Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou Is Set to Be Released

The Justice Department reached an agreement on Friday clearing the way for Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China.

Ms. Meng, who has been detained in Canada since 2018, agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement, which was entered into the record during a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday.

“Ms. Meng, you have been charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and with wire fraud,” Judge Ann M. Donnelly said at the hearing.

Prosecutors said that under the deferred prosecution agreement, the U.S. Justice Department would withdraw its extradition request to the Canadian authorities.

The case has become a symbol of the tumultuous relationship between two global superpowers, the United States and China, which is at its lowest level in decades. It has also created a diplomatic challenge that has put Canada in the middle.

The deal Ms. Meng could signal a more conciliatory approach in Washington’s stance toward Beijing under the Biden administration.

Ms. Meng, who appeared by videoconference for Friday’s hearing, pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. Asked by the judge whether she had been coerced into assenting to the deferred prosecution agreement, she replied, “No.”

The Canadian authorities arrested Ms. Meng, 49, the technology giant’s chief financial officer, in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport, at the request of the United States. Ms. Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, instantly became one of the world’s most famous detainees.

In January 2019, The Justice Department indicted Ms. Meng and Huawei, the telecom company founded by her father, Ren Zhengfei. It accused the firm and its chief financial officer of a decade-long effort to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran.

The charges underscored efforts by the Trump administration to directly link Huawei with the Chinese government, after long suspecting that the company worked to advance Beijing’s economic and political ambitions and undermine American interests.

The release of Ms. Meng could play into the fate of two Canadians imprisoned in China

China detained the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the businessman Michael Spavor, soon after Ms. Meng’s arrest, in what has been widely viewed in Canada as hostage diplomacy. China has denied they were connected. In August, a court in northeastern China, where Mr. Spavor has lived, sentenced him to 11 years in prison after declaring him guilty of spying.

If the two men are released, it could provide a lift to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who was re-elected this week with a minority government after calling an unpopular snap election. Mr. Trudeau’s inability to secure their freedom has cast a shadow over his premiership.

Throughout her extradition hearing in Canada, Ms. Meng’s defense team professed her innocence. They argued that President Donald J. Trump had politicized her case and that her rights had been breached when she was arrested in Vancouver.