The worrying phenomenon of disappearance of billionaires in China It has been spreading for years with a practically invariable modality: prominent investors and businessmen “disappear” while it is announced that they are “cooperating” in an investigation carried out by the authorities of the Regime. The last known case involved the president of the China Renaissance bank .
At the end of February it became known that the billionaire Bao Fan, the late chairman of China Renaissance Bank, was “cooperating” with an investigation by authorities. The report had been transmitted by his company, after his absence unleashed fears about new crackdowns on the Chinese financial sector, consigned the BBC.
His company had released a statement in which it indicated “that Mr. Bao is cooperating with an investigation carried out by” Chinese authorities. “The company will cooperate and assist with any legal request from the PRC authorities”they added, citing the official name of the People’s Republic of China.
However, it is still unknown which government body is behind these investigations and what their characteristics are. It is also not known what Bao’s current whereabouts are.
Other Chinese business leaders have been victims of the same event in recent years, including the head of Alibaba, Jack Ma.
What is significant is that there were also registered similar cases with less media coveragewhose victims would have been ordinary Chinese citizens who “disappeared” after participating in anti-government protests or campaigns demanding human rights.
The disappearance of Bao makes visible one of the mechanisms exercised by the president Xi Jinping for tighten control over China’s economy.
The controversial phenomenon occurred during the run-up to the Annual National Popular Assembly (APN)a parliament in which policies and reforms relating to the country’s financial regulatory system are established.
Within this framework, a new financial regulatory body will be announced to monitor most financial sectors.
The authorities announced that these measures would end current loopholes caused by multiple agencies tasked with simultaneously monitoring different aspects of China’s financial services industry.
A worrying history of disappearances
In 2015 alone, five executives disappeared from one moment to another. Among them was Guo Guangchangchairman of the Fosun International conglomerate, best known in the West for owning Premier League soccer club Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Guo disappeared in December of that year and his company said after his reappearance that it had been helping with investigations.
Two years later, Chinese-Canadian businessman Xiao Jianhua was kidnaped in a luxury hotel in Hong Kong.
He was one of the richest people in China at the time and was arrested last year for corruption.
Another case dates back to 2020, when billionaire real estate magnate Ren Zhiqiang disappeared after calling Xi a “clown” for his handling of the pandemic.
That same year, after a trial that lasted one day, the businessman was sentenced to 18 years in prison on corruption charges.
For his part, the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, was another of the billionaires who disappeared in controversial circumstances. Ma was the richest person in China at the time of his disappearance, in late 2020, after criticizing the country’s financial regulators.
He Jack Ma’s whereabouts remain a mysteryalthough reports circulated that it was seen in Japan, Thailand and Australia in recent months.
“Eradicate corruption”: the justification of the Chinese government
Faced with the disappearance of the richest personalities in the country, the official version of the Chinese government affirms that the decisions are framed in a strictly legal procedure and that their objective is to eradicate corruption.
At the other extreme, other theories suggest that several of the big companies, especially those in the technological field, grew in terms of power and wealth under the policies of Xi’s predecessors: Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.
Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party would seek to regain control of these ‘key’ areas of the economy.
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“Sometimes these incidents are staged in order to send a broader message, particularly to a specific industry or interest group,” he explained to the BBC Nick Marro of The Economist Intelligence Unit.
“At the end of the day, it reflects an attempt to centralize control and authority over a certain part of the economy, which has been a key feature of Xi’s style of government for the past decade,” the specialist detailed.
“Beijing remains focused on ensuring that large tech platforms and operators do not develop their own brands and influence that make them difficult to control and more likely to go against Beijing’s preferences,” said Paul Triolo, head of technology policy at Beijing. global advisory firm china Albright Stonebridge Group.
CA/ED
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