The Chinese Communist Party is a monster which eats its children, said Grace Meng, wife of abducted Interpol Chief Meng Hongwei, to AP in an exclusive interview in France.
She added that the level of corruption in China was very serious.
Meng Hongwei was a very senior and trusted member of the Chinese Communist Party and was send to France in 2016 to head the Interpol.
The last time Grace heard from her husband was on September 25 in 2018 when Meng was on an official visit to China.
On that fateful day, Meng sent two messages to his wife. “The first said, “wait for my call.” That was followed four minutes later by an emoji of a kitchen knife, apparently signalling danger. She thinks he likely sent them from his office at the Ministry of Public Security”, reported The Associated Press (AP).
In 2019, China announced that Meng Hongwei had been stripped of his Communist Party membership. The reason given was he abused his power to satisfy his family’s “extravagant lifestyle” and allowed his wife to use his authority for personal benefit.
In January 2020, a court announced he’d been sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison on charges of accepting more than $2 million in bribes. The court order mentioned that he had confessed guilt and expressed regret.
Like so many others, his trial was never open to public scrutiny.
Grace told The Associated Press that “the accusations were trumped up and that her husband was purged because he’d been using his high-profile position to push for change.”
She and her two children have been in trauma since then.
“I don’t want the children to have no father…Whenever the children hear someone knocking on the door, they always go to look. I know that they’re hoping that the person coming inside will be their father. But each time, when they realize that it isn’t, they silently lower their heads. They are extremely brave”, Grace said.
Through party purges, Chinese President Xi Jinping is strengthening his hold on the party. On November 11 this year, the Chinese Communist Party passed the resolution cementing Xi’s prestige equivalent to Mao Zedong.
It was only the third such resolution in Chinese Communist Party’s history. The first resolution was passed by Mao Zedong in 1945 and the second by Deng Xiaoping in 1981. Xi is all set to be the president for life.
After Meng’s abduction by the Chinese authorities in 2018, Interpol announced Meng’s resignation. This infuriated Grace further. She criticised Interpol saying “It was of no help at all.” She added “by not taking a firmer stand, the global organization that works on shared law enforcement issues has only encouraged authoritarian behavior from Beijing.”
The experts and China watchers fear that Xi’s greed to strengthen his hold on power will see many more purges and human rights violations.
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