Ministry of Public Security announces task force will target associates and adds that Meng’s ‘insistence on doing things his own way means he only has himself to blame’
Chinese police have accused the detained former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei of taking bribes, an official statement said on Monday.
The statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s website also said police would form a task force to go after Meng’s associates, adding that his “insistence on doing things in his own way means he has only himself to blame for being placed under investigation”.
It continued that Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi had convened a midnight Communist Party committee at the ministry, which expressed “unanimous support” for the probe against Meng and pledged “absolute political loyalty” to President Xi Jinping and the party leadership.
China’s National Supervisory Commission announced just before midnight that Meng had been detained while an unspecified law violation was being investigated.
Interpol also received Meng’s resignation as the international body’s president soon afterwards.
The ministry’s statement said Meng’s suspected corruption and violation of laws had “gravely jeopardised” the party and the police, adding that it would form a task force to investigate anyone else suspected of taking bribes with Meng.
The ministry leaders reiterated they would strictly enforce Communist Party discipline and steadfastly obey and carry out the party’s decisions and plans.
“There is no place for any negotiation or bargaining with the party,” the statement read.
While many analysts have said the disappearance and detention of Meng, whose tenure was due to end in 2020, will take a heavy toll on China’s efforts to attain a leading role in global governance, some argued that Beijing would have been well aware of the risks before deciding to act in the way it did.
“I’m pretty sure they would have expected an extraordinary response from the international community before taking such a decision,” Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said.
“I guess something urgent must have happened. That’s why [the authorities] chose to take such immediate action, at the risk of losing face on the international stage.
“If what Meng is involved in is nothing more than an ordinary corruption case, there would have been no need for the authorities to handle it in such a manner.”
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said that given Meng’s seniority, any decision to detain him must have come from the highest levels of the Chinese government.
“Chinese foreign policy is required first and foremost to serve the interests of the Communist Party.
“Thus, while the image of China and advancing China’s capacity to take on leading offices in international organisations matter to the Chinese government, they are secondary to party considerations,” he said.
“This will be deeply embarrassing to China and it may well have to pay a price for its nominee for the presidency of Interpol to be detained for undefined crimes in China, [but] this is of secondary consideration to the party leader if he has a reason to want to take Meng down… It is likely that his problems would have been considered serious.”
Meng, 64, was reported missing last week by his wife in Lyon, France, where Interpol is based.
Grace Meng said she had not heard from her husband since September 25, according to a statement from the French interior ministry.
She spoke to news media in Lyon just before Beijing issued its statement on Sunday, pleading with national governments to intervene, saying she feared that her husband’s life was in danger, Agence France-Presse reported.
She said the last social media message she received from her husband came on September 25, saying “wait for my call,” followed by a knife emoji.
“This matter belongs to the international community,” Meng told a press conference in English. “I’m not sure what has happened to him.”
She and the couple’s children have been placed under protective custody after receiving threats, the French interior ministry said on Saturday.
Additional reporting by Choi Chi-yuk and Kinling Lo
