Li Hongyuan incident

Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China

The Li Hongyuan Incident, or commonly cited as "Huawei 251"[1][2] on the Chinese internet, refers to the 251-day detention and arrest without indictment of Li Hongyuan, a former employee of Huawei. Li had a labor dispute with Huawei and was detained for investigations on embezzlement, breach of confidentiality, and coercion from 16 December 2018 to 23 August 2019 due to the accusations by Huawei. Details of the detention were revealed in late November 2019,[not verified in body] leading to criticism of Huawei and Chinese law enforcement authorities, while the Communist Youth League of China and Chinese left-wing nationalists blamed the incident on the United States.

Incident details

Background

Li Hongyuan joined Huawei's Hangzhou branch in October 2005 after he left Zhejiang Juhua Co., Ltd., a chemical industry company in Quzhou, China. Huawei dismissed him in 2017 by refusing renewal of his labour contract.[3] Before the dismissal, Li was a group leader for solar power inverter when he asked for a meeting with Huawei's founding CEO Ren Zhengfei[4] to report claimed misconducts and fraud activities in his department he found out in November 2016.[3]

Chinese Labour Contract Law requires the employer to sign a permanent contract with the employee if the employee is hired for longer than 10 years, consecutively. Neverthelss, Huawei tries to bypass the law by a firing-and-rehiring loophole to break the consecutiveness.

On the other hand, Chinese Criminal Procedure Law favors law enforcement with prosecution time limit. After initial detention, the police have three days before they request the public prosecutorate for arrest warrant, while the prosecutors have seven days to make the decision on arrest. The police then have two months for investigation after the arrest before the case is presented to the prosecutors. The prosecutors have another month to decide whether they will indict the suspects or not. All of the time limits can be extended.

Labor dispute

Li filed a claim to Huawei for a dismissal financial compensation as if he signed the permanent labour contract with Huawei. The difference of his compensation for 12-year employment between the fix-term and permanent contracts is 304,742.98 Chinese yuan.[5]

Huawei eventually agreed with Li. The agreement was signed on 31 January 2018 between Li and Huawei represented by a human resource manager He. On 8 March Li travelled to Huawei's headquarter in Shenzhen to pick up the payment, which was transferred from a private bank account of the manager He's secretary Zhou.[3] Some concerns were raised immediately about the private transfer and the related income tax issue. Huawei assured Li that its human resource department would handle things properly.

Li later found out that Huawei did not pay the annual bonus of 2017, which was around 200 thousand yuan. Huawei claimed the bonus was not paid due to Li's inefficient behavior.[3] On 7 November 2018 Li sued Huawei for the annual bonus.

Detention

On 16 December 2018 the local police department in Shenzhen compulsorily summoned Li for an investigation on embezzlement as a result of Huawei's complaint reports. Li was detained in his sleep and his house was searched in the evening.[3] Li said the police officers then questioned him on some issues of breach of confidenciality when he was detained for the criminal investigations. The Public Prosecutorate of Longgang, Shenzhen approved the arrest warrant on 22 January 2019.

The Public Security Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality eventually accused Li of coercing the human resource manager He for the payment of 300 thousand yuan.[6] On 21 March, Shenzhen PSB transferred the case to the Public Prosecutorate of Longgang, Shenzhen for review and requested an indictment. Li said he and the other six former Huawei employees were not informed about the coecion case until 16 April. The very next day, Li asked his lawyer to fetch a recording of his conversation with manager He from Li's wife, who later presented the recording to the public prosecutor. Then on 19 April, the public prosecutor sent back the case to Shenzhen PSB for supplemental investigation.

The local police department resubmitted the case with supplemental reports on 17 May. However, the public prosecutor sent them back again on 19 June. Then again for the third time, the case was resubmitted on 12 July. It was said that the manager He retracted his testimony on the "coercion" in July.[6] The Public Prosecutorate extended the time limit of the third review for 15 days on 13 August. And lastly, a decision of non-prosecution[7] was made on 23 August for lack of evidence. Li Hongyuan was finally released after detaintion and arrest for 251 days.[8]

