[Epoch Times December 02, 2021]Macau’s tens of billions of small gambling king Zhou Zhuohua (Xi Mihua) was arrested on November 26 by the police in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province on suspicion of cross-border gambling and money laundering, and the Macau police started the next day. Arrests. Why was it arrested at this time, and why did Zhejiang Wenzhou approve the arrest? What is the most fundamental purpose of the Beijing authorities?
The author believes that this matter is by no means simple, and behind it is the overall situation of money grabbing by those in power in Beijing.
Public security gambling is a customary income-generating method
Since Zhou Zhuohua’s fortune, he has not only been a celebrity in Macau, he has also served as a member of the Cultural Industry Committee of the Macau Government and many other public positions. He has also cooperated with the Mainland China Land and Law System for many years and has filmed films that praised the CCP police such as Operation Mekong. He also frequently donates to the Mainland, closely following the CCP’s “patriotic” political needs, and thus has close relations with the Liaison Office of the Central Committee of Macau.
In 2019, the mainland official media named Zhou Zhuohua. At the beginning, the annual betting amount of Suncity online gambling in the mainland was more than one trillion yuan, and the annual profit was as high as tens of billions of yuan. These funds flowed abroad through underground banks. However, Zhou Zhuohua has remained safe and sound in the past two years, and it is obvious that there is an upper-level backer to protect it.
In mainland China, crowd gambling is still illegal. The so-called “pornography, gambling, and drugs” are, of course, the products of social corruption, but under the rule of the CCP, they are the source of money for the government, especially the police.
As far as I know, the mainland police at the grassroots level are particularly willing to take gambling because it is effortless and very rewarding income-generating work. In addition to easily confiscating more or less gambling funds, the parties will also be fined. But you can’t put all the gambling stalls to death all at once, you need to collect and put them away to facilitate cutting leeks. This is the reason why the CCP has “strikes hard” on illegal activities such as pornography, gambling, and drugs. They are all a gust of movement.
These corrupt underground industries on the mainland have officials, especially public security officials, acting as backers. Just like Zhou Zhuohua, knowing that opening a casino in China is a risk, why should he do it? Without the acquiescence of powerful high-ranking CCP officials, or disguised connivance, it would be impossible to proceed.
In recent years, the CCP has continuously uncovered the underworld umbrella in various places. This does not indicate the justice of the authorities’ actions. The CCP itself is a gangster. It was just the officialdom power influx, and the losing party was attacked, partly because of political needs to engage in gang attacks and create unjust cases.
Why is Zhou Zhuohua ordered to be arrested here and now?
So why is Zhou Zhuohua’s accident at this time? This must be his backing in the top ranks of the Chinese Communist Party. Recently, the political and legal system has been purged, and the high level of public security has undergone changes. Xi Jinping’s confidant Wang Xiaohonggang replaced Zhao Kezhi and took control of the real power of the Ministry of Public Security.
Why did the Zhejiang Wenzhou police approve Zhou Zhuohua? One possibility is that Wenzhou is a key area of illegal gambling networks involved in the Zhou case, so the Wenzhou authorities approve the arrest.
According to the case report of the Wenzhou police, as of July 2020, Zhou Zhuohua’s leading gambling crime syndicate has developed 199 shareholder-level agents, more than 12,000 gambling agents, and developed more than 80,000 gambler members in China. The amount involved Especially huge.
However, another news also caught the author’s attention. At the time when Zhou Zhuohua’s sudden arrest caused a sensation, the Ministry of Finance of the Communist Party of China announced a plan on November 30 to help Zhejiang “common prosperity” through fiscal reforms.
In June this year, the State Council of the Communist Party of China issued a document to support Zhejiang’s construction of a demonstration zone for common prosperity. On August 17, Xi Jinping proposed “common prosperity” at the meeting of the Central Committee of Finance and Economics of the Communist Party of China, and set the tone to redistribute social wealth for the third time, allowing the rich to “voluntarily” “donate” their wealth.
The discerning people have always known that this “common prosperity” is basically a money grab plan of the CCP. The money it grabs is not beneficial to the Chinese people. Where is the stolen money after so much corruption? Did the people benefit?
Although the authorities have repeatedly said that they are not compelling to donate, as soon as the slogan of “common prosperity” came out, Ma Huateng, Ma Yun