The day before he was due to appear in a London court facing extradition to the US earlier this month, Yuan Hongwei published an open letter on the internet thanking the government and people of China for helping him return home.

In his letter, Mr Yuan, chairman of a Chinese glue-maker called MagPow Adhesives Industries, thumbed his nose at the UK court and lashed out at what he called an Anglo-American “conspiracy to entrap” him, orchestrated, he claims, by a company from Indiana called Abro Industries.