I first heard of this story this morning.
Waited to see if a thread would be made, nothing came up in Search.
Cable News is not reporting on it.
Head of Interpol Disappears, and Eyes Turn Toward China
By Chris Buckley and Aurelien Breeden
Oct. 5, 2018
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...europe/meng-hongwei-missing-interpol.amp.html
BEIJING — When a high-ranking official in China’s public security system was elected president of Interpol in 2016, leaders in Beijing rejoiced. The promotion lent respectability to China’s notoriously opaque and arbitrary criminal justice system.
But now that same official, Meng Hongwei, 64, has himself mysteriously disappeared, after recently returning to China. Even the country’s most internationally prominent police officer, it seems, can vanish without an official murmur from Beijing.
No one seems to know where Mr. Meng is or why he suddenly disappeared, even though he leads an organization that serves as a kind of United Nations for the world’s police forces.
Interpol issued a cryptic statement on Friday. His wife, who is living in France, where Interpol has its headquarters, reported him missing on Thursday evening after she did not hear from him upon his arrival in China. The French authorities have opened an investigation.
Even with so much unknown, questions are already arising about whether Mr. Meng is under investigation by the Chinese authorities, and whether he was snatched away by security agents without notice. If so, his sudden and mysterious disappearance threatens to cloud China’s image, demonstrating that even the most prominent official of an international police organization is vulnerable.
“If Meng Hongwei has disappeared in China, then of course the most likely reason is an anticorruption investigation,” Deng Yuwen, a former editor of a Communist Party journal who now writes commentaries on Chinese politics, said in a telephone interview.
“Internationally, he is president of Interpol, but in the eyes of the Chinese authorities he is first of all Chinese, and they wouldn’t think too much about his international prominence,” Mr. Deng added. “This is the new normal.”
The Chinese authorities had already sent an emphatic message earlier this week that international prominence was no shield for Chinese citizens. Two days before it became known that Mr. Meng had apparently disappeared, Chinese state media reported that Fan Bingbing, a Chinese actress who had disappeared for four months, had been cooperating with the tax authorities, who fined her nearly $70 million in unpaid taxes and penalties. Ms. Fan had appeared in the “Iron Man” franchise and other big Hollywood spectacles.
Since Xi Jinping became head of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he has demonstrated the no one, no matter how high ranking, is immune from accountability. This year, China established an anticorruption investigation agency with wide powers to secretly detain officials suspected of wrongdoing.
Chinese officials under investigation often disappear for weeks or even months before the government says anything about their fate. If it is confirmed that Mr. Meng has been detained, his case may signal that the tactic is continuing.
In 2013, Li Dongsheng, another vice minister of public security, was investigated for corruption and he was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking bribes. Last month, China’s anticorruption agency announced that it was investigating Nur Bekri, one of the few senior Chinese officials from the Uighur ethnic minority. He is a former governor of Xinjiang region in northwest China and most recently was director of the National Energy Administration.
Andrew Wedeman, a political scientist at Georgia State University who studies corruption in China, said Mr. Xi’s anticorruption drive appeared to have cooled from a peak in 2015 but nonetheless was still taking down “tigers” — the Chinese phrase for fallen senior officials.
“By my count, this year they have taken down 17 ‘tigers’ thus far — Meng would be tiger No. 18,” Professor Wedeman said by email. “My sense is that the active phase of the crackdown is now over and we are back to more routine levels. The tiger hunt is, however, definitely still ongoing.”
In France, investigators learned of Mr. Meng’s disappearance when his wife went to the police in Lyon on Thursday evening and explained that she not heard from her husband since his arrival in China, according to an official close to the investigation, who insisted on anonymity and was not authorized to comment publicly.
Mr. Meng’s wife also told the police that she had received threats by telephone and on social media, and the French authorities have provided her with police protection, Agence France-Presse reported.
In a statement, Interpol, the main organization for global police cooperation, said that it was “aware of media reports in connection with the alleged disappearance” of Mr. Meng. “This is a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China,” the statement said.
