Photo: The Canadian Press

Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland 

As details of American allegations against a Chinese executive were revealed Friday in a Vancouver court, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada's ambassador in Beijing had briefed the Chinese foreign ministry on her arrest.

Freeland said that Ambassador John McCallum has assured the Chinese foreign ministry that due process is being followed in Canada and consular access will be provided to Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. She was arrested at Vancouver Airport on Saturday after a request by the United States.

Freeland refused to discuss details of the case, citing the imperative of keeping politics out of a live court proceeding — one that clearly has massive geopolitical ramifications.

The case will likely intensify pressure on the Trudeau government, which is being urged to refuse to allow Huawei products in Canada's next-generation 5G telecommunications networks.

A Canadian prosecutor told a Vancouver court on Friday that the United States asked Canada to arrest Meng because the U.S. alleges she violated sanctions on Iran.

The allegation against Meng came in a packed Vancouver courtroom during a hearing on whether she should be released on bail before an extradition process. The Crown lawyer told the hearing that the U.S. alleges Huawei Technologies used subsidiary Skycom to do business with Iran, violating sanctions against that country.

Meng is being accused of fraud by the U.S. government, which wants her extradited from Canada to face the charge. The Crown says Meng is alleged to have said Huawei and Skycom were separate and she allegedly lied to an executive of an unnamed financial institution, which it asserts put the institution at risk.

China's foreign ministry has pushed Canada to reveal the reason for the arrest and the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa has branded Meng's arrest a serious violation of human rights.

Freeland highlighted McCallum's elevated diplomatic status as a former Liberal cabinet minister, and characterized his conversation with the Chinese as positive.

"I have not spoken directly to Chinese officials but John McCallum, our ambassador to China — our very senior ambassador to China — has spoken with Chinese officials," Freeland said Friday in a teleconference from meetings in Berlin. "And he has assured China that due process is absolutely being followed in Canada and consular access for China to Ms. Meng will be provided, and that we are a rule-of-law country, and we will be following our laws as we have thus far in this matter, and as we will continue to do."

Freeland reiterated what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday: that Meng's arrest was part of an independent legal process that is separate from politics.

McCallum was clear that Chinese consular officials will have access to Meng "just as we seek consular access for detained Canadians around the world, including in China."

Huawei has become the world's biggest supplier of equipment used by phone and internet companies. But the company has faced widespread allegations that is it is an espionage organ of the Chinese military and security services — an accusation the company strongly denies.

The U.S. has led a charge to ban the use of Huawei products among its allies, particularly the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that also includes Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. So far, New Zealand and Australia have banned the company from their 5G networks; Britain has expressed concerns and is considering measures.

Asked this week about a possible Canadian ban on Huawei, Trudeau said he would defer to the advice of his intelligence agencies.

The new director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service flagged issues surrounding 5G technology in a major speech this week in which he described the threat to Canada's national security posed by "economic espionage" from "hostile states."

David Vigneault did not name China or Huawei in his speech, but he noted that "many of these advanced technologies are dual-use in nature in that they could advance a country's economic, security or military interests."

"In particular, CSIS has seen a trend of state-sponsored espionage in fields that are crucial to Canada's ability to build and sustain a prosperous, knowledge-based economy," he added. "I'm talking about areas such as A.I., quantum technology, 5G, biopharma, and clean tech."