that the statements she had made to HSBC were “untrue.”
Mr. Barton plugged in a phone charger and called off his next visit. He kept Mr. Xie on the phone to go over logistics of a deal that could easily collapse. It all hinged on one overriding question: Would Xi Jinping approve?
The decision arrived in a handwritten note from the General Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Xi gave his consent.
On the evening of Sept. 19, one of Ms. Meng’s new lawyers emailed a statement of facts to the Justice Department. The Huawei executive would concede that what she told the HSBC banker in 2013 was untrue.
Five days later, Ms. Meng joined a Brooklyn, N.Y., court hearing in a videoconference call from Vancouver. She pleaded not guilty to the indictment and accepted the deferred prosecution agreement.
The same day, Mr. Barton arrived for a prison visit with Mr. Kovrig. He learned he would speak to the two Michaels in video calls. Mr. Spavor had already arrived in Beijing by train.
“You will have the honor of telling them they’re going home,” a security official told Mr. Barton.
Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor appeared on the calls, one after the other. Mr. Barton tried to keep his voice from breaking in his call to Mr. Spavor.
“You’re going home,” he said.
Mr. Spavor looked bewildered.
“Are you serious?”
Nervous that any snag could derail the prisoner exchange, only a few select diplomats in Canada’s Beijing embassy knew what was afoot. Embassy staff worked out travel arrangements. A diplomat’s wife volunteered to bake peanut-butter cookies for the trip home.
In Vancouver, Ms. Meng and her lawyers had a 4 p.m. deadline on Sept. 24 to complete paperwork for the agreement with the Justice Department.
After the U.S. case was done, Canada invoked Section 23(3), the article allowing the government to terminate Ms. Meng’s custody.
In China, Messrs. Spavor and Kovrig, handcuffed and blindfolded, arrived at the Tianjin airport. Mr. Barton waited in the VIP lounge.
As the Canadians cleared the immigration checkpoint in China, officers at the Vancouver airport handed Ms. Meng her own freshly stamped passport. She hugged a lawyer and bid farewell to Chinese consular officers.
Ms. Meng learned during her flight that Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor had also been freed.
After a nighttime landing, Ms. Meng descended the airplane stairs at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport. She wore a Chinese flag pinned to her red Carolina Herrera dress and waved to a waiting crowd. Projectors flashed her name across skyscrapers in Shenzhen.
From a red carpet placed on the tarmac for her arrival, Ms. Meng raised her hands in victory and thanked one person, Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor touched down in Anchorage, Alaska. On the rain-washed runway, Mr. Kovrig bent to kiss the ground. Mr. Spavor joked they should hold their kisses until they reached Canada.
Mr. Trudeau and a small entourage greeted their return in Calgary, Mr. Spavor’s hometown. They were welcomed with to-go cups of Tim Hortons coffee.
Mr. Kovrig flew on to Toronto. Ms. Nadjibulla met him there, and they embraced beside a Royal Canadian Air Force jet.
The next day, China allowed the Liu siblings to return to the U.S.
Once home, Mr. Spavor found it hard to sleep in his own bed, having grown accustomed to contorting himself in a cell beside dozens of inmates. He remains in Canada and regularly speaks by phone with Mr. Barton.
Mr. Kovrig and Ms. Nadjibulla spent weeks together writing a book on the ordeal during her stays in Spain, Canada and the Netherlands. They hope the book offers a road map for other prisoners and their families. Despite their divorce plans, they are in some ways closer now than ever, friends said.
Mr. Barton resigned his post as ambassador three months after the two Michaels returned home. He became chairman of Rio Tinto PLC, the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate. China, long locked in a trade dispute with Australia, agreed last month to develop a $2 billion iron-ore project with his new company.
Ms. Meng was recently promoted to a six-month rotation as Huawei’s chairwoman. She no longer sets foot in Western countries.
The U.S. and Canada persuaded 66 other countries to sign a declaration against arbitrary detention to forestall similar international disputes.
The resurgence of what the U.S. has called hostage diplomacy—by China but also Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Turkey—has reached such proportions that Mr. Biden this summer declared it a national emergency. He signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. to impose sanctions on anyone involved in wrongfully detaining Americans abroad.
Huawei has pleaded not guilty to the bank-fraud and other charges in the U.S. case. On Monday, prosecutors unsealed charges against two Chinese intelligence officers accused of trying to bribe a U.S. law-enforcement employee for confidential information about what people familiar with the case said was the Huawei investigation.
