Huawei CFO cleared to return to China

"Over the past three years, my life has been turned upside down. It was a disruptive time for me. As a mother, a wife, and a company executive," Meng said after departing court. "But I believe every cloud has a silver lining."

The years-long extradition drama has been a central source of discord in increasingly rocky ties between Beijing and Washington, with Chinese officials signaling that the case needed to be dropped to help end a diplomatic stalemate between the world's top two powers.

The deal also opens U.S. President Joe Biden up to criticism from China hawks in Washington who argue his administration is capitulating to China and one of its top companies at the center of a global technology rivalry between the two countries.