China blasts US 'bullying' with Huawei CFO extradition bid

China on Wednesday accused the United States of "bullying behaviour" after US authorities confirmed plans to seek the extradition of a top Chinese telecom executive detained in Canada.

The United States faces a January 30 deadline to file an extradition request for Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, whose arrest last month sparked diplomatic tensions.

"We will continue to pursue the extradition of defendant Ms Meng Wanzhou, and will meet all deadlines set by the US/Canada Extradition Treaty," said US Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi on Tuesday.

Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport on December 1 at the request of the United States, which says she violated American sanctions on Iran.

She has since been freed on Can$10 million (US$7.5 million) bail and is awaiting a hearing on her extradition.

According to the agreement between the two countries, the United States has 60 days after an arrest made at its request in Canada to formalise an extradition request.

Once a request has been submitted, the Canadian justice ministry has 30 days to begin official extradition proceedings, though the process can take months or years.

China, which has defended both Huawei and Meng since the CFO's arrest, criticised the US extradition request as without "legitimate reason" and "not in conformity with international law".

"This is a type of technological bullying behaviour and everyone can clearly see the real purpose," said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a regular press briefing.

The US "will stop at nothing to suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises and restrain China's legitimate development rights", she added.

Meng's arrest has sparked an escalating diplomatic crisis between Ottawa and Beijing.

Two Canadians have since been detained in China on national security grounds, in what is thought to be retaliation for the arrest.

A Chinese court also this month sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug trafficking following a retrial, a drastic increase of his previous 15-year prison sentence.

Microsoft's Bing search engine inaccessible in China
Beijing (AFP) Jan 24, 2019 - Microsoft's Bing search engine was inaccessible in China on Thursday, with social media users fearing it could be the latest foreign website to be blocked by censors.

Attempts to open cn.bing.com has resulted in an error message for users since Wednesday.

"We've confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a brief statement, hours after saying the company was investigating the matter.

China's Communist authorities operate an online censorship apparatus known as the "Great Firewall", which blocks a slew of websites including Facebook, Twitter and several foreign media outlets.

But it was not clear whether or not Bing joined the long list of prohibited websites, or if its China service was experiencing technical difficulties.

China's cyberspace administration did not immediately return a request for comment.

China's Great Firewall can be circumvented by using a virtual private network (VPN), which can hide a user's IP address.

While its rival Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010 after rows over censorship and hacking, Bing has continued to operate in the country along with Microsoft-owned Skype.

On Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media site, people complained about the lack of access, with some speculating that Bing too had been "walled off".

Others aired their dissatisfaction about having to use Baidu, China's largest domestic search service.

"I can't open Bing, but I don't want to use Baidu -- what to do?" wrote one user.

"Bing is actually dead -- is this to force me to use Baidu??" said another, cursing.

China has tightened policing of the internet in recent years, shuttering 26,000 "illegal" websites in 2018 alone and deleting six million online posts containing vulgar content, the official Xinhua news agency said earlier this month.

Bing's disruption comes as the United States and China are locked in a bruising trade war, with US accusations that China steals technological know-how among the core disagreements.

The two sides are scheduled for new trade negotiations next week.

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