It took just over 15 minutes for proceedings in the Meng Wanzhou case to be adjourned to a later date. It was short, but courtroom officials were caught off-guard by the number of people wanting to hear every detail, first-hand.
Things have ramped up considerably, said Wu, with the fresh backdrop of Canada giving the go-ahead for Meng’s extradition process, China formally accusing the two Canadians it has detained of stealing state secrets, China halting Canadian canola shipments and Meng suing the Canadian government for violating her constitutional rights.
“It’s emotional. I think the emotions are of anger, a sense of betrayal and some confusion, and a recognition that this is not just a bad event. It is now going to be part of a long process. We are going to be agonizing over this,” said Evans. “Actually, we were surprised. I thought there would be a lot more protesters that are pro-Ms. Meng, kind of like, ‘She’s a hostage, free her!’ But what we found today is that there was a lot more anti-China stuff. We saw a flag being burned earlier and people who thought and talked about Huawei being a corrupt company,” said Osman Iqbal, a London-based producer for BBC News.