Bain Consulting Firm Is Latest Target of Chinese Crackdown
In the latest official scrutiny of a prominent American business in China, the authorities visited the Shanghai offices of the U.S. management consulting firm Bain & Company this month to question its employees.
In a written statement, Bain said it is “cooperating as appropriate with the Chinese authorities,” but declined to comment on the nature of the investigation and whether its employees’ phones and computers had been seized during the visit.
The questioning at Bain came less than a month after the authorities detained five Chinese nationals working in Beijing for the Mintz Group, an American consulting company with 18 offices around the world, and closed the branch. The five Chinese nationals were held overnight before their families were notified that they had been detained. China’s foreign ministry later said that the company was suspected of engaging in unlawful business operations.
Mintz had no immediate response on Thursday to a request for comment on whether any of its five employees had been released.
Source: The New York Times