Aftermath

Li's grandfather died while Li was detained. On 25 November 2019 a state compensation of CN¥107,055.94 was offered by the Public Prosecutorate of Longgang, Shenzhen. The Prosecutorate also sent letters to Huawei and Zhejiang Juhua, Li's former employers, for clarification.[9] Li shared the letters with other former Huawei employees who also had labor disputes with Huawei. A post titled "an open letter to Ren Zhengfei from Li Hongyuan" was uploaded onto Huawei's internal forum. The letters were reposted on the Internet and caused huge attention and criticism.[10]

Li said during interviews on 2 December that his intention was not to create a public-relations storm but to have a dialogue with Huawei, who had refused to talk with him since his release. He called on Huawei to offer a formal apology.[3][8][9] Nevertheless, the interviews were taken down[11] after the following statement from Huawei:[12]

It is the company's right and duty to report any suspected illegal activities to the law enforcing authorities. Huawei respects the decisions made by the authorities, including the Public Security Bureau, the Prosecutorate, and the Court of Law. If Li Hongyuan believed his rights and privileges were offended, Huawei supports him to use the legal weapons to protect himself, including suing Huawei. This reflects the spirit of rule of law, where everyone is equal before the law.

— Huawei

Guangdong Yiben Law Firm, who represented Li, then issued a statement saying the "open letter" was not written by Li himself because he had already lost the access for posting on the internal forum.[13] Li commented that the incident and its aftermath had been out of control, so he decided to leave Shenzhen.[14][4] As a reply to Huawei's statement,[15]

Let's take a look first, and I will follow the opinions from the people.

— Li Hongyuan

Later, Li expressed his reluctance to sue Huawei because he still felt emotional connections. Li said Huawei is a big company and is the hope of the future in China. Nonetheless, Li believed the company could not grow healthy on the current path so he wanted a conversation with Ren Zhengfei.[16]

On 5 December Huawei CLO Song Liuping thanked the public attention on Huawei but claimed that the incident was not a labor dispute but a report on suspected illegal activities.[17] On 9 December Li Hongyuan claimed on Weibo that the Public Prosecutorate of Shenzhen Munipalicity was building a case against the false accusation, perjury, dereliction of duty, and malfeasance in the incident. But the Prosecutorate denied the claim.[18]

Six months later on 3 June 2020 Li Hongyuan filed an arbitration request to the Labour-Dispute Arbitration Commission of Longgang, Shenzhen for resuming the labour contract between him and Huawei, and requesting for the salaries, bonuses, and social benefits as if he had not been dismissed. The commission overruled the request in August.[19] Then Li sued Huawei for misleading him on the dismissal agreement. The Court of Law of Longgang, Shenzhen ruled on 10 January 2022 that:

* In view of the collection of dismissal financial compensation by Li Hongyuan, without further evidence, the request to void the dismissal agreement shall not be suppoted.

  • Huawei's claim that the supervising manager He agreeing privately to pay extra financial compensation was a break of Huawei's guideline and did not represent Huawei's true intention, shall not accepted by this Court of Law.
    — People's Court of Law of Longgang, Shenzhen, (2020)粤0307民初31798号判决

Criticism

Of Huawei and the authorities

The Paper, a digital news outlet in Shanghai commented in an editorial that "Huawei Wolf" and "996" working hours represent the culture of efficiency first which is no longer suitable for the era. Huawei's inhumane cruel treatment toward its former employees breachs the trust of its partners and customers.[20] Later, the chief commentator Shen Bin said Huawei's refusal of apology terrifies the people. The development of an enterprise must respect the other's dignities.[21]

Qianjiang Evening News in Hangzhou criticised on Huawei's statement that Huawei shows no respect to the law at all. Huawei is bullying and suppressing its dissidents with strength. The people are eager for the rule of law more than the progress of technology.[22] The article was deleted on 4 December.

The New York Times pointed out on 5 December that Huawei is losing the people's support during this incident. The middle-class Chinese mainlanders are expressing their angers in the fear of that the same incident might have happened on themselves.[11]

The Financial Times in London quoted a labour lawyer Pang Kun that the authorities are paying much more attention on Huawei instead of the employees due to its great strength and influence. He said it was quite common in Shenzhen that the local police detained dozens of people who had in dispute with Huawei every year.[23] In an editorial on the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou, the law enforcing authorities were criticised that had the false accusations by Huawei not been investigated properly, the public power would lose its credits day by day,[24]

Of Huawei's competitors and the United States

Chinese left-wing nationalists blamed Huawei's global competitors and the United States of America for using this incident as an excuse for attack.

