Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model.

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon.

“It is unrealistic to expect success in any negotiation of new WTO rules that would restrict China’s current approach to the economy and trade in a meaningful way,” the USTR said in the report.

Some U.S. allies, including Canada, the European Union and Japan, which are also frustrated with pressures created by China’s economic policies, have begun talks on the first potential changes and modernization of WTO rules since it was founded in 1995.

But any WTO rule changes must be agreed by all 164 member nations, and past efforts have stalled. It was “highly unlikely” China would agree to new disciplines targeting changes to its trade practices and economic system, the USTR said.

Tariff deadline

The report shed little light on progress in talks between the United States and China to ease a bruising tariff fight, despite a swiftly approaching March 2 deadline to hike U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods imports.

The WTO report follows two days of intense talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials last week centered on U.S. demands for structural policy changes. These include enforcing intellectual property protections, ending cyber theft of trade secrets, halting the forced transfers of American technology to Chinese firms and reining in industrial subsidies.

While U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to hammer out a trade deal, the USTR report makes clear a massive amount of work will be needed to bridge the gulf between the two countries.

It cited the key structural issues in the talks, which also include China’s new cybersecurity law and discriminatory regulatory practices, as examples of how China aids domestic firms at the expense of foreign competitors in ways that escape WTO rules, adding that China has become “a unique and pressing problem for the WTO and the multilateral trading system.”

The criticism also comes as the United States weakens the WTO’s role as global commerce watchdog by blocking the appointments of judges to its appellate body, which may no longer be able to function by December, when two judges step down.

‘Holding China accountable’

USTR said the United States intends to “hold China accountable” for adhering to existing WTO rules and “any unfair and market-distorting trade practices that hurt U.S. workers, businesses, farmers or ranchers.”

“Until China transforms its approach to the economy and trade, the United States will take all appropriate actions to ensure that the costs of China’s non-market economic system are borne by China, not by the United States,” USTR said.

The agency reiterated a broad array of concerns over China’s key structural issues, such as its 2025 plan for investment in particular sectors and its failure to follow market-oriented principles expected of WTO members, the report said.

“China retains its non-market economic structure and its state-led, mercantilist approach to trade, to the detriment of its trading partners,” it said.
…

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Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model.

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon.

“It is unrealistic to expect success in any negotiation of new WTO rules that would restrict China’s current approach to the economy and trade in a meaningful way,” the USTR said in the report.

Some U.S. allies, including Canada, the European Union and Japan, which are also frustrated with pressures created by China’s economic policies, have begun talks on the first potential changes and modernization of WTO rules since it was founded in 1995.

But any WTO rule changes must be agreed by all 164 member nations, and past efforts have stalled. It was “highly unlikely” China would agree to new disciplines targeting changes to its trade practices and economic system, the USTR said.

Tariff deadline

The report shed little light on progress in talks between the United States and China to ease a bruising tariff fight, despite a swiftly approaching March 2 deadline to hike U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods imports.

The WTO report follows two days of intense talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials last week centered on U.S. demands for structural policy changes. These include enforcing intellectual property protections, ending cyber theft of trade secrets, halting the forced transfers of American technology to Chinese firms and reining in industrial subsidies.

While U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to hammer out a trade deal, the USTR report makes clear a massive amount of work will be needed to bridge the gulf between the two countries.

It cited the key structural issues in the talks, which also include China’s new cybersecurity law and discriminatory regulatory practices, as examples of how China aids domestic firms at the expense of foreign competitors in ways that escape WTO rules, adding that China has become “a unique and pressing problem for the WTO and the multilateral trading system.”

The criticism also comes as the United States weakens the WTO’s role as global commerce watchdog by blocking the appointments of judges to its appellate body, which may no longer be able to function by December, when two judges step down.

‘Holding China accountable’

USTR said the United States intends to “hold China accountable” for adhering to existing WTO rules and “any unfair and market-distorting trade practices that hurt U.S. workers, businesses, farmers or ranchers.”

