Interpol tragicomedy

China suspends cooperation with France on police affairs, says report
Action comes after France gave asylum to wife of jailed former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei
By Emma Graham-Harrison

Former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei at his trial in Tianjin in June. 

China has cut off all cooperation with France on police affairs, after Paris gave asylum to the Chinese wife of a former Interpol chief now in jail on corruption charges, the French newspaper Le Monde reported.

Chinese authorities told a diplomat in Beijing in late July that a decision had been made to halt all cooperation after Grace Meng was awarded political asylum in May, the newspaper reported.
Increasingly assertive internationally, Beijing has made the decision to suspend a key aspect of the diplomatic and security relationship with Paris at a time when it is already in the global spotlight over protests in Hong Kong and an escalating trade dispute with the US.
Meng first hit headlines last year, when she decided to go public about her husband’s sudden disappearance during a trip home to China in September.
Interpol had not been given any information about the whereabouts of Meng Hongwei, who had been elected president of the body in 2016, leading to the humiliating spectacle of the global police body pleading with China for information about its chief.

Grace Meng at a press conference with journalists in France in 2018, in which she did not want her face to be shown.

In October, under international pressure, China finally admitted that Hongwei had been detained. 

He was not seen in public again until June, when he appeared in court in the north-eastern port city of Tianjin, confessed to accepting more than $2m in bribes and expressed regret for his crime, a court statement said.
A confession assures a conviction but it was not immediately clear when a verdict and sentence would be handed down. 

Confessions in corruption cases, often televised, have become a hallmark of dictator Xi Jinping’s rule; he has put a very public crackdown on official graft at the heart of his rule.
Chinese authorities reportedly also wanted to charge Grace Meng, Le Monde said, but she stayed in France, where she has been given police protection, and sought asylum. 

Grace says she fears personal retaliation from Chinese authorities, and in spring France opened a judicial inquiry into a kidnapping attempt.
The end of police cooperation is likely to complicate Chinese efforts to seek fugitives in France, Le Monde said. 

For Paris, it will complicate efforts to track down up to €500m stolen by fraudsters and sent by bank transfer to China.
It will also undermine work to protect intellectual property rights in China, where, despite decades of pressure from western governments, counterfeiting is still rampant.

Meng Hongwei's Arrest in China was Politically Motivated

Reuters

The wife of Meng Hongwei, the missing Chinese former head of Interpol, dismissed allegations by authorities in China accusing her husband of graft.

The wife of the missing Chinese former head of Interpol on Thursday dismissed allegations by authorities in China accusing her husband of graft and said his arrest was politically motivated.
China will prosecute former Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, for graft after an investigation found he spent “lavish” amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow Communist Party decisions, Beijing’s anti-corruption watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr. Meng’s wife, Grace Meng, said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday by her lawyers, “The press release openly reveals the political nature of Mr. Meng’s case, without addressing the issues concerning our family’s fundamental human rights.”
Interpol, the global police coordination agency based in France, said last October that Mr. Meng had resigned as its president, days after his wife reported him missing while he was on a trip to China.
The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CDDI) said Mr. Meng was suspected of taking bribes and causing serious harm to the party’s image and state’s interests, adding that he should be dealt with severely.
Grace Meng, who has remained in Lyon, France, with the couple’s two children, said the CCDI has not provided any information about her husband’s whereabouts or well-being.
“Instead, the CCDI made vague, general, uncorroborated statements,” she said.
“Chinese authorities have not formulated actual charges or adduced the alleged supporting evidence.”

Interpol Tragicomedy

China Expels Meng Hongwei From Communist Party for ‘Extravagant’ Spending

By Javier C. Hernández

Meng Hongwei, the former head of Interpol, at the Interpol World gathering in Singapore in 2017.

BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party expelled the former chief of Interpol on Wednesday, accusing him of abusing his power to finance an extravagant lifestyle and committing “serious” violations of the law.
The disappearance of the former Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, during a trip to China last fall drew global attention and highlighted the perils of being on the wrong side of China’s opaque, highly politicized legal system.