Hu Xijin, the chief editor of nationalist Global Times supported Huawei's statement. He said although this incident exposed the internal managing issues in Huawei,[25] Huawei is doing well on sticking to its original attitude towards suspected illegal acitivities. He believed after the report of crime, Huawei had no power to interfere or control the legal process. He suggested that Huawei should not settle this incident with Li Hongyuan in private but must go to the Court of Law.[26] Xu Zhouyang, an anchor on the state media CCTV, satirized Hu saying if the reader does not know the details but only read Hu's comment, he or she might find that it must be Huawei who had been framed for 251 days in jail.[27]

On 4 December, Huawei's Customer CEO Yu Chengdong repost an article by Zhidao Xuegong entitled as "The Black Public Relation Carnival against Huawei". The article believed this incident is a result of paid cyber attacks from the United States and Huawei's competitors including Zhihu. The cost should be around tens of billions.[28] Huawei's Senior Vice President Chen Lifang defended Yu in her speech at Tsinghua University that the criminal report by Huawei strictly followed the law. Yu had to repost the article because he could no longer stand the grievance. She asked the audience to be patient and the truth of Li Hongyuan's crime would be revealed soon.[29][30]

The Communist Youth League of China also reposted an article by Housha on 6 December entitled "VOICE: Huawei had been bombarded by thousands of guns overnight, but the attacker's fox tails were exposed immediately”. The article called on the people who care about “Li X-yuan” to have patience and not to be misled by American spies and news outlets.[31]

Later on 11 December 2019, Ren Zhengfei responded in an interview[32]

Huawei had been as "red as purple" for a while. If the people throw some black dirts on Huawei, Huawei will turn gray, which our true color should be rather than "red as purple". Even when the society believed Huawei was doing well, there were so many difficulties inside Huawei.

— Ren Zhengfei

Similar cases

In 2002 former Huawei employees Wang Zhijun, Liu Ning, and Qin Xuejun were reported by Huawei and detained for 2 years under suspect of breaching confidenciality.[33][34][35]

In 2018 Zeng Meng, a former worker in Huawei Wireless department was also detained for 90 days.[36][37]

Apart from Li and Zeng, in December 2018 at least three other former Huawei employees having labor disputes were detained for breaching confidenciality. One of them pleaded guilty, one was still under detaintion, and the third one had been released after 30-day detaintion.[38]

