Meng Wanzhou at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport Photo: VCG

Chinese foreign ministry confirmed on Tuesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the US to resolve the incident of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou during a phone call with US President Joe Biden earlier this month.  

President Xi raised the case of Meng Wanzhou in the phone call with Biden, expounded on China's position and urged the US to resolve the incident properly as soon as possible, Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on Tuesday in response to a question concerning the case. 

Meng, Huawei's chief financial officer, arrived in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Saturday night on a charter flight organized by the Chinese government, after being illegally detained for nearly three years in Canada at the behest of the US government. 

Since Meng was groundlessly detained in early December, 2018, Xi gave personal attention to this case and the Chinese government had worked at various levels and on multiple occasions to provide consular protection and assistance to Meng, lodged solemn representations with the US and Canada, asking them to drop the erroneous charges against Meng and ensure her safe return to China as early as possible, Hua said.  

Also, in recent talks between China and the US in North China's Tianjin, China presented the US with a list of things that the US was doing wrong that it should correct and another on some individual cases that China was concerned about. Through the lists, the US was asked to drop charges against Meng and let her return to China, the Chinese official said. 

Huawei's Meng reached a landmark deal with the US Department of Justice on Friday that allowed her to return to China, under which the senior executive of the Chinese company did not plead guilty. Some experts have said despite the contentious high-profile case, which became a political dilemma affecting global geopolitics, the incident will help pave the way for future positive interactions between the two world's largest economies.

"Due to the US' wrong China policies for a period of time, there are more 'nails' in the China-US relationship," Hua said, referring to resolving the incident of Meng as "pulling out a nail set by the US."

We hope that the US will pay high attention and take concrete actions to act on the list, meet China halfway and follow the spirit of the telephone conversation between the two leaders and bring bilateral relations back on the right track, Hua said.