How China could retaliate against US and Canadian companies over Huawei

Canadian and US companies are bracingthemselves for fallout from the arrest of a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, is out on bail after sitting in a Canadian jail cell for more than a week. She faces extradition to the United States, where she is accused of helping Huawei dodge sanctions on Iran.
Huawei is key to China's ambitions to become a global tech leader. It sells more smartphones than Apple (APPL) and is the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker. Meng is the daughter of the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Beijing is unlikely to let the arrest of a senior executive from an elite family go unanswered, experts say, and companies should prepare for possible blowback. "There will be retaliation. Guaranteed," said Edo Naito, a Tokyo-based business lawyer and former executive for multinational companies including General Electric (GE). Naito has been doing business with China since the 1980s.

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