The Chinese authorities later said he had been placed under investigation, but the move damaged China’s reputation and raised doubts about Xi Jinping’s efforts to expand its global presence.
Meng, 65, the first Chinese citizen to lead Interpol, has not been heard from since.
The announcement — a rare official update on Meng since his disappearance in October — came as Xi was back in Beijing after concluding a visit this week to France, where he met with President Emmanuel Macron.
Meng’s wife, Grace Meng, had appealed to Mr. Macron in recent days to raise her husband’s case with Xi and to demand answers about his whereabouts, according to Agence France-Presse.
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has led a wide-ranging campaign against corruption and perceived political disloyalty that has ensnared thousands of people, including many high-profile officials.
The party’s anticorruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said in a statement Wednesday that Meng had abused his power for personal gain. 

It said that he “recklessly squandered state capital and property to satisfy his family’s extravagant lifestyle.” 

The agency accused Meng of routinely ignoring decisions by top party leaders.
“His family tradition is corrupted,” the statement said. 

“His view on power is twisted.”
Ms. Meng, the former official’s wife, has said that she has not heard from her husband since late September, when he sent a phone message with an emoji of a knife as he left on a trip to China, which she interpreted as a sign of danger.
In the statement on Wednesday, the anticorruption agency also accused Meng of encouraging his wife to use his power and prestige for personal benefit.
Meng, a former vice minister of security, will now likely face a trial on corruption charges.

Interpol Tragicomic Saga

Wife of Former Interpol Chief Seeks Asylum in France

By Aurelien Breeden

Grace Meng, the wife of the former Interpol president Meng Hongwei, speaking to reporters in Lyon, France, during a news conference last year in which she did not want her face shown.

PARIS — Nearly four months after an Interpol chief was detained in China on corruption charges, his wife has applied for asylum in France, she said on Saturday.
Grace Meng, wife of Meng Hongwei, the former Interpol president, has remained in France, where the organization has its headquarters, since his arrest.
“I have officially claimed asylum in France,” Ms. Meng said in a text message on Saturday.
Ms. Meng, who has refused to specify her Chinese given name or to have her face photographed or filmed by the news media, said in interviews on Friday that she was seeking French protection for her and her twin boys.
“I cannot go back to China; such strange things happen there, and fundamental rights are not respected,” she told the newspaper Libération. 

“Even here, I am afraid of being kidnapped, and I fear for the safety of my children.”
The Chinese authorities have not specified the charges against Meng, who was also a vice minister in the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, and it is unclear where he is being held.
His abrupt detention in the fall, accompanied by the news that he had resigned from Interpol with immediate effect, has cast a cloud over China’s push for a more prominent role in global affairs by taking up more leadership roles in international bodies.
Ms. Meng was put under French police protection shortly after her husband’s arrest.
In the interviews published on Friday, Ms. Meng said that she had not had any contact with her husband or with any friends or relatives in China since the arrest, and that her Chinese phone and email had been blocked. 

She said that strangers had followed her, had tried to get her to travel with them and that she had received threatening phone calls.
“I need the French government to protect me, to assist me, to help me, me and my children,” Ms. Meng told Radio France in an off-air interview on Friday.
Both Libération and Radio France reported that Ms. Meng was supposed to go to the French asylum agency headquarters in Paris on Friday to file an official request. 

The agency was not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, and it was not clear whether Ms. Meng had sufficient grounds to claim asylum.
In November, Interpol elected a South Korean police veteran as its next president to replace Meng, who was halfway through his four-year term when he was detained.
Interpol, which functions as a sort of clearinghouse for the circulation of arrest warrants, tips and data, does not have direct policing powers of its own. 

Its presidency is a largely ceremonial role that entails chairing meetings and representing the institution at official events; a secretary general runs the police organization on a day-to-day basis.
Jürgen Stock, the current secretary general, has said repeatedly that Interpol does not have a say in a state’s internal affairs and was not in a position to prevent the arrest of Meng.
Ms. Meng has denied that her husband is guilty of corruption.
“We don’t have any secret accounts abroad, no hidden money,” she told Libération. 