“Until China transforms its approach to the economy and trade, the United States will take all appropriate actions to ensure that the costs of China’s non-market economic system are borne by China, not by the United States,” USTR said.

The agency reiterated a broad array of concerns over China’s key structural issues, such as its 2025 plan for investment in particular sectors and its failure to follow market-oriented principles expected of WTO members, the report said.

“China retains its non-market economic structure and its state-led, mercantilist approach to trade, to the detriment of its trading partners,” it said.
…

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Brazil’s government has opened discussions with congressional leaders, state governors and mayors on a pension reform bill that would set the minimum retirement age for men and women at 65, a government official said on Monday.

The proposal is one of several under consideration, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to get the legislative ball rolling on his ambitious plans to overhaul Brazil’s creaking social security system.

Currently, if workers have contributed into the system for at least 15 years, the earliest men can retire is 65 and for women it is 60. But men can retire at any age if they have paid into the system for at least 35 years, and women if they have contributed for 30 years.

Speaking to reporters outside the Economy Ministry in Brasilia, Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the ministry, confirmed talks were underway on the proposal to change that.

Part of the proposal, which was originally reported by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, stipulates that workers must pay into the system for a minimum of 20 years.

“Until a draft has been finalized, Bolsonaro cannot confirm anything on social security,” Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said on Monday.

Bolsonaro has put overhauling social security at the top of his agenda. Depending on the final proposals, it could save up to 1.3 trillion reais ($354 billion) over the next decade, economy ministry sources reckon.

Investors have pinned much of their optimistic outlook for Brazil this year on Bolsonaro delivering on pension reform. The elections of Bolsonaro allies as house and senate presidents last week were seen as a step in that direction.

The Bovespa stock market hit a record high on Monday above 98,500 points, and the real has risen around 7 percent against the dollar in the last six weeks.

($1 = 3.6707 reais)
…

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Brazil’s government has opened discussions with congressional leaders, state governors and mayors on a pension reform bill that would set the minimum retirement age for men and women at 65, a government official said on Monday.

The proposal is one of several under consideration, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to get the legislative ball rolling on his ambitious plans to overhaul Brazil’s creaking social security system.

Currently, if workers have contributed into the system for at least 15 years, the earliest men can retire is 65 and for women it is 60. But men can retire at any age if they have paid into the system for at least 35 years, and women if they have contributed for 30 years.

Speaking to reporters outside the Economy Ministry in Brasilia, Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the ministry, confirmed talks were underway on the proposal to change that.

Part of the proposal, which was originally reported by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, stipulates that workers must pay into the system for a minimum of 20 years.

“Until a draft has been finalized, Bolsonaro cannot confirm anything on social security,” Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said on Monday.

Bolsonaro has put overhauling social security at the top of his agenda. Depending on the final proposals, it could save up to 1.3 trillion reais ($354 billion) over the next decade, economy ministry sources reckon.

Investors have pinned much of their optimistic outlook for Brazil this year on Bolsonaro delivering on pension reform. The elections of Bolsonaro allies as house and senate presidents last week were seen as a step in that direction.

The Bovespa stock market hit a record high on Monday above 98,500 points, and the real has risen around 7 percent against the dollar in the last six weeks.

($1 = 3.6707 reais)
…

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Long before she became just one of the financially destitute legions of street sweepers that dot Moscow’s bitterly cold winter landscape, Shaknoza Ishankulova had simply wanted to do the right thing.

It was 2008, and the recent Uzbekistan National University graduate was ecstatic to secure a teaching post at a Tashkent high school, finally making good use of her diploma in secondary education.

Twenty-two years old and eager to guide younger Uzbeks toward a better life, she was shaken when Uzbekistan’s notoriously vast culture of entrenched corruption revealed itself in the form of a personal mentor and supervisor — a deputy principal at the school who notified her that, if she wished to keep her job, a full third of her weekly salary would have to be kicked back to him.

It was his cut, he explained, for having hired her in the first place.

Years passed before Shaknoza gathered the courage to broach the issue with the school’s principal, a suspiciously wealthy public servant who promptly dismissed the complaint as naively frivolous.

