In recent months Beijing has sought to tighten controls on 'big business' and imprisoned or detained a number
of China's billionaire businessmen regardless of whether they are CCP members. Among them, those
identified by Bloomberg (February 8) are Xiao Jianhua, the onetime tycoon, who owned the Tomorrow
Group which had interests spanning banking, insurance, real estate, and mining. The government has since
taken over a total of 10 companies linked to Xiao. They include Baoshang Bank Co., the first lender to go
bankrupt in China in two decades; Xiaohui Wu who headed the Anbang Insurance Group disappeared from
public view in 2017, before being ultimately sentenced to 18 years in prison on fraud and corruption
charges; Wang Chaoyong, a former investment banker for Morgan Stanley who heads China Equity Group,
a private equity firm. In December the Caixin news site reported that he hadn’t been seen in public for two
weeks and was the subject of an investigation into financial misconduct. In early January he was released on
bail.; Huang Guangyu, founder of retailer Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd., was detained in
2008.; Yang Zhihui, billionaire owner of casino company Landing International Development Ltd. was
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spirited away in In August 2018. The Board disclosed three months later, with a cryptic announcement, that
Yang Zhihui had resumed his duties after “assisting the relevant department of the People’s Republic of
China with its investigation.”; Most publicised was the case of billionaire Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce
giant Alibaba.com., who since 2020 stepped out of the limelight, his shares took a beating, and at one point
he was reported playing golf on China’s Hainan Island.; Chu Lam Yiu, the CEO of e-cigarette maker Huabao
International Holdings Ltd. and its -controlling shareholder, was under an investigation that involved
“suspected disciplinary violations.”
(Comment: A civil liberties group based in Madrid, Safeguard Defenders, estimated that each year an
estimated 30,000 people in China are secretly detained, often without public charges or access to lawyers.)
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