“I think that my husband was arrested for a political reason.”

China's disappeared: Some of the people who vanished at the hands of the Chinese state in 2018

Canadian citizens, a famous actress, a security insider and a student Marxist disappeared in China this year
The Associated Press
Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig briefly disappeared this month before it was revealed they were taken into custody by Chinese officials. The two men's detention followed the arrest and detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou by Canadian authorities. 

It's not uncommon for individuals who speak out against the government to disappear in China, but the scope of the "disappeared" has expanded since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013.
Not only dissidents and activists, but also high-level officials, Marxists, foreigners and even a movie star — people who never publicly opposed the ruling Communist Party — have been whisked away by police to unknown destinations.
The widening dragnet throws into stark relief the lengths to which Xi's administration is willing to go to maintain its control and authority.
Here's a look at some of the people who went missing in 2018 at the hands of the Chinese state:

Canadian citizens
China threatened "grave consequences" if Canada did not release high-tech executive Meng Wanzhou, shortly after the Huawei chief financial officer was detained in Vancouver earlier this month for extradition to the U.S.
The apparent consequences materialized within days, when two Canadian men went missing in China. 

Both turned up in the hands of state security on suspicion of endangering "national security", a nebulous category of crimes that has been levied against foreigners in recent years.
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was taken by authorities from a Beijing street late in the evening, a person familiar with his case said. 

He is allowed one consular visit a month and has not been granted access to a lawyer, as is standard for state security cases.

Kovrig, an adviser with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, remains in detention in China.

Also detained is Michael Spavor, who organizes tours to North Korea from the border city of Dandong. 

China has not said whether their detentions are related to Meng's, but a similar scenario unfolded in the past.
A Canadian couple was detained in 2014 on national security grounds shortly after Canada arrested Su Bin, a Chinese man wanted for industrial espionage in the U.S.
Like Spavor, Kevin and Julia Garratt lived in Dandong, where they ran a popular coffee shop for nearly a decade. 

They also worked with a Christian charity that provided food to North Korean refugees.
While Julia Garratt was released on bail, her husband was held for more than two years before he was deported in September 2016 — about two months after Su pleaded guilty in the U.S.

Tax-evading actress
Fan Bingbing was living the dream. 

Since a breakthrough role at the age of 17, Fan has headlined dozens of movies and TV series, and parlayed her success into modelling, fashion design and other ventures that have made her one of the highest-paid celebrities in the world.
All this made her a potent icon of China's economic success, until authorities reminded Fan — and her legion of admirers — that even she was not untouchable.
For about four months, Fan vanished from public view. 

Her Weibo social media account, which has more than 63 million followers, fell silent. 

Her management office in Beijing was vacated. 

Her birthday on Sept. 16 came and went with only a handful of greetings from entertainment notables.
When she finally resurfaced, it was to apologize.
"I sincerely apologize to society, to the friends who love and care for me, to the people, and to the country's tax bureau," Fan said in a letter posted on Weibo on Oct. 3.
Chinese actress Fan Bingbing poses for photographers upon arrival at the opening of the Cannes film festival in southern France in May. One of China's highest paid celebrities, Fan disappeared from public view for four months before apologizing for tax-evasion. 

Fan later admitted to tax evasion. 

State news agency Xinhua reported that she and the companies she represents had been ordered to pay taxes and penalties totaling 900 million yuan ($130 million US).
"Without the party and the country's great policies, without the people's loving care, there would be no Fan Bingbing," she wrote, a cautionary tale for other Chinese celebrities.
Xinhua concurred in a commentary on her case: "Everyone is equal before the law, there are no `superstars' or `big shots.' No one can despise the law and hope to be lucky."

Security insider
Unlike most swallowed up by China's opaque security apparatus, Meng Hongwei knew exactly what to expect.
Meng — no relation to the Huawei executive — is a vice minister of public security who was also head of Interpol, the France-based organization that facilitates police cooperation across borders.
When he was appointed to the top post, human rights groups expressed concern that China would use Interpol as a tool to rein in political enemies around the world.
Instead, he was captured by the same security forces he represented.
Former Interpol president Meng Hongwei delivers his opening address at the Interpol World congress in Singapore in July 2017. 

