China’s state-run newspaper claims the arrest of a Chinese CFO in Canada, at the request of U.S. authorities, is “basically a kidnapping” and even a declaration of war.

Meng Wanzhou’s Saturday arrest was reportedly at the behest of the United States over federal charges of violating Iran sanctions and she could even be extradited to New York to face those charges.

“Without any solid evidence, the Canadian and U.S. governments trampled on international law by basically ‘kidnapping’ Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei,” said the Global Times. “The China-U.S. trade row could become a protracted war.”

Meng is the CFO of Huawei, one of the largest mobile phone makers in the world.

Consequently, China’s embassy in Canada released a statement strongly protesting Meng’s arrest.

“The Chinese side firmly opposes and strongly protests over such kind of actions which seriously harmed the human rights of the victim. The Chinese side has lodged stern representations with the U.S. and Canadian side, and urged them to immediately correct the wrongdoing and restore the personal freedom of Ms. Meng Wanzhou.”

Correspondingly, Huawei Technologies also released a statement on Twitter saying it “is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.”

The Trump administration has yet to comment on the arrest.

“I’m shocked there’s been no word from the administration,” said a chief investment strategist of an advisory group. “Imagine if the CFO of Apple was arrested by the Chinese in some foreign country, and the CFO happened to be the son of Steve Jobs.”

“This is not some low-level person.”

Currently, multiple experts are warning American tech executives to avoid traveling to China.

“If I were a high-level exec at Google or Cisco I wouldn’t visit China anytime soon,” said Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group.

The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!