Official Chinese media reports have suggested that Beijing’s concerns about security vulnerabilities could be driving the activity.Īn official report, issued to mark China’s annual National Security Education Day on April 15, said that an unnamed consultancy in southern China had delivered research to a foreign group about labor in Xinjiang, which the United States has put under heavy trade restrictions over allegations of forced labor by Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group. Mintz and Bain are cogs in the global business machinery, but they are not household names, and China has said little about the visits. While China has come down on foreign companies in the past, the targets were often big consumer brands, and the shaming played out in the media. And the Mintz Group, an American company specializing in corporate investigations, said in late March that officials visited its Beijing office and detained five Chinese employees. Officers visited the Shanghai office of Bain & Company, a major American consulting firm, and questioned employees, Bain said in late April. The scrutiny has left some companies questioning whether their China operations are at risk.
International consulting and advisory firms are among those that have faced questioning from Chinese security officers in recent weeks, adding to fears among foreign investors that the authorities may be trying to choke off their access to unvarnished information about markets, competitors and potential deals in China.
With China’s pandemic restrictions dismantled and its leaders wooing executives flying into the country again, this was supposed to be a springtime of renewed investor confidence in the world’s second-biggest economy.īut a drumbeat of government security measures, including a broadening of counterespionage laws, and unannounced visits by investigators to the Chinese offices of several foreign firms have sent a shiver of worry that under Xi Jinping, economic pragmatism could again give way to a heightened focus on state control.
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