US corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group on Thursday said its Beijing office was raided by authorities and five Chinese staff were detained, stoking worry among foreign companies in China while its capital hosts an international economic forum.
News of the raid and detentions comes as Sino-US relations have spiraled following months of diplomatic tensions, including over the US military downing last month of a suspected Chinese spy balloon and a planned US transit next week by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
“We can confirm that Chinese authorities have detained the five staff in Mintz Group’s Beijing office, all of them Chinese nationals, and have closed our operations there,” the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
Photo: AFP
The company said it was ready to work with Chinese authorities to “resolve any misunderstanding that may have led to these events,” and that its top concern was the safety and well-being of colleagues in China.
“Mintz Group has not received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company, and has requested that the authorities release its employees,” the company said.
The company’s local legal counsel said the raid occurred on Monday afternoon, and that the employees were being held incommunicado somewhere outside of Beijing, a source at the New York-headquartered firm earlier told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to Mintz Group’s Web site, the Beijing office is its only one in China. The Web site says the company specializes in background checking, fact gathering and internal investigations, and has 18 offices around the world and hundreds of employees.
Randal Phillips, a partner at the firm who heads its Asia operations, but is based outside of China, is listed on the Web site as a former CIA chief representative in China.
Phillips worked in Beijing for years after leaving the CIA. There was no indication the incident was related to him.
The raid and detentions come as Beijing is today to begin its three-day China Development Forum, where executives from multinational organizations and representatives from international organizations would be among more than 100 overseas delegates.
The Mintz Group incident sends a “remarkable signal” that Beijing wants foreign money and technology, but it does not accept credible US firms conducting due diligence on Chinese partners or the business environment, one US business community person told Reuters.
“Red alerts should be going off in all boardrooms right now about risks in China,” said the source, who did not wish to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
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