In September, Meng became the latest high-ranking official caught in Xi's banner anti-corruption campaign. 

The initiative is a major reason for the Chinese leader's broad popularity, but he has been accused of using it to eliminate political rivals.
Xi pledged to confront both high-level "tigers" and low-level "flies" in his crackdown on graft — a promise he has fulfilled by ensnaring prominent officials.
Meng was missing for weeks before Chinese authorities said he was being investigated for taking bribes and other crimes. 

A Chinese delegation later delivered a resignation letter from Meng to Interpol headquarters.
His wife Grace Meng told the AP that she does not believe the charges against her husband. 

The last message he sent her was an emoji of a knife.

Daring photographer
Lu Guang made his mark photographing the everyday lives of HIV patients in central China. 

They were poor villagers who had contracted the virus after selling their own blood to eke out a living — at a going rate of $7 a pint, they told Lu.
A former factory worker, Lu traversed China's vast reaches to capture reality at its margins. 

He explored environmental degradation, industrial pollution and other gritty topics generally avoided by Chinese journalists, who risk punishment if they pursue stories considered to be sensitive or overly critical.
His work won him major accolades such as the World Press Photo prize, but his prominence likely also put him on the government's radar.
This November, Lu was travelling through East Turkestan, the far west colony that has deployed a vast security network in the name of fighting terrorism. 

He was participating in an exchange with other photographers, after which he was to meet a friend in nearby Sichuan province. 

He never showed up.
More than a month after he disappeared, his family was notified that he had been arrested in East Turkestan, according to his wife Xu Xiaoli. 

She declined to elaborate on the nature of the charges.

Marxist student
In the past, the political activists jailed in China were primarily those who fought for democracy and an end to one-party rule. 

They posed a direct ideological threat to the Communist Party.
This year, the party locked in on a surprising new target: young Marxists.
About 50 students and recent graduates of the country's most prestigious universities convened in August in Shenzhen, an electronics manufacturing hub, to rally for factory workers attempting to form a union
Among them was Yue Xin, a 20-something fresh out of Peking University. 

Earlier this year, she made headlines by calling for the elite school to release the results of its investigation into a decades-old rape case.
This time, she was one of the most vocal leaders of the labour rights group, appearing in photographs with her fist up in a Marxist salute and wearing a T-shirt that said "Unity is strength" — the name of a patriotic Chinese communist song.
Yue, a passionate student of Marx and Mao Zedong, espoused the same values as the party. 

She wrote an open letter to Xi and the party's central leadership saying all the students wanted was justice for Jasic Technology labourers.
Her letter quoted Xi's own remarks: "We must adhere to the guiding position of Marxism." 

Yue called Marx "our mentor" and likened the ideas of him and Mao to spiritual sustenance.
Nonetheless, she ended up among those rounded up in a raid on the apartment the activists were staying at in Shenzhen. 

While most have been released, Yue remains unaccounted for.
She has been missing for four months.

Interpol Tragicomedy

Wife of Disappeared Former Interpol President Lawyers Up in Europe
By Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man

Grace Meng, wife of missing Interpol president Meng Hongwei, consults her mobile phone in a hotel lobby in Lyon, France, Oct. 7, 2018.

The wife of former Interpol president Meng Hongwei has hired two European law firms in a bid to track down her husband, who was detained last month on suspicion of bribery during a trip home to China.
In an e-mail statement to Reuters, Grace Meng said she had received offers of help from all over the world since her husband's sudden disappearance and his subsequent resignation from Interpol, which the international police body accepted without publicly questioning or explaining the sudden move.
Grace Meng said she has hired the French law firm of Marsigny Avocats and the London-based Lindeborg Counsellors, who specialize in international cases, to help find her husband, who is being detained in an unknown location.
“Above all, I urge everyone to raise their voice in asking China to respect our family’s fundamental human rights,” she said. 