References

  1. ^ 张英英; 张靖超 (2019-12-02). "回溯华为前员工"251"事件：或涉及多位光伏逆变器业务负责人". 中国经营网 (in Simplified Chinese). 中國. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  2. ^ "華為與李洪元事件：中國「離職冤獄251天」的賠償風波". 聯合新聞網 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 轉角國際 udn Global. Archived from the original on 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
  3. ^ a b c d e f 陆柯言 (2019-12-02). "对话华为被拘251天前员工：并非主动曝光，希望和华为沟通". 界面新闻 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2019-12-02. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  4. ^ a b "专访李洪元：我的诉求只有见任总能解决 别人谁也没用". 经济观察网. 2019-12-04. Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  5. ^ "华为前员工回应超标索赔质疑：30万加上N+1正好是2N". 新浪科技. 2019-12-02. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  6. ^ a b "华为119字回应李洪元被羁押251天：支持你法律维权，包括起诉我！李洪元也发话了". Archived from the original on 2020-02-25. Retrieved 2020-02-25.
  7. ^ 深圳市龙岗区人民检察院 (2019-08-22). "不起诉决定书（李某某敲诈勒索案）". 最高人民检察院12309中国检察网. Archived from the original on 2019-12-02. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  8. ^ a b 新京报 记者 李桂 编辑 滑璇 (2019-12-02). "华为前员工被羁押251天，案件两次退侦、罪名两次变更". 新京报网"沸点"栏目. Archived from the original on 2019-12-04.
  9. ^ a b 喻琰，郑朕 (2019-12-02). "离职补偿变敲诈勒索遭错抓的华为前员工：希望华为向自己道歉". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  10. ^ "华为国际风波未平 国内人设几乎崩塌". BBC. 2019-12-05. Archived from the original on 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  11. ^ a b Yuan, Li (4 December 2019). "How Huawei Lost the Heart of the Chinese Public". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  12. ^ 屈慧 (2019-12-03). "华为回应李洪元被拘事件：支持起诉华为". 财新网. Archived from the original on 2019-12-09. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  13. ^ 网易 (2019-12-03). "华为前员工李洪元:公开信非出自本人 事情有些失控". 网易新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-18. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  14. ^ 喻琰 (2019-12-03). "华为前员工李洪元：网传公开信非出自本人，事情"有些失控"". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  15. ^ 李娜. "独家 离职员工李洪元回应华为声明："大家看看先，我听全国人民的"". 第一财经. 第一财经. Archived from the original on 2019-12-06. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  16. ^ 沈怡然. "华为前员工李洪元：不起诉 只想告诉任总 华为内部说假话风气很重". 经济观察网. 经济观察报. Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  17. ^ 陆一夫 (2019-12-05). "华为首席法务官宋柳平：李洪元事件不是劳动纠纷". 新京报. Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-14.
  18. ^ 微博辟谣 (2019-12-10). "12月10日 08:58 来自 iPhone 11 Pro Max". 微博. Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  19. ^ IT之家 (2022-01-13). "华为、李洪元事件民事判决书曝光：后者自愿离职，法院驳回其要求" (in Chinese (China)). Archived from the original on 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
  20. ^ 西坡 (2019-12-02). "马上评丨华为该如何对待离职员工，我们又该如何对待华为". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  21. ^ 沈彬 (2019-12-03). "马上评｜拒不道歉的华为：没有同理心，让人害怕". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  22. ^ "华为的回应不是"法治"，而是以势压人". 人民網 (in Chinese (China)). 2019-12-03. Archived from the original on 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  23. ^ Liu, Qianer; McMorrow, Ryan (5 December 2019). "China's Huawei faces domestic backlash over detained ex-employee". Financial Times. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  24. ^ "华为"251事件"：应调查是否存在报假案、作伪证和诬告陷害". 南方都市报. 2019-12-02. Archived from the original on 2019-12-06. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  25. ^ "华为员工因离职补偿被拘251天 胡锡进:管理存缺陷". 网易财经. 2019-12-02. Archived from the original on 2019-12-04. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  26. ^ 胡锡进 (2019-12-03). "如何看华为"欢迎起诉我"的回应？". 风闻社区. Archived from the original on 2019-12-04. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  27. ^ 徐卓阳 (2019-12-02). "徐卓阳的微博". 新浪微博. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  28. ^ 网络整理 (2019-12-05). "余承东转发《针对华为的黑公关狂欢》一文". 电子工程专辑. Luffy Liu. Archived from the original on 2019-12-14. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  29. ^ 新浪科技-自媒体综合 (2019-12-05). "华为陈黎芳谈为何举报：因为超出仲裁纠纷范围". 新浪科技. 新浪财经. Archived from the original on 2019-12-14. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  30. ^ 小山 (2019-12-06). "251: 华为解套启用杀手锏 美国的阴谋". 法国国际广播电台. Archived from the original on 2019-12-14. Retrieved 2019-12-14.
  31. ^ 后沙. "【声音】后沙：华为一夜之间被"万炮齐轰"，但狐狸尾巴露得太快！". 微信公众号. 共青团中央. Archived from the original on 2019-12-06. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  32. ^ 公共及政府事务部 (2019-12-18). "任总接受拉美、西班牙媒体采访纪要". 心声社区. Archived from the original on 2019-12-21. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  33. ^ "华为窃密案有果 五大焦点激烈庭辩3人一审判有罪". 中国新闻网. Archived from the original on 2021-11-25. Retrieved 2021-11-25.
  34. ^ "华为公司前员工被拘事件始末". 搜狐IT. 2004-11-17. Archived from the original on 2019-12-02. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
  35. ^ "CCTV.com-机密被盗网络名企受伤 马化腾为QQ号被盗伤脑筋". CCTV. Archived from the original on 2021-11-25. Retrieved 2021-11-25.
  36. ^ 蓝鲸财经"财经女记者部落"公众号 (2019-12-02). "不止李洪元 华为又一前员工被羁押90天". 新浪科技. Archived from the original on 2019-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  37. ^ "专访华为前员工：不止李洪元，曾梦也曾因离职赔偿被羁押 90 天". Archived from the original on 2019-12-24. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  38. ^ 叶展旗 (2019-12-04). "李洪元非个案 同期另有数名华为前员工被捕". 财新网. Archived from the original on 2019-12-04. Retrieved 2019-12-04.