Save Sabrina! Demand Justice for Sabrina! Where were the American liberal democratic ladies when Sabrina was arrested and needed their support? Who is Sabrina? Sorry, our mainstream media seem to pick their political position (bias) and down play certain reporting. You might not know Sabrina, but you should know her story (Google Wikipedia) and defend her if you ever cared about human rights, woman’s dignity and American justice system. In the following, Dr. Wordman will tell Sabrina’s story, a movie-script like story to urge the world to stand behind her.

Sabrina (Ms. Meng Wanzhou) is the CFO of Huawei Corporation, daughter of the founder Ren Zhenfei and his first wife Meng Jun who divorced Ren and married again. Wanzhou adopted her mother’s name at age of 16 (born 2-13-1972 in Chengdu). Wanzhou got out of college in 1992 and started her first job at China Construction Bank then joined Huawei next year as a secretary, some said that she started working at the telephone switch board. In 1997, she went for graduate studies at HuaZhong University of Science and Technology clearly feeling the need of technical training for getting ahead in Huawei. She returned to Huawei in 1998 working for the accounting department, then growing with the company, rising through the ranks in the finance area from head of international accounting, CFO of Huawei Hong Kong, Director of Accounting Management Department, then becoming the CFO of Huawei.

Huawei, founded in 1987, is a very unique company not only in China but in the world. The founder believes in sharing profits with every worker but demands loyalty and hard work. The company stocks belong mostly to workers, a collective company in their own description. Founder Ren owns only 1.4% of the company and humbly holds the CEO position. Huawei’s current Chairman of the Board since March 2018 is Liang Hua, an engineer, the previous COB is a woman, Ms Sun Yafang (born 1955), who had a technical bachelor degree from the University of Electronic Sciences and Technology of China (UESTC 1982) and served in the Chinese army. She worked for Huawei since 1989 and became the Chairwoman in 1999 in ten years. Wanzhou is one of her four appointed Vice Chairmen in Huawei’s top executive list. Huawei probably can be considered as one of the world’s best companies for women employee.

Sabrina was traveling from Hong Kong to South America for conference and was arrested on December 1, 2018, in Vancouver while in transit by the Canadian government, based on a U.S. extradition request which was revealed later being issued on August 22, 2018 by the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York. Sabrina was treated crudely like a criminal and put in jail while not giving specific charges. Later, some organic news reports stated that she was charged with defrauding multiple international institutions concerning money for Huawei but actually for Skycom, a Hong Kong Company controlled by Huawei. Skycom was charged with selling equipments to Iran violating the Iran sanction, based on a 2013 Reuters report. Sabrina was finally granted her release with a bail of CAN$10million on 12-11-2018 with conditions that she will accept electronic surveillance and pay for the guard services preventing her from leaving Vancouver.

As Huawei’s CFO, Sabrina probably signs thousands if not more check transactions for Huawei and its subsidiaries in a month. Picking arrest over serving a legal notice for clarification and employing extradition involving Canada can only demonstrate that the U.S. district court has an extremely long arm in handling prosecution without concrete evidence and with no regard to individual rights, multinational corporation’s dignity and value of international diplomacy. Sabrina’s release was denied when China made serious protests through diplomatic channels to the U.S. and Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau claimed that his government was aware of the extradition request but did not get involved. (Making an arrest is not involvement?) The PM obviously does not remember those righteous speeches made in Canadian Parliament demanding human rights and justice in foreign lands.

White House staff claimed that Trump was not aware of Ms Meng’s arrest happening during his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (12/3-4/2018 at G20 in Argentina) National Security Advisor John Bolton acknowledged advance knowledge of the arrest but chose not to inform President Trump. (How secure the U.S. would be if our NSA could unilaterally decide to hide a US-China matter from the President while he is meeting with the Chinese leader?) Trump however said later he would intervene in Ms Meng’s case if it would help get a good deal in the trade war negotiation. (What an honest President not bothering to hide behind hypocrisy!) The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo also courageously stated that “foreign policy must be taken into consideration in this (Ms Meng’s) case, the mission is American First”. (Pompeo’s remarks draw some criticisms but the sad fact is that CIA tactics seem to be dominating our foreign affairs, even justice matter.) At the end, China made two consequential arrests of two Canadians (one former diplomat and think tank worker, Michael Kovrig, and one business consultant, Michael Spavor) on suspicion of threatening the national security of China; these arrests might have resulted in Ms Meng’s release on bail.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huáwéi) is a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, South China. Huawei sells its products and services in more than 170 countries, serving 45 of the 50 largest telecom operators since 2011. Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecom-equipment manufacturer in the world and overtook Apple in 2018 as the world second-largest manufacturer of smart-phones, behind Samsung Electronics. Huawei ranks 72nd on the list of the Fortune Global 500. Huawei had over 170,000 employees as of September 2017, about 76,000 of them engaged in R&D on lavishly designed and furnished campuses (some like palaces) distributed as 21 R&D institutes in 16 countries. As of 2017 the company invested US$13.8 billion in R&D, up from US$5 billion in 2013, recently planning to increase its basic research portion from 10 to 20-30%. No wonder Huawei is now the leader in the fifth generation (5G) communication, Internet and smart-phones. The U.S. is advised by the military not to trust Huawei’s communication equipment (likelihood of crippling U.S. military communication capabilities during war), hence the U.S. government has issued orders banning US government buying any Huawei equipment and not permitting Huawei to sell its phones in the U.S., presumably protecting Apple. 
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Huawei’s success is obviously a threat to many corporations such as South Korea’s Samsung, the U.S. Apple and many EU and Indian corporations. However, the U.S. is the only country to use national security as the reason to blockade and crush Huawei products. The U.S. rallies Japan, Australia and any ally would join to boycott Huawei products. Huawei is definitely feeling the giant ‘protectionism’ claw scratching its back. So far, France and Germany have stayed with Huawei citing no evidence showing Huawei’s products are unsafe. In fact, testing of telecommunication equipments has a long and reliable history since the days that every country uses the equipments from the U.S. (ATT, GTE, Motorola, and the like), France (Ericsson) and Germany (Siemens). Huawei’s equipments must have been thoroughly tested by the U.S. military. Any evidence of backdoor would have been widely publicized unless there is none or they are being used by the U.S. Military relying on foreign parts 100% is a concern in the event of war, however, using high-priced parts made by US military contractors is equally vulnerable. 

Sabrina’s case brought the world’s attention to 5G and exposed the ‘long arm’ practice of prosecution tramping human rights and the ugly government tactics in global commerce and squash competition in the name of national security. The coming of 5G over 4G means 20G over 100M in download speed and 100Mhz over 20Mhz in communication bandwidth thus lifting current video, e-Commerce and virtual reality to higher level applications such as auto-driving car with faster and sharper GPS, telemedicine bringing surgical hospital to everywhere, and intelligent cities with artificial reality and intelligence making human lives more comfortable. A folksy appreciation of 5G would be downloading a two-hour movie in two seconds or watching the Super Bowl at a ring seat in your home. Sabrina’s case revealed so many facts for thoughts but Ms Meng did not deserve harsh treatment or many sleepless nights in jail. We must speak out for Sabrina. Where were you when she needed your support? It is never too late to demand Justice for Sabrina!
 

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