China has issued a veiled threat to US companies such as Apple after the chief financial officer of one of its largest companies, Huawei, was arrested last week.
Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian authorities on 1 December at the request of the United States and will return to a Vancouver courtroom on Tuesday, to determine if she should be freed on bail while awaiting extradition proceedings.
She is accused of an alleged scheme to use the global banking system to evade US sanctions against Iran.
The ongoing row threatens to further escalate tensions between the two countries amid a tentative truce in the trade war initiated by President Donald Trump.
The two sides have agreed to trade negotiations that must be concluded by 1 March.
Earlier this week the Chinese state-backed Global Times, said: “Washington’s move to stifle Huawei will undermine itself.
“Banning Chinese companies like Huawei will isolate US from digital economy of the future.”
Although Apple, the world’s most valuable country, wasn’t mentioned by name, a recent court ruling in China hints at what could happen next.
It banned the sales ban of some older iPhone models in China for violating two patents of chipmaker Qualcomm.
While intellectual property (IP) lawyers said the case wasn’t directly political, most agreed it could be drawn into broader China-US trade tensions, where technology and IP have been a core focus, reports Reuters.
Erick Robinson, a patent lawyer in Beijing and former Qualcomm lawyer, said that while Chinese courts had become fairer in recent years, nationalism could sometimes be a factor in rulings.
“There is probably a political play here. Apple is a direct competitor to the biggest companies in China, whereas Qualcomm is a supplier,” Robinson said.
China has vehemently protested the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the phone and internet network gear company’s founder, and demanded the US withdraw charges that led Canadian officials to detain her while she was changing planes in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Chinese firm said on Tuesday in a statement: “We will continue to follow the bail hearing tomorrow. We have every confidence that the Canadian and US legal systems will reach a just conclusion.”
In comments reported separately by China’s Foreign Ministry, the government’s top diplomat, state councillor Wang Yi, said if China and the United States cooperated, it would benefit the whole world.
“If China and the United States are antagonistic, then there are no winners, and it will hurt the whole world,” Wang told a forum.
The United States should look at China’s development in a more positive light, and constantly look to “expand the space and prospects for mutual benefit”, he said.
Global markets are jittery about a growing clash between the world’s two largest economic powers over China’s huge trade surplus with the United States and Washington’s claims that Beijing is stealing intellectual property and technology.