VANCOUVER—The public affairs passport issued to Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is normally reserved for public employees, and would have granted visa-free travel to countries around the world, according to a Chinese academic who holds one herself.

Jie Cheng, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law and an associate professor with Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing, uses hers for short-term trips abroad from China, although she uses her personal passport to get into Canada because she has a work permit.

“First, it’s a proof of approval of the institution for the individual employee to go abroad. Basically, in China, public employees are not allowed to go abroad without permission,” Cheng said, explaining how academics use it. “It’s also approval to use public money to fund the overseas travel.”

Another benefit is visa-free travel to a list of about two dozen countries like Brazil, Poland, Russia, North Korea, Armenia and Ethiopia. It offers no advantages for travel to most Western countries like Canada, although those travelling with Chinese government ministers can use it to get into the UK and Ireland without a visa.

Once academics return to China, Cheng said they are supposed to return the passports to the public institutions they work for, which are owned by the government. She emphasized that she could only speak about how academics use the public affairs passports.

Meng’s passport, which is distinctive because its serial number starts with the letter P, was not among seven listed in BC Supreme Court records as part of her December bail hearing.

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The CFO of the telecommunications giant was arrested at Vancouver airport as she was changing planes at the request of U.S. authorities, who want her extradited over fraud allegations. When she was released on $10-million bail pending an extradition hearing, one of the conditions was that she surrender all her passports.

This week, the Hong Kong Companies Registry confirmed to StarMetro that, as a director of Huawei, the Chinese government had issued a public affairs passport to the CFO, and those records are required by law to be up to date. Emails and calls to Huawei and Meng’s Canadian lawyer, asking if the special affairs passport was still valid, were not returned by press time.

On China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, a May 2018 update says public affairs passports are issued to those on diplomatic missions, those who work in foreign affairs offices and state-owned enterprises, “and financial institutions where the state has controlling interest or is a shareholder.” According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, “thousands” of Canadian visas are stamped in these public affairs passports every year.

Kevin Carrico, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Monash University in Australia, said Meng’s public affairs passport raises questions about how closely Huawei is connected to the Chinese government.

“It’s understandable if a professor has a ‘P’ passport, universities in China are connected to the state,” Carrico said, referring to Cheng’s passport. “The fact that Meng Wanzhou clearly holds a ‘P’ passport, that clearly indicates a very direct relationship with the Chinese state, which tells us all we need to know about Huawei, as well as all we need to know about the Chinese state’s response to her detention.”

Huawei, which was founded by Meng’s father Ren Zhengfei, has been accused of using its technology to spy for the Chinese government, a charge that Ren denied in a Jan. 16 interview.

“I personally would never harm the interest of my customers and me, and my company would not answer to such requests,” said Ren.

Kelly Sundberg, a former Canada Border Services Agency immigration officer, said the Chinese public affairs passport would be similar to the Canadian “special” government passport, issued to government employees to fast-track them to the front of the line when they needed a consul-general’s attention.

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“In essence, when a Chinese national who has one of those passports is travelling, and let’s say they’re in the middle of business negotiations or some sort of deal that they might need consular services for, they get priority,” said Sundberg, who is currently a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

While he was with the CBSA, Sundberg held two Canadian “special” passports in addition to his personal passport. Often, one would be sent ahead for visa approval while he was travelling in another foreign country.

“Every country has that sort of official passport,” he said.

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