Taking her cue from the anti-corruption initiatives she had seen in Uzbekistan, marketed in the form of public service announcements since 2005, Shaknoza escalated her complaint to Russia’s Ministry of Education, and was summarily placed on paid leave pending further investigation. 

Two years and a cancer battle later, Shaknoza’s case had wound its way through ministry proceedings, leaving her fate in the hands of her employer, who summarily fired her, demanded reimbursement for the two years of salaried leave, and permanently blacklisted her from any professional employment.

Like many unemployed Uzbek nationals, Shaknoza was lured by Moscow’s abundance of service sector jobs that paid more than similar work in Tashkent. After spending nearly a year as a sweeper, she lucked out by landing a relatively well-paid waitressing job, only to lose the position when a Russian supervisor publicly castigated her for making conversation with foreign diners, an experience she attributed to the ethnic workplace discrimination many Uzbeks face in Russia.

Tall and slender with distinctly Asian facial features and straight shoulder-length hair, Shoksana, appearing older than her 34 years, is now a cashier and produce vendor at one of Moscow’s many 24-hour convenience stores.

Speaking with VOA on a frigid afternoon in Moscow, her bare hands balled in fists as she stood stock still in seemingly arctic gales, the former high school teacher said she has done reasonably well for herself when compared to fellow migrants sleeping 10 to a room on the city’s outskirts.

Making $37 per 24-hour shift, each of which is followed by 24 hours off, she said the salary is enough to share a two-room apartment with three other laborers: two Uzbek men and a woman, with whom she shares the bedroom.

After feeding and clothing herself, she says, she sends a small amount home to her mother.

“But it’s not enough to save anything,” she said, explaining that she lacks the resources to get ahead in Moscow and that, as a blacklisted whistleblower, any path back to Tashkent is surely a dead end.

Millions seek opportunity

By 2017, Russia was home to nearly 12 million migrants — the world’s third largest foreign-born population.

Much like in western European nations and the United States, the large numbers of immigrants have triggered unease, and a majority of Russians have become increasingly intolerant of the newcomers.

A 2018 survey by the Washington-based Pew Charitable Trust showed that nearly 70 percent of Russian nationals felt the country should allow fewer or no migrants in the future.

While many of the migrants from China, eastern Europe and the West possess a broad range of professional skill sets, the vast majority of Russia’s lowest-paid laborers hail from impoverished central Asian countries, of which Uzbeks are the largest group.

This makes them the most visible targets of anti-immigrant vitriol.

Some high-level Russian officials have relayed largely context-free statistics that they portray as an immigrant-fueled crime wave for which Uzbeks in particular are to blame.

“If you create a ranking of criminality, you will find citizens of Uzbekistan at the top,” Moscow chief prosecutor Sergei Kudeneyev told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2014. “They have committed 2,522 crimes; next is Tajikistan, with 1,745 crimes; and in third place there is Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens committed 1,269 crimes.”

“The unremitting crime rates among foreign citizens are causing serious concern, particularly since crimes of this nature draw a lot of public attention,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top security officials in 2016. During the televised statement, the president demanded a swift crackdown on foreign criminals.

Alexander Verkhovsky of SOVA, the Center for Information and Analysis, a think tank in Moscow, questioned the veracity and transparency of these datasets.

“Any statistics on working migrants are very blurry,” he said. “While there are police crime statistics — or at least crime documentation — that may indicate a given perpetrator’s country of origin, that specific data is never published in full.

“In general, data on crimes is organized by categories of crime, and even whether these crimes may have been committed by or against a foreigner,” he said. But by the time police records are internally digested into statistics and prepared for public presentation via the prosecutor’s office, hard data about specific countries of origin has been scrubbed.

“You never get to see the complete data,” he said.

A 2016 report by Columbia University’s Eurasia.org news site suggests migrants who have committed crimes may have acted in response to a series of new Russian laws that drastically increased living costs.

