Opinion | In the Huawei, Patrick Ho and Chinese spy cases, Trump sees only bargaining chips for his trade war

Robert Delaney says the US president has no regard for Washington’s cases against Huawei and other Chinese individuals and organisations, and would rather use them as bargaining chips in his trade war, even if it undermines Washington

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US and Chinese presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2017. Trump has been known to trade away Washington’s principles in exchange for an expeditious deal. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:00am, 11 Dec 2018Updated: 4:12am, 11 Dec 2018

Xu Yanjun, alleged by the US government to be a spy working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, was extradited from Brussels and is awaiting his pretrial hearings in Cleveland, Ohio.

Former Hong Kong official Patrick Ho Chi-ping was arrested at JFK airport in New York and is now in a Manhattan jail on a fraud conviction for trying to bribe African officials for a Chinese energy company.

Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of China’s largest telecom equipment maker, Huawei, is facing extradition to the US from Vancouver, Canada, in a headline-grabbing disruption of her flight from Hong Kong to Mexico.

It would be an understatement to say that all of these actions initiated by the United States Justice Department, occurring roughly over the past year, will complicate the delicate ceasefire in the US-China trade war.

But those who wish to draw quick conclusions should consider the important differences between the administration of US President Donald Trump, who started the trade war in July, and the US Justice Department, which has been an object of Trump’s scorn since he took office last year.