(HorizonPost.com) – Police in Shanghai, China, raided the offices of an American firm in a worrying crackdown on US companies in the communist state. Bains and Company, a management consulting firm based in the country’s commercial center, had its computers seized and its employees questioned. The company confirmed the story to the Financial Times but did not provide details on the cause of the incident or future actions. It is the second incident involving an American company in just over a month.
In March, police raided the offices of Mintz Group in Beijing and detained five staff members. The company hinted there had been a “misunderstanding” with Chinese authorities and aimed to clear this up as soon as possible. However, a Chinese government spokeswoman said she was not aware of the incident.
The raids come as relations between China and US spiral. In recent months, the US has blamed the communist country for deploying a range of spying devices over America, and recently hosted the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. Her visit to Los Angeles and New York, where she met with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, was met with fury in China. The communist government responded by carrying out military exercises close to the island.
Tensions were fuelled further as Members of the US Congress introduced various legislative bills threatening to ban the video-sharing platform TikTok from the United States. TikTok representatives were grilled in a Congressional hearing in March when the company denied that Chinese authorities have access to data collected on the platform. CEO Shou Zi Chew was questioned by lawmakers for five hours and insisted that ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is not “an agent” of the Chinese government.
More recently, police in New York arrested two Chinese nationals accusing them of spying on US residents on behalf of the communist regime. Law enforcement officers said they were running a secret “police station” in the Big Apple.
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