Migrant work permit requirements unveiled in 2015 required applicants to “undergo a battery of tests for HIV, tuberculosis, drug addiction and skin diseases.” Permit holders, the report says, were also required to purchase health insurance, acquire taxpayer identification numbers, and be tested on Russian language, history and laws.

Failure to satisfy requirements within a month of arriving in Russia subjected migrants to a $152 fine.

“Once migrants have jumped through all the hoops, they must pay 14.5 thousand rubles ($219) for their work permit and another four thousand rubles ($61) every month to renew the document,” the report says. “All told, this costs almost $1,000 per year.”

A December 2018 SOVA report on hate crimes that was compiled from official statistics and field research said although attacks targeting foreigners are decreasing, ethnic migrants are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks on Russian soil.

“People perceived as ethnic outsiders constituted the largest group of victims in 2017,” says the report, which recorded 28 ethnically motivated attacks, down from 44 attacks (7 fatal) in 2016.

“Migrants from Central Asia were the most numerous group in this category of victims … followed by individuals of unidentified non-Slavic appearance,” the report states. “Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these people were also from Central Asia, since their appearance was described as Asian.”

Foreigners targeted

All of the migrants VOA spoke with mentioned that they had been intimidated by racists or nationalists, swindled into weeks of free labor by dishonest employers, or were the victims of robbery.

Oibek Usupov, a construction worker from Tashkent, recounted the time he and his brother accepted jobs at an apartment development, wherein the employer required them to sign contracts to work throughout the winter. They received a small advance up front, followed by a handful of paychecks well below what they were promised.

Once the units began selling, the developer said, they would be reimbursed in full. Then payments stopped and, a week before spring, it was announced the project had been bought out by another developer.

The new boss, Usupov told us, said prior contracts weren’t binding because his company hadn’t authorized them.

“We lost months of back pay,” he said.

Adkham Enamov, an Uzbek artist who lives an hour north of Moscow, says he became stranded in Russia after intermediaries who sold his paintings at a famous Moscow arts bazaar disappeared with the profits.

“At the time, my dream was to see Moscow, to sell my paintings in Russia, but I didn’t know that half of Moscow are artists,” he said. “So my current dream is to see my motherland, to return in good health.”

Emanov, 46, who speaks very little Russian, has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy. His purpose in Moscow was to cover the medical expenses stacking up in Tashkent.

And then in early 2018, tragedy struck when his 4-year-old daughter, Nama, died from an undiagnosed illness.

“She was buried without me due to the Muslim tradition,” he said, referring to the Sharia ritual of washing and burying the dead within 24 hours of passing. “Well, I sent some money there. Not much.”

After a long, reflective pause, he added, “I should come back being quite rich, but my dream didn’t come true.”
…

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Long before she became just one of the financially destitute legions of street sweepers that dot Moscow’s bitterly cold winter landscape, Shaknoza Ishankulova had simply wanted to do the right thing.

It was 2008, and the recent Uzbekistan National University graduate was ecstatic to secure a teaching post at a Tashkent high school, finally making good use of her diploma in secondary education.

Twenty-two years old and eager to guide younger Uzbeks toward a better life, she was shaken when Uzbekistan’s notoriously vast culture of entrenched corruption revealed itself in the form of a personal mentor and supervisor — a deputy principal at the school who notified her that, if she wished to keep her job, a full third of her weekly salary would have to be kicked back to him.

It was his cut, he explained, for having hired her in the first place.

Years passed before Shaknoza gathered the courage to broach the issue with the school’s principal, a suspiciously wealthy public servant who promptly dismissed the complaint as naively frivolous.

Taking her cue from the anti-corruption initiatives she had seen in Uzbekistan, marketed in the form of public service announcements since 2005, Shaknoza escalated her complaint to Russia’s Ministry of Education, and was summarily placed on paid leave pending further investigation. 

Two years and a cancer battle later, Shaknoza’s case had wound its way through ministry proceedings, leaving her fate in the hands of her employer, who summarily fired her, demanded reimbursement for the two years of salaried leave, and permanently blacklisted her from any professional employment.