“His disappearance could not be for anything other than political reasons.”
The Lindeborg website describes its team of lawyers as including a former Interpol General Counsel and Legal Affairs Director, and offers experienced legal counsel to those wishing to challenge "red notices," or international arrest warrants issued by the Lyon-based organization.
Paris-based Marsigny specialize in cases involving national or international corruption, misconduct, misappropriation of public funds, money laundering, and tax evasion, and advises clients on international asset seizures and extradition procedures.
Germany-based law scholar Qian Yuejun, who edits the China-Europe Herald newspaper, said Meng's detention is "undoubtedly political," and that the law firms could take steps to track him in China, as well as lobbying for diplomatic pressure to be brought to bear on the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
"Meng Hongwei is a Chinese national, but his place of residence is France, so the law firm can ask the French government to ask the Chinese government about him," said Qian, who last year led a demonstration outside Interpol's German headquarters protesting against Meng's presidency.
"Another angle is Interpol. This case is already a combination of politics and law, and these lawyers will be aware of political channels they could use," he said.

Red Notices
Critics of Meng's presidency said China would use its influence with Interpol to successfully issue "red notices" targeting peaceful critics of the regime and political opponents of Xi Jinping under the banner of the anti-corruption campaign or other criminal allegations.
Qian said Meng's disappearance is yet another example of extrajudicial detentions and punishments meted out by Beijing to its targets.
"If the Chinese government is a rogue state, then it must be clearly described as such," he said. 

"Meng Hongwei was illegally kidnapped, a tragic side-effect of power struggles [in Beijing]."
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told journalists that Grace Meng could call her husband "at any time," but had declined to do so. 

However, such calls are likely to be closely monitored, and it is unclear whether Meng has had access to a lawyer.

Outlook not good
Beijing-based rights lawyer Lin Qilei said international law enforcement has collided with an authoritarian regime, and that the outlook isn't good for Meng.
"Meng Hongwei's wife may have hired foreign lawyers and be drumming up international support, even to the highest levels of government and diplomacy," Lin said. 

"But she should also try to find him a lawyer in China."
Lin said such an effort would highlight the Chinese government's control over who is allowed to represent former high-ranking officials in such cases.
U.S.-based veteran rights campaigner Liu Qing said the Chinese government has used "mafia tactics" to detain Meng.
"They have just made the head of an international law enforcement body disappear into thin air, by trapping and secretly imprisoning him," Liu said. 

"This shows ... the Chinese Communist Party's contempt for global public opinion."
"The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of international kidnaps," he wrote in a commentary aired on RFA's Mandarin Service, citing the 2015 cross-border detentions of five Hong Kong booksellers wanted by Beijing for selling banned political books to customers in mainland China and the reported abduction of "missing" billionaire Xiao Jianhua from a Hong Kong hotel in April 2017.
"If we do not recognize and cut off the long and pernicious arm of the Chinese Communist Party as it reaches across the world, international due process and rule of law could be ruined beyond all recognition," Liu said.

Great Purge

Wife of China's detained Interpol chief says he might already be dead

By Ben Westcott

The wife of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who dramatically vanished into police custody after returning to China in September, told the BBC she isn't sure her husband is still alive.
In an interview with the British broadcaster, Grace Meng said she has received threatening phone calls since the Chinese government announced her husband was in custody in early October.
"I think it is political persecution. I'm not sure he's alive. They are cruel. They are dirty ... They can do anything," she told the interviewer.
Then-President of Interpol Meng Hongwei disappeared after he took a flight back to China in late September. 

His wife, Grace, said at the time that the last contact she received from him was a text message saying to wait for his call, followed minutes later by a knife emoji.

She reported him missing to French authorities, who opened an investigation. 

Interpol sent an official inquiry to the Chinese government asking for the whereabouts of their missing president.
On October 8, Beijing's Ministry of Public Security admitted they had detained Meng following his return to China, saying he was being investigated for corruption.
"(Meng) insisted on taking the wrong path and had only himself to blame (for his downfall)," the country's top law enforcement official, Zhao Kezhi, was quoted as saying in the statement.
In a previous interview with CNN earlier in October, Meng said she still hadn't told her children that their father was in custody in China.
"No TV for them ... because they are already seven-years-old, maybe they can feel something has happened. (When) they see Mummy is crying, I told them Mummy has a cold," she said at the time.
Speaking with in silhouette to protect her from being recognized, Grace told CNN she had spoken out to raise awareness of China's extrajudicial detentions. 

