During a recent interview about the arrest of his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, journalists noticed a telling book on the desk of Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei. The book was a Chinese translation of The American Trap, the story of the 2013 arrest by the US Department of Justice of French businessman Frederic Pierucci.
Pierucci, a senior executive at French rail transport company Alstom, was prosecuted and convicted under the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This law allows the US to pursue corruption cases no matter where in the world the crime took place, as long as the transaction at the core of the investigation was made in US dollars or relevant emails passed through US-based servers.
Pierucci’s story has striking parallels to that of Meng Wanzhou. Nor are they alone. Pierucci argues that the US targets companies in strategic industries, including telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas and technology. If that’s true, then many more Chinese businesspeople could also fall into the American trap and be arrested for alleged crimes that did not take place in the US.