Like many unemployed Uzbek nationals, Shaknoza was lured by Moscow’s abundance of service sector jobs that paid more than similar work in Tashkent. After spending nearly a year as a sweeper, she lucked out by landing a relatively well-paid waitressing job, only to lose the position when a Russian supervisor publicly castigated her for making conversation with foreign diners, an experience she attributed to the ethnic workplace discrimination many Uzbeks face in Russia.

Tall and slender with distinctly Asian facial features and straight shoulder-length hair, Shoksana, appearing older than her 34 years, is now a cashier and produce vendor at one of Moscow’s many 24-hour convenience stores.

Speaking with VOA on a frigid afternoon in Moscow, her bare hands balled in fists as she stood stock still in seemingly arctic gales, the former high school teacher said she has done reasonably well for herself when compared to fellow migrants sleeping 10 to a room on the city’s outskirts.

Making $37 per 24-hour shift, each of which is followed by 24 hours off, she said the salary is enough to share a two-room apartment with three other laborers: two Uzbek men and a woman, with whom she shares the bedroom.

After feeding and clothing herself, she says, she sends a small amount home to her mother.

“But it’s not enough to save anything,” she said, explaining that she lacks the resources to get ahead in Moscow and that, as a blacklisted whistleblower, any path back to Tashkent is surely a dead end.

Millions seek opportunity

By 2017, Russia was home to nearly 12 million migrants — the world’s third largest foreign-born population.

Much like in western European nations and the United States, the large numbers of immigrants have triggered unease, and a majority of Russians have become increasingly intolerant of the newcomers.

A 2018 survey by the Washington-based Pew Charitable Trust showed that nearly 70 percent of Russian nationals felt the country should allow fewer or no migrants in the future.

While many of the migrants from China, eastern Europe and the West possess a broad range of professional skill sets, the vast majority of Russia’s lowest-paid laborers hail from impoverished central Asian countries, of which Uzbeks are the largest group.

This makes them the most visible targets of anti-immigrant vitriol.

Some high-level Russian officials have relayed largely context-free statistics that they portray as an immigrant-fueled crime wave for which Uzbeks in particular are to blame.

“If you create a ranking of criminality, you will find citizens of Uzbekistan at the top,” Moscow chief prosecutor Sergei Kudeneyev told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2014. “They have committed 2,522 crimes; next is Tajikistan, with 1,745 crimes; and in third place there is Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens committed 1,269 crimes.”

“The unremitting crime rates among foreign citizens are causing serious concern, particularly since crimes of this nature draw a lot of public attention,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top security officials in 2016. During the televised statement, the president demanded a swift crackdown on foreign criminals.

Alexander Verkhovsky of SOVA, the Center for Information and Analysis, a think tank in Moscow, questioned the veracity and transparency of these datasets.

“Any statistics on working migrants are very blurry,” he said. “While there are police crime statistics — or at least crime documentation — that may indicate a given perpetrator’s country of origin, that specific data is never published in full.

“In general, data on crimes is organized by categories of crime, and even whether these crimes may have been committed by or against a foreigner,” he said. But by the time police records are internally digested into statistics and prepared for public presentation via the prosecutor’s office, hard data about specific countries of origin has been scrubbed.

“You never get to see the complete data,” he said.

A 2016 report by Columbia University’s Eurasia.org news site suggests migrants who have committed crimes may have acted in response to a series of new Russian laws that drastically increased living costs.

Migrant work permit requirements unveiled in 2015 required applicants to “undergo a battery of tests for HIV, tuberculosis, drug addiction and skin diseases.” Permit holders, the report says, were also required to purchase health insurance, acquire taxpayer identification numbers, and be tested on Russian language, history and laws.

Failure to satisfy requirements within a month of arriving in Russia subjected migrants to a $152 fine.

“Once migrants have jumped through all the hoops, they must pay 14.5 thousand rubles ($219) for their work permit and another four thousand rubles ($61) every month to renew the document,” the report says. “All told, this costs almost $1,000 per year.”