"I do these things ... for all of China's children. For all of China's wives," she said.
No further information has been released by the Chinese government, and Meng has not been seen in public since he left France for China in September.
Shortly after Beijing announced Meng's arrest, Interpol said it had received and accepted his resignation with "immediate effect." 

It made no mention of the former president's whereabouts or the Chinese investigation.
Meng was the first Chinese official to lead the international policing body and his appointment just two years ago in 2016 was greeted enthusiastically by the country's state media.
As President, Meng oversaw the agency's executive committee, which sets overall strategy.

Interpol tragicomedy

Death note : Wife of ex-Interpol chief receives threat from China
AP
Grace Meng is now under French police protection 

The wife of the former Interpol president who disappeared in China has revealed that she had received a threatening phone call warning of Chinese agents coming for her in France.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Grace Meng denied bribery allegations against Meng Hongwei and said that speaking out about his disappearance was placing her "in great danger".
Meng -- who is also China's vice minister of public security -- disappeared while on a trip home to China late last month.
Speaking to the AP late on Monday, Grace Meng said her last contact with her husband was by text message, on September 25, when he wrote "wait for my call" and sent her an emoji image of a knife after traveling back to China.
After a week with no subsequent news, one evening while she was at home in Lyon having put their two young boys to bed, she then got a threatening call on her mobile phone from a man speaking in Chinese.
"He said, 'You listen but you don't speak'," she said. 

He continued: "We've come in two work teams, two work teams just for you."
She said the man also said, "We know where you are," and that when she tried to ask a question, he repeated: "You don't speak, you just listen to me."
As a result, Grace Meng is now under French police protection.

Grace Meng said her husband's disappearance placed her 'in great danger'
Chinese authorities said on Monday that Meng Hongwei was being investigated for taking bribes and other crimes that were a result of his "willfulness".
Hours earlier, Interpol said Meng had resigned as the international police agency's president. 

It was not clear whether he did so of his own free will.
Grace Meng suggested that the bribery accusation is just an excuse for "making him disappear for so long".
"As his wife, I think he's simply incapable of this," she said. 

She said she would be willing to make their bank accounts public.
She said that she spoke out in hopes that doing so might help other families in similar circumstances.
Grace Meng refused to provide her real name to the AP, saying she was too afraid for the safety of her relatives in China. 

It is not customary for Chinese wives to adopt their husbands' names.
She said she has done so now to show her solidarity with her husband. 

Her English name, Grace, is one she has long used, she said.
A French judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to AP that police are investigating the threat against Grace Meng, but said the probe has yet to determine whether there were indeed Chinese teams sent to Lyon.

Interpol Tragicomedy

Interpol Chief, Detained by China, Resigns Under ‘Supervision’ of Party Watchdog

By Edward Wong and Alissa J. Rubin

Grace Meng, the wife of the missing Interpol president, Meng Hongwei, speaking to reporters on Sunday in Lyon, France, during a news conference in which she did not want her face shown.

In a startling move that could set back the country’s efforts to expand its global presence, the Chinese Communist Party announced late Sunday that the missing president of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, was under investigation on “suspicion of violating the law” and was “under the supervision” of an anticorruption watchdog tied to the party.
The announcement that Meng, a Chinese citizen, was being detained was posted online by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s watchdog against graft and political disloyalty, on Sunday night.
A few hours later, Interpol said it had received Meng’s resignation “with immediate effect.”

The statement of his detention and his subsequent stepping down came a day after Interpol demanded answers from the Chinese government on the whereabouts of Meng, who was reported missing on Thursday.
The detention of Meng, 64, is an audacious step by the party, even by the standards of the increasingly authoritarian system under the leadership of Xi Jinping. 

China has sought legitimacy and a leadership role in international organizations, and Meng’s appointment in November 2016 as the president of Interpol, the first Chinese head of the global policing agency, was seen by many as a significant step in that direction. 

