OTTAWA • As the daughter of the founder of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, Ms Meng Wanzhou was known internally as the "princess" of the company and its possible future leader, but for nearly three years, she has been stuck in Canada fighting extradition to the US.
Now, after reaching a "deferred prosecution" deal with the US Department of Justice, the 49-year-old chief financial officer may be able to reclaim her throne.
The agreement - under which she would avoid felony fraud charges in exchange for agreeing to the "statement of facts" in the case - cleared the way for Ms Meng to leave Canada.
Speaking to reporters before heading to China, she said: "Over the past three years, my life has been turned upside down. It was a disruptive time for me as a mother, wife and a company executive."
Ms Meng was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018 at the request of the United States, which sought her extradition over allegations that she had defrauded HSBC and other banks by falsely misrepresenting links between Huawei and Skycom, an affiliate that sold telecoms equipment to Iran.
The move added to deepening divisions between Washington and Beijing, and caught Canada in the middle. But on a more personal level, the affair has been a major setback for Ms Meng, who had been rising through the ranks of the company founded by her father Ren Zhengfei, sparking speculation that she would someday assume full control.
Doing so would make her one of the world's top woman corporate bosses. Instead, she spent years in a Vancouver mansion with an electronic monitor around her ankle.
Yesterday, she posted a message on Chinese social media from her plane to Shenzhen, saying "thank you to the party and government". "It is that shade of brilliant Chinese red that... leads me on the long journey home," she wrote.
Dr Frederic Megret, an extradition expert at McGill University in Montreal, said Ms Meng is a key player in "the rise of Chinese capitalism embodied by Huawei".
At the time of her arrest, Huawei was the world's second-largest smartphone manufacturer after Samsung, and has since climbed the Fortune Global 500 rankings to the 44th spot, with revenues of US$136 billion (S$184 billion) in the most recent fiscal year.
Mr Ren, 76, a former People's Liberation Army engineer, founded the company with a few thousand dollars in 1987, growing it into one of the world's leading suppliers of hardware for telecommunications networks.
Mr Meng has sought to stress her own "humble" beginnings, with Chinese media reporting that she once penned an internal memo claiming that her first tasks at the Shenzhen-based company involved secretarial work - answering phones and typing.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
