Two of a kind

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As the Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadian Michaels were released by the Canadian government and China government respectively, the detention farce has lowered the curtain. It is a farce because all sensible person understand the allegation of the two (or the three) detentions were just excuse. Meng was detained at the same day when the U.S. and China began the trade war negotiation so apparently she was used as a bargaining chip by the U.S. Having said, naturally Meng has committed the act in the allegation and this was truly a crime. However, such act could be ignored or at least tolerated when the accused was not Meng or Meng is not the daughter of the founder of Huawei whose 5G technology is the U.S.'s Archilles heel. Unfortunately she is what she is so Meng was chosen as a bargaining chip.

The two Canadian Michaels are among the hundreds thousand foreigners who are living in China but unfortunately they are Canadian. An nationality with sin at the time when the first detention happened. They were arrested days after Meng's detention under the accusation of the violation of China's national security which is by right a very serious and complicated act of crime so the investigation should require a long time. Anyway, only nine days after Meng was detained then the two Michaels were arrested and charged with the accusation. Any sensible person will not think the investigation has begun just after Meng's detention and could complete within nine days. Then why the arrest happened just a few days after Meng's case? Apparently the investigation has begun long before Meng's case but was just kept on hold until the right timing comes. However, China reiterates repeatedly many times and even just after the release that the two Canadian's prosecution has nothing to do with the Meng's case. Their case was an independent one from Meng's. 

Since Meng's arrest, China has been accusing Canada arbitrarily detained Meng and that was a political persecution. Anyway, the U.S. prosecutor claimed that Meng's presentation to the HSBC was a  misleading about Huawei's business with Iran. That act misled the HSBC into the infringement of the U.S. sanction against Iran. Apparently Meng is not totally innocent in the surface. 

On the other hand, the two Canadian Michaels were arrested with the accusation of violating China's national security. In China anything as long as relates to national security will be processed, including court trial, in the dark so no details or even just brief information will be released to the public. Therefore some western observers even suspect that the prosecution was just a fabricated accusation. Naturally only the two parties involved know the truth.

The farce was over now but before that the whole world was in the state "sit back, relax, and enjoy" to see how the show would end. This was something like the combat between Mafia and Sinaloa Cartel. People know that both arrests were injustice. The then U.S. President Trump once suggested that Meng could be part a trade deal with China. China described it as a coercive diplomacy. However, the two Canadian Michaels' arrest happened just nine days after Meng's so it suggested that the prosecution was solely a retaliation. Some commentators even termed it as hostage diplomacy. In any case both arrests were disgraceful acts and injustice. While enjoying the show, people can't help but just question the ethic level of the world's biggest and second largest economy. Naturally people understand that the farce happened under the context of the combat on the world leadership between the two superpowers. When things relate to national interests then compromise is always at the expense of justice.

To most onlooker nations, the two cases are merely a farce. All announcements regarding these two cases by the respective governments, no matter how serious they may sound, are just jokes. Having said, when China reiterates the two Michaels' case are independent from Meng's one, people just can't help but ask does Beijing really think a lie will become a fact when repeated a hundred times?