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The chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei had barely been arrested last December — triggering a diplomatic scrap of historic scale between China and Canada — when an obscure B.C.-based group called an unusual Vancouver press conference.

With most Canadians still digesting the news of Meng Wanzhou’s detention and the U.S. extradition request behind it, the United Association of Women and Children of Canada appeared before the cameras to demand the executive’s immediate release.

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“Canada should stay out of it,” a spokeswoman declared in Mandarin, her translated comments generating a number of stories in local media. “This is supposed to be a serious matter but looks like a joke between the two countries.”

Leaders of the United Association insisted they had no connection to the Chinese government, which had been making similar pronouncements.

But a closer look reveals a more complicated story, one that seems to point to Beijing’s long reach into Canadian affairs.