'They eat their children' — The wife of a former Interpol president who went missing in China in 2018 calls the Chinese government a 'monster'

• The wife of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei has lashed out at the Chinese government, calling it a "monster."
• Meng went missing in 2018 when he vanished on a trip back to China from France.

The wife of a former Interpol president has broken her silence while in exile in France, lashing out at the Chinese Communist Party in a scathing interview.

Grace Meng is the wife of Meng Hongwei, the Chinese Interpol chief who disappeared in 2018 when he was on a business trip to China after being stationed in France for two years. He was not heard of until he resurfaced in a Chinese court in 2020, where he was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years' jail on bribery charges.

His wife Grace, who secured asylum in France in 2019 for herself and the couple's twin sons and now lives under police protection, asserts that her husband was imprisoned on false grounds because he harbored reformist views.

In an interview with the AP this week, Meng lashed out at the Chinese government, calling it a "monster."

"Because they eat their children," Meng said, explaining why she used the phrase to describe China's ruling party.

"I have the responsibility to show my face, to tell the world what happened," she told the AP. "During the past three years, I learned — just like we know how to live with COVID — I know how to live with the monster, the authority."

Meng added that she had not seen or heard from her husband since he sent her two messages in September 2018 while on a work trip to Beijing. The first read: "wait for my call." The one that followed was far more ominous — a kitchen knife emoji sent four minutes after.

Meng told the AP that she does not know if she will ever see her husband again or if he is still alive. She also added that while her husband's disappearance was a "source of great suffering" for her, she suspected that many families in China are facing "a similar fate."

"This has already saddened me beyond the point where I can be saddened further," she said. "Of course, it's equally cruel to my children."

"I don't want the children to have no father," she told the AP. "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."

Meng Hongwei is among several high-profile individuals that have vanished in China. Most recently, tennis star Peng Shuai went missing this month after she accused a top Chinese politician of sexual assault. Celebrities and billionaires like Alibaba's Jack Ma have also disappeared from public view after expressing their disagreement with the workings of the Communist Party.