BEIJING - The five men were all locked in disputes with their one-time employer, the Chinese technology giant Huawei. And they had all joined a group on the social app WeChat to organise.
The two former employees - Mr Li Hongyuan, 42, and Mr Zeng Meng, 39 - said officers had questioned them about Iran and asked why they had been in contact with foreign news outlets, both topics they had discussed on WeChat.For over a year now, Huawei, the world's largest maker of telecommunications equipment and a leading smartphone brand, has been the target of an intense clampdown by the Trump administration.
Huawei declined to comment. It referred to an earlier statement saying that Mr Li's case was not a labour dispute, and that the company had reported suspected illegal conduct to the authorities. Huawei also reiterated that it was committed to complying with the law wherever it operates. Mr Li, Mr Zeng and the three others were first detained in December 2018, not long after the world learned that Washington was accusing Huawei of fraud related to its Iranian business. The five men were embroiled in labour disputes with the company, and they chatted and commiserated in a WeChat group.
Even so, Mr Li said, police asked him about his involvement in Iran, which he had mentioned on WeChat. As a former global manager in Huawei's electrical inverter business, Mr Li naturally had contact with colleagues in Iran, he told The Times. But he said he had never been there himself. It was the equivalent, Mr Zeng said the officer had told him, of supporting Japan after it invaded China in the 1930s.
During that time, Mr Zeng looked for other disgruntled Huawei workers to add to a WeChat group. Word reached Mr Li, who was suing Huawei for his own bonus after his contract wasn't renewed. The group eventually swelled to more than 60 people.