At 4:30 p.m. local time on Friday, an Air China Boeing 777W carrying Huawei Technologies Co.’s finance chief took off from Vancouver, just as two Canadian men detained in China departed by plane from Beijing.
That seemingly tightly orchestrated prisoner exchange unknotted a high-profile tangle in relations among China, the U.S. and Canada. Behind it was a dramatic shift in Meng Wanzhou’s legal position that led early last week to a breakthrough in negotiations, according to Justice Department officials and people close to Ms. Meng’s legal team.