His detention undermines that campaign.
Meng’s appointment “was considered quite an achievement for China and a sign of its international presence and growing influence,” said Julian Ku, a professor at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law, who has studied China’s relationship with international law.
While China may have had its eye on placing its citizens in other top posts at prominent global organizations, “the fact that Meng was ‘disappeared’ without any notice to Interpol will undermine this Chinese global outreach effort,” Mr. Ku said. 

“It is hard to imagine another international organization feeling comfortable placing a Chinese national in charge without feeling nervous that this might happen.”
The announcement of Meng’s detention came hours after his wife, Grace, told reporters in Lyon, France, that before her husband had vanished on a trip to China, he had sent her a phone message with an emoji of a knife.
She interpreted the knife image to mean “he is in danger,” she said in a brief statement to reporters on Sunday in Lyon, where the two were living and where Interpol is headquartered.
Ms. Meng gave her statement at a hotel, keeping her back to reporters so that her face would not be captured on camera, a precaution that she said was for security reasons for herself and her children.
She said she had received the message with the knife image shortly after Meng arrived in China. 

It came just four minutes after she received a message from him saying, “Wait for my call,” she said.
She has not heard from him since. 

She reported his disappearance to the French police on Oct. 4. 

A French police investigation is now underway, with the authorities saying that he had boarded a plane and arrived in China, but that his subsequent whereabouts was unknown.
In addition to serving as president of the international crime-fighting body, Meng is also a vice minister in the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

China says Meng Hongwei, Interpol’s president, is under investigation for unspecified legal violations.

The central commission can detain party officials for months or years while carrying out an investigation. 

The commission often concludes an investigation by stripping an official of party membership, stating the official’s violations of party regulations and referring the official to the justice system for criminal prosecution.
Since Xi took power as president of China, the commission has gone on a wide-ranging anticorruption campaign that has touched every level of the party.
His detention means that internal party dynamics supersede any concern from the party about international legitimacy or transparency.
The party’s moves in this case “suggest that the domestic considerations outweighed the international ones,” said Mr. Ku, the law professor. 

“This has always been true for China, but perhaps not so obviously true as in this case.”
It is unclear what led to Meng’s apparent downfall — a power struggle within the party or an actual case of corruption that officials deemed to be beyond the pale.
There have been investigations of prominent figures in the anticorruption campaign. 

The most notable has been that of Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee and top security official. 

Many analysts of Chinese politics say Xi viewed Zhou as a rival and used the anticorruption campaign to imprison him.
“What I find most interesting about Meng Hongwei’s detention,” said Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, “is the continued parade of senior officials being arrested.”
With officials appointed by Xi himself now being caught up in the six-year anticorruption drive, “it raises the question of whether Xi Jinping simply has a very thin bench of clean officials from whom to choose, whether these officials were adequately vetted before being promoted or whether the anticorruption campaign is simply failing to deter officials from continued corrupt behaviors,” Ms. Economy said. 

“Whatever the reason, it doesn’t bode well for the party’s ability, ultimately, to police itself.”
Margaret Lewis, a professor of Chinese and Taiwanese law at Seton Hall University Law School, said Meng’s detention sends a signal that “no one is safe,” and it could give other Chinese officials posted abroad “pause when considering their own travel plans.”
Meng was last seen leaving Interpol headquarters in Lyon on Sept. 29 for his trip to China. 

His wife and children had moved with him to Lyon after his appointment.
Under the terms of Interpol’s Constitution, the acting senior vice president, Kim Jong-yang of South Korea, becomes acting president.
At her news conference on Sunday, Ms. Meng said she had decided to speak publicly because she felt it was her responsibility to do so. 

Her step was extraordinary: Family members of Chinese officials in trouble with the party or government usually do not make a plea for international help.
“From now on, I have gone from sorrow and fear to the pursuit of truth, justice and responsibility toward history,” she said. 

“For the husband whom I deeply love, for my young children, for the people of my motherland, for all the wives and children’s husbands and fathers to no longer disappear.”