Yesterday, a Canadian judge approved the extradition of Meng Wanzhou to the United States, much to the fury of China. The three nations have been embroiled in a diplomatic spat over her for longer than two years, thanks to her position of Chief Financial Officer fo Huawei, and the daughter of its founder Ren Zhengfei.

On December 1, 2018, while transferring planes at Vancouver International Airport en route to Mexico from Hong Kong, Meng was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) at the request of the United States, pursuant to the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States. She faces extradition for allegedly attempting to circumvent Washington’s sanctions agains Iran.

On Wednesday, Justice Heather Holmes of British Columbia’s Supreme Court ruled that the US fraud charges against Meng satisfied the Canadian extradition requirement of “double criminality,” essentially demanding that the accused crime must also be a crime in Canada as well as in the requesting country. The ruling, however, does not mean she will immediately be extradited, it needs to pass another hearing and the ultimate decision is up to the federal justice minister.

The move by the US appears to be another step to curtail the success of Huawei, who have been repeatedly accused of using their technology to spy on their users and report to the Chinese government, an accusation which they vehemently deny. What is worse, however, is how two Canadians have been held by China since December 2018, in response to the move on Meng. Michael Spavor, a businessman, and Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, have been dragged into the spat based purely on their Canadian nationality. The move by Beijing has widely been viewed as ‘hostage diplomacy,’ designed to pressurise Canada into releasing Meng. So far, Canada have stood their ground.

The wider issue of the case is the USA throwing their diplomatic weight to hobble a Chinese firm, and China’s own aggressive response to it. Economic warfare is one thing, but toying with the right of civilians is far from humane. The boundaries of this altercation are now well beyond the realms of diplomacy, and one would hope that this will be the only instance of this. Otherwise, the world will become a considerably more hostile place, bringing us back to the friction of a cold-war-like era.