Canada in May declared Huawei a national security risk and banned it from building 5G networks in the country. It was a political decision, a Huawei spokesman said, resulting from U.S. pressure.
“We used to embrace the ideal of globalization and aspire to serve all mankind,” Mr. Ren wrote in an August company memo. “What is our ideal now? Survive and earn some money wherever we can.”
The company has since been expelled from most European and North American 5G networks.
Jonathan Cheng, Jacquie McNish and Bob Mackin Jr. contributed to this article.
Endnotes
A pair of prison vans approached…the description of the airport exchange in China and Canada came from the recollections of people involved in the exchange, others monitoring events, as well as unpublished photos and airport records.
Fifteen time zones away…Wall Street Journal reporter and photographer present.
Days later, the two Canadians were seized…Prior reporting, friends and former colleagues who worked with Messrs. Kovrig and Spavor.
The Chinese leader penned…Chinese officials.
First to fall
Meng Wanzhou planned to spend only a few hours…court testimony and flight information disclosed in extradition proceedings, closed-circuit TV images and contemporaneous notes from Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Around the time Ms. Meng walked…senior U.S. administration and National Security Council officials and senior Canadian officials at the G-20 summit.
Mr. Bolton, then-national security adviser…U.S. and Canadian officials.
While Ms. Meng was on her flight…an email to Canadian police that was filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia; testimony from RCMP officers.
In a briefing room at the Vancouver airport…RCMP officers’ notes made public during the extradition proceedings.
“Seize any electronic devices”... copies of officers’ notes submitted during extradition hearings.
Two border guards escorted Ms. Meng…notes and transcripts from Ms. Meng’s guards, photos of the devices shown in extradition hearings.
Ms. Meng began to gasp for air…court documents, former Huawei official and a member of Ms. Meng’s staff.
Mr. Xi learned shortly after…Chinese officials.
Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Bolton…people familiar with the conversation.
Chinese foreign ministry officials briefed Mr. Xi…senior Chinese officials and Chinese state news reports.
Two days later, a call came…Canadian officials and people familiar with the situation.
A month later, Mr. Trudeau cemented his government’s position…Canadian officials present.
To free Ms. Meng…people familiar with Ms. Meng’s legal team.
One of Huawei’s recruits…people familiar with the meeting.
In 2009, U.S. cyberspies had infiltrated…prior Journal reporting and former U.S. officials.
An analysis that circulated among intelligence officials…National Security Council staff.
By the time of the Trump administration…former U.S. officials.
U.S. diplomats took printouts of the law to allies…State Department officials.
In Dallas, Mr. Ren visited the 60,000-acre headquarters…blog post by Mr. Ren.
As the company grew…prior Journal reporting.
Paperwork for search warrants…people familiar with the investigation.
A bank provided investigators…court documents from Ms. Meng’s case.
The file became useful when HSBC…court documents and people familiar with the investigation.
Ms. Meng’s jail in Vancouver was a $4.2 million house…property records, Canadian officials and a 2018 affidavit Ms. Meng filed in court.
Ms. Meng, who had at least seven passports…court documents and the Hong Kong Companies Registry.
Mr. Ren dispatched a team of Huawei employees…advisers to Ms. Meng and other people close to her.
The former head sales executive in Europe…advisers to Ms. Meng.
When Ms. Meng stepped out…court records.
Each time Ms. Meng went to court…interview with the nurse.
Mr. Spavor, a Calgary native, had traveled to South Korea…Mr. Spavor’s friends and former colleagues.
The two Michaels had met once at a dinner…mutual friends of the men.
Mr. Kovrig had gone to Budapest…Mr. Kovrig’s friends and family.
Fluorescent lights glowed 24 hours a day…Mr. Kovrig’s friends and family, as well as prison letters home.
“Help me feel less isolated”... letters sourced from Mr. Kovrig’s family.
Lucky break
In meetings with Western leaders…Western officials.
Mr. Trudeau had failed to get an audience…senior Canadian officials.
Mr. Trudeau asked Mr. Trump…U.S. and Canadian officials present.
At their meeting, Mr. Trump handed Mr. Xi…people present and others familiar with the exchange.
The Canadian prime minister passed a note…Canadian officials present.
Dominic Barton, the former chief executive of…Canadian officials familiar with the meeting.