A December 2018 SOVA report on hate crimes that was compiled from official statistics and field research said although attacks targeting foreigners are decreasing, ethnic migrants are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks on Russian soil.

“People perceived as ethnic outsiders constituted the largest group of victims in 2017,” says the report, which recorded 28 ethnically motivated attacks, down from 44 attacks (7 fatal) in 2016.

“Migrants from Central Asia were the most numerous group in this category of victims … followed by individuals of unidentified non-Slavic appearance,” the report states. “Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these people were also from Central Asia, since their appearance was described as Asian.”

Foreigners targeted

All of the migrants VOA spoke with mentioned that they had been intimidated by racists or nationalists, swindled into weeks of free labor by dishonest employers, or were the victims of robbery.

Oibek Usupov, a construction worker from Tashkent, recounted the time he and his brother accepted jobs at an apartment development, wherein the employer required them to sign contracts to work throughout the winter. They received a small advance up front, followed by a handful of paychecks well below what they were promised.

Once the units began selling, the developer said, they would be reimbursed in full. Then payments stopped and, a week before spring, it was announced the project had been bought out by another developer.

The new boss, Usupov told us, said prior contracts weren’t binding because his company hadn’t authorized them.

“We lost months of back pay,” he said.

Adkham Enamov, an Uzbek artist who lives an hour north of Moscow, says he became stranded in Russia after intermediaries who sold his paintings at a famous Moscow arts bazaar disappeared with the profits.

“At the time, my dream was to see Moscow, to sell my paintings in Russia, but I didn’t know that half of Moscow are artists,” he said. “So my current dream is to see my motherland, to return in good health.”

Emanov, 46, who speaks very little Russian, has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy. His purpose in Moscow was to cover the medical expenses stacking up in Tashkent.

And then in early 2018, tragedy struck when his 4-year-old daughter, Nama, died from an undiagnosed illness.

“She was buried without me due to the Muslim tradition,” he said, referring to the Sharia ritual of washing and burying the dead within 24 hours of passing. “Well, I sent some money there. Not much.”

After a long, reflective pause, he added, “I should come back being quite rich, but my dream didn’t come true.”
…

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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to praise the U.S. economy and insist on the need for a physical barrier on the U.S. border with Mexico in his upcoming state of the union address. Trump’s address was originally scheduled for Jan. 29, but has been postponed for Feb. 5 (Tuesday) due the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown, caused by the rift between the Republican president and the Democratic majority in Congress over the funding for the border wall. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to praise the U.S. economy and insist on the need for a physical barrier on the U.S. border with Mexico in his upcoming state of the union address. Trump’s address was originally scheduled for Jan. 29, but has been postponed for Feb. 5 (Tuesday) due the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown, caused by the rift between the Republican president and the Democratic majority in Congress over the funding for the border wall. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

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Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada and faces possible extradition to the United States, is exploring a defense that claims U.S. charges against her are politically motivated, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Monday.

Meng, the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., is the central figure in a high-stakes dispute between the United States and China. Canada arrested Meng in December at the request of the United States and last month she was charged with wire fraud that violated U.S. sanctions on Iran.

“The political overlay of this case is remarkable,” Richard Peck, lead counsel for Meng, told the Toronto newspaper in a telephone interview.

“That’s probably the one thing that sets it apart from any other extradition case I’ve ever seen. It’s got this cloud of politicization hanging over it,” Peck added.

The office of Canadian Justice Minister David Lametti and Peck did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Huawei spokesman declined comment.

In December, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Reuters interview he would intervene in the Justice Department’s case against Meng if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

Canada fired John McCallum, its ambassador to China, in January after he said Meng could make a strong argument against being sent to the United States.

“He [Mr. McCallum] mentions some of the potential defenses – and certainly, I think any person that knows this area would see the potential for those defenses arising,” Peck told the newspaper.

