A corruption crackdown at a powerful Chinese state-owned enterprise has spilled over into Hong Kong, where employee passports were seized in the latest sign of the extraterritorial reach of China’s Communist party.
Staff at several subsidiaries of China Huarong Asset Management in Hong Kong were required last Friday to surrender personal travel documents to the company by Monday this week or face unspecified punishments, according to emails and documents obtained by the Financial Times.
The demand followed news last week that Lai Xiaomin, Huarong’s chairman, was under investigation by Chinese authorities for “severe disciplinary violations”, a phrase that usually refers to corruption.