Four people working for Foxconn in China have been detained, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, describing the circumstances as “quite strange.”
The employees were detained in Zhengzhou for what is the equivalent of “breach of trust” under Taiwan law, it said.
“The circumstances surrounding this case are quite strange,” the council said.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Foxconn “has declared that the company suffered no losses, and the four employees did not harm the company’s interests in any way,” it said, without providing details about when they were detained, their nationalities or their roles.
Foxconn, known in Taiwan as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and assembles devices for major tech companies, including Apple.
Most of its factories are in China, including in Zhengzhou, which has been dubbed “iPhone City,” as it is home to the world’s biggest iPhone factory.
The four detainees were Taiwanese, said the Straits Exchange Foundation, a semi-official body in Taiwan that handles people and business exchanges with China.
The case “might involve corruption and abuse of power by a small number of public security officials, which has severely damaged business confidence,” the council said. “We urge relevant authorities across the Strait to investigate and address the matter promptly.”
A Foxconn spokesman declined to comment when contacted by AFP. The Chinese minister of foreign affairs did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment either.
Chinese regulators last year conducted tax audits and reviewed land used by Foxconn when company founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) bid to become president of Taiwan. A Foxconn subsidiary was later handed a 20,000 yuan (US$2,831) fine for overstating expenses. It is still unclear whether Chinese regulators have completed their probe into Foxconn.
Beijing has taken aggressive actions against the staff of foreign firms in recent years, as tensions with the US and its allies mount, spurring concerns about the safety of employees at multinational firms.
An executive at Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc was indicted for espionage in August. Before that, Beijing fined US-based Mintz Group about US$1.5 million for illegal data collection, months after officials raided its offices and detained five of its Chinese employees.
More similar incidents took place last year.
American consultancy Bain & Co said Chinese authorities questioned staff at its Shanghai office. Officials also publicized a raid at Capvision, a consulting firm headquartered in New York and Shanghai, accusing the company of abetting espionage efforts by foreign forces. Authorities also detained an executive and two former employees of WPP PLC, one of the world’s biggest advertising companies.
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