Click Above Link For Full Story
Waited to see if a thread would be made, nothing came up in Search.
Cable News is not reporting on it.
Head of Interpol Disappears, and Eyes Turn Toward China
By Chris Buckley and Aurelien Breeden
Oct. 5, 2018
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...europe/meng-hongwei-missing-interpol.amp.html
BEIJING — When a high-ranking official in China’s public security system was elected president of Interpol in 2016, leaders in Beijing rejoiced. The promotion lent respectability to China’s notoriously opaque and arbitrary criminal justice system.
But now that same official, Meng Hongwei, 64, has himself mysteriously disappeared, after recently returning to China. Even the country’s most internationally prominent police officer, it seems, can vanish without an official murmur from Beijing.
No one seems to know where Mr. Meng is or why he suddenly disappeared, even though he leads an organization that serves as a kind of United Nations for the world’s police forces.
Interpol issued a cryptic statement on Friday. His wife, who is living in France, where Interpol has its headquarters, reported him missing on Thursday evening after she did not hear from him upon his arrival in China. The French authorities have opened an investigation.
Even with so much unknown, questions are already arising about whether Mr. Meng is under investigation by the Chinese authorities, and whether he was snatched away by security agents without notice. If so, his sudden and mysterious disappearance threatens to cloud China’s image, demonstrating that even the most prominent official of an international police organization is vulnerable.
“If Meng Hongwei has disappeared in China, then of course the most likely reason is an anticorruption investigation,” Deng Yuwen, a former editor of a Communist Party journal who now writes commentaries on Chinese politics, said in a telephone interview.
“Internationally, he is president of Interpol, but in the eyes of the Chinese authorities he is first of all Chinese, and they wouldn’t think too much about his international prominence,” Mr. Deng added. “This is the new normal.”
The Chinese authorities had already sent an emphatic message earlier this week that international prominence was no shield for Chinese citizens. Two days before it became known that Mr. Meng had apparently disappeared, Chinese state media reported that Fan Bingbing, a Chinese actress who had disappeared for four months, had been cooperating with the tax authorities, who fined her nearly $70 million in unpaid taxes and penalties. Ms. Fan had appeared in the “Iron Man” franchise and other big Hollywood spectacles.
Since Xi Jinping became head of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he has demonstrated the no one, no matter how high ranking, is immune from accountability. This year, China established an anticorruption investigation agency with wide powers to secretly detain officials suspected of wrongdoing.
Chinese officials under investigation often disappear for weeks or even months before the government says anything about their fate. If it is confirmed that Mr. Meng has been detained, his case may signal that the tactic is continuing.
In 2013, Li Dongsheng, another vice minister of public security, was investigated for corruption and he was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking bribes. Last month, China’s anticorruption agency announced that it was investigating Nur Bekri, one of the few senior Chinese officials from the Uighur ethnic minority. He is a former governor of Xinjiang region in northwest China and most recently was director of the National Energy Administration.
Andrew Wedeman, a political scientist at Georgia State University who studies corruption in China, said Mr. Xi’s anticorruption drive appeared to have cooled from a peak in 2015 but nonetheless was still taking down “tigers” — the Chinese phrase for fallen senior officials.
“By my count, this year they have taken down 17 ‘tigers’ thus far — Meng would be tiger No. 18,” Professor Wedeman said by email. “My sense is that the active phase of the crackdown is now over and we are back to more routine levels. The tiger hunt is, however, definitely still ongoing.”
In France, investigators learned of Mr. Meng’s disappearance when his wife went to the police in Lyon on Thursday evening and explained that she not heard from her husband since his arrival in China, according to an official close to the investigation, who insisted on anonymity and was not authorized to comment publicly.
Mr. Meng’s wife also told the police that she had received threats by telephone and on social media, and the French authorities have provided her with police protection, Agence France-Presse reported.
In a statement, Interpol, the main organization for global police cooperation, said that it was “aware of media reports in connection with the alleged disappearance” of Mr. Meng. “This is a matter for the relevant authorities in both France and China,” the statement said.
Click Above Link For Full Story