Meng’s lawyers are also planning to challenge whether her alleged conduct would be deemed criminal under Canadian law, the Globe and Mail said.
…

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Pushpa Ithal may not fit the stereotype of the typical Silicon Valley CEO — she’s female, foreign-born, and a mother.

Nevertheless, Ithal is an entrepreneur, living the Silicon Valley dream of running her own startup.

Like her, many foreign-born tech women are finding a place in the Valley — as tech companies have become more and more dependent on foreign-born workers to create their products and services.

Silicon Valley, the global center for high-tech innovation, could be renamed “Immigrant Valley.” When it comes to technical talent, the engine of Silicon Valley is fueled by foreign-born workers, many of whom are from humble roots. And having worked hard to get here, many have ambitions beyond their day jobs.

One of them is Ithal.

On Sundays, she and her two children, ages 5 and 10, pick out the clothes the kids will wear the coming week. Each outfit is placed on a labeled hanger. Then she does the same with the week’s snacks.

“So there are no surprises for the kids,” Ithal said.

Being organized is one of Ithal’s strategies for juggling parenting and running her own startup. And while that juggle is commonplace in Silicon Valley, Ithal is part of a distinct club — foreign-born women in tech. 

Hailing from countries such as India and China, these women make up the majority of all women in certain Silicon Valley fields and are often the only females on male-dominated teams in tech companies. 

Their uniqueness does not stop there. Foreign-born women in tech are more likely to be married and have children than their U.S.-born female coworkers.

​Immigrant Valley

Born in Bangalore, India, Ithal has worked for big tech companies and startups. Her husband, also from India, has built successful startups. Starting her own firm, however, was a leap.

“I came here all the way, let’s risk it,” recalled Ithal, founder and CEO of a company called MarketBeam, which is an AI-driven social marketing company.

More than 60 percent of tech workers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, home to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other U.S. tech firms, are immigrants, according to the Silicon Valley Institute of Regional Studies. Immigrants work at all levels of the industry. Many are executives, company founders and venture capitalists.

But foreign-born women stand out. In an industry where women make up about 20 percent of the technical workforce, many of these jobs are filled by foreign-born women.

Technical roles

Nearly three-quarters of all women in their prime working year and in technical occupations in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, according to the institute. In computers and mathematics, foreign-born women make up nearly 80 percent of the female workforce.

The numbers surprised Rachel Massaro, vice president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley and senior researcher at the institute. It’s her job to contribute to an annual index of Silicon Valley that looks at housing, transportation and population.

“I double-checked, triple-checked the number just to make sure it was even real,” Massaro said.

Many things contribute to foreign-born women dominating tech — the dearth of women seeking a technical education in the United States, and an emphasis on tech education for girls in other countries, with many seeing technical skills as a path to financial independence and possibly a work visa in the U.S.

There are also stereotypes of what women can and should do with their lives both in the U.S. and overseas.

​Working and raising children

Looking more closely at these women, Massaro found a few other surprises — 71 percent of foreign-born female tech workers ages 25-44 are married, compared to 39 percent of native-born female tech workers.

And they are more likely to be mothers — 44 percent have children, compared to 27 percent of U.S.-born female workers.

One of those women is Lingling Shi, who was born in China. She saw studying computer science as her ticket.

“Computer science, for most of us, it’s easier to apply for a green card,” she said. “It’s not my main interest, I’ll be honest.”

But Shi has succeeded in each of her jobs — she brushes up on any new technical areas online in the evenings — and is now vice president of digital banking technology at East West Bank. With her husband, who is also from China and in tech, she is raising her son.

“I guess for Chinese, the family building is most important thing,” she said.

No amount of career success would fulfill her parents’ desire for grandchildren. The message from family is clear, Shi said — “Oh, you are VP of Engineering now, but you don’t have a kid?”

Many women from India and China are “under a set of cultural expectations and norms that they will have a family right away — and they will excel in their careers,” said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information, who has written about immigrants in tech.

“These women are really kind of super women in the tasks that they take on,” she added.

As Silicon Valley looks to bring more women into the technical workforce, these women provide a model of how to thrive.
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