Fox and hounds
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Guo Wengui is doubling down
Apr 25th 2017 | BEIJING
IN CHINA, tycoons are often privy to murky secrets. Their dealings inevitably bring them into close contact with officialdom—they know whose palms can be greased, and who the real power-brokers are in the shadowy world of Communist Party politics. They are careful, however, not to speak out: an angry politician can easily destroy a business and have a person jailed. No wonder, then, that many Chinese have been transfixed by the claims made by a self-exiled property magnate, Guo Wengui, in a recent series of tell-all interviews and tweets—and that the party is trying hard to discredit him.
The unproven allegations by Mr Guo, who is also known as Miles Kwok, reach to the pinnacle of the party. He has accused security officials of corruption and claimed that the son of a former leader is hiding his shareholding in a large brokerage firm. Most shockingly, Mr Guo says a relative of a current leader has been “trotting the globe on a plane worth billions of yuan and playing around with women”—in spite of the party’s long-running campaign to curb profligacy among the elite, and to rein in corruption.
Chinese leaders are clearly rattled. The Foreign Ministry said last week that Interpol, an international body for police co-operation, had issued a “red notice” to members that Mr Guo is a wanted man. He has reportedly been accused by China of bribing a spy chief, Ma Jian (who has been dismissed and is now in custody). A video, purporting to show Mr Ma admitting to wrongdoing and denouncing Mr Guo, has circulated on the internet in recent days, apparently with official blessing. Mr Guo has denied bribing Mr Ma. He says eight members of his own family have been detained and that 120bn yuan ($17bn) of his assets have been frozen.
Mr Guo’s outburst comes at a sensitive time for the president, Xi Jinping, who is preparing for a party congress late this year—a hugely important opportunity for him to install his allies into the most important jobs. He does not want his efforts to be impeded by anything that could undermine his authority. This is evident from China’s stepped-up efforts to gag critics and “enemies of the state”. It seems prepared to use any means: in February Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese tycoon who made his fortune through ties to party leaders, was kidnapped in Hong Kong and taken to the mainland, where he is being held by police. Between 2014 and 2016, in an operation called “Fox Hunt”, China secured the repatriation of more than 2,500 “fugitives”. Many were from countries with which it has no formal extradition treaty.
Mr Guo professes to be unfazed by Interpol’s notice (he appears to spend much of his time in America, and likes to tweet pictures of himself looking fit—see picture). Many people in China are certainly undeterred by the government’s efforts to block news about him—Mr Guo’s allegations are widely known. Freeweibo.com, a website that automatically monitors censorship of Weibo, a Twitter-like service, shows that Mr Guo’s name is the most searched-for term on the social-media platform. If he keeps on talking, it will be hard for Mr Xi to knock it down the rankings.