Yet Mr. Trudeau believed he could break…Canadian officials.
The silver-haired executive smiled…Canadian officials and people familiar with the situation.
“You have arrested Madam Meng”…Canadian officials and people familiar with the situation.
His first test was a meeting with Mr. Xi…Canadian officials familiar with the exchange.
Shortly after, Mr. Barton made his first visit…people familiar with the meetings.
In his letters, Mr. Kovrig had called…letters published in Canadian media, and people familiar with the letters.
The White House had already resumed…people familiar with the talks.
He surprised China’s premier, Li Keqiang…people familiar with the meeting.
Days later, the deputy chief of mission…people familiar with the talks.
A few days before Christmas…people familiar with the meeting.
The sticking point…people familiar with the negotiations.
Mr. Barton and his closest aides in Beijing gathered…current and former officials familiar with the meetings.
Madam Meng would be home soon…current and former officials familiar with the meetings.
Each month she sent…Mr. Kovrig’s friends and family.
In the summer of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic spread…criminal complaints and officials involved in the discussions.
A videoconference linked officials…officials at the meeting.
The proposed exchange…officials at the meeting.
The talks fizzled…senior U.S. officials.
The Chinese executive told her lawyers she would never…people familiar with the discussions.
Huawei’s chief public-relations officer in North America…U.S. and Canadian officials and other people familiar with his activities.
The first item on Mr. Trudeau’s meeting agenda…U.S. and Canadian officials, White House readout of the discussion.
In private, Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up…U.S. and Canadian officials.
Two presidents
He tapped Xie Feng…Chinese government officials, Canadian officials and U.S. officials.
Mr. Xi by then had sent more than 100 handwritten notes…Chinese government officials.
In July 2021, the Justice Department dropped charges…U.S. officials familiar with the situation.
Between testy exchanges…officials familiar with the talks.
Two weeks after the Tianjin meeting…people present at the courthouse.
Two weeks later, Mr. Barton was summoned…people familiar with the meeting.
An aide handed him a phone…people familiar with the conversation.
The decision arrived in a handwritten note…people familiar with the situation.
The same day, Mr. Barton arrived for a prison visit…people familiar with the meeting.
Nervous that any snag could derail the prisoner exchange…people involved in the plans in Beijing and Ottawa.
In Vancouver, Ms. Meng and her lawyers had a deadline…people familiar with the court proceedings.
After the U.S. case was done, Canada invoked…senior Canadian officials.
She hugged a lawyer and bid farewell…a Journal reporter present.
Ms. Meng learned during her flight…people close to Ms. Meng.
After a nighttime landing, Ms. Meng descended…Chinese state television.
Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com, Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com
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- While our president was busy dealing with China, our House and intel were busy dealing with him. What China?
- China has always wanted to conquer the world. It's a multi-generational, multimillennial goal. Unchanging. Best way to stand up is to become energy independent.
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- Where is the US government’s concern for freeing Zhang Zhan, the Chinese woman and citizen journalist who was incarcerated (for life) simply for reporting on Covid in Wuhan at the start of the epidemic? The US government’s inconsistent support for human rights - especially in China - is an embarrassment and a disgrace.
- The hard facts are that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) hid knowledge of the virus from the rest of the world (to avoid embarrassment at best, or to have time to hoard supplies and put other countries in a bad place at worst), and arrested whistleblower doctors like Dr Li Wenliang. They are responsible for the global pandemic because they could've contained it early on instead of covering it up. And Tedros/the WHO was complicit by repeating China's lies about "there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission".
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- Well, please be open to criticism. This long story distorts many key details, the justice of the arrest, and the role of US/Canada. Just read it as a fairy tale.
- Imagine having no facts to present as you make a baseless claim that the story presented is "a fairy tale". . . . Chairman Xi is that you?
- Found the WUMAO.
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- Bolton never ran for President
- The arrest of the Huawei Chinese lady was pretty low, as low as China's arrest of the Canadian guys.Greg B
- I agree. I was shocked at the time. I expected this sort of politically driven arrest from China, but Canada ?
- Low? If you've followed how the CCP have been lying, stealing, and cheating trillions of dollars of IP from us over the years and generally abusing us, you might have been thrilled to see us hit back for a change. She's hardly an innocent. The kidnapping and ransoming of the two Canadians by the CCP thugs was pretty low.
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