The mysterious case of a billionaire who last week went missing from Hong Kong, reportedly abducted by Chinese security agents, has underscored the precarious lives of China’s ultra rich.
Local media said financier Xiao Jianhua (肖建華) was last seen at his apartment in the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong and is under investigation in connection with China’s 2015 stock crash.
There is no shortage of examples of other tycoons who have met a similar fate in a country that has the largest number of billionaires in the world — 594, according to the latest ranking by the magazine Hurun.
In China, company chiefs need the backing of the Chinese Communist Party to get rich.
It is a relationship that — when the political winds change — can leave them out to dry, experts said.
“Chinese businessmen know their country, and they all know that they must have the support of the authorities,” Hong Kong Baptist University professor Jean-Pierre Cabestan said. “Every day, local [Chinese] Communist Party officials receive gifts from company bosses ... who need protection.”
For example, without this support a businessman might have to pay more taxes, “because taxation is very arbitrary in China,” said Willy Lam (林和立), a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “If you don’t have official protection, it’s possible that your business might be wiped out, for whatever capricious reasons.”
There has been widespread speculation that Xiao’s disappearance was part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ongoing anti-corruption drive, which some critics believe has been used to target his political opponents.
“There is always the risk of being dragged into the fall of a politician when he is prosecuted for corruption,” Cabestan said.
“If your protector is doing okay, then you make a lot of money,” Lam said, but added that if he is arrested, “this may suddenly become a big disadvantage. So it’s a double-edged sword.”
In addition to Xiao, who is believed to be close to Xi’s family, real-estate kingpin Guo Wengui (郭文貴), who had strong political connections, has fled abroad.
Billionaire Xu Ming (徐明), who was close to former top-ranking Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) — a political rival of Xi — died in prison at the end of 2015.
Others, who had disappeared, resurfaced after claiming to have “cooperated with investigations.”
“In China, a joke says that if your name appears in the list of the 100 richest people in the country, then you should be careful, because many of these people have been arrested for tax evasion or economic crimes,” Lam said.
The phrase “to get rich is glorious” has been attributed to former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), but Lam pointed out another aspect of wealth: “It is dangerous to be rich in China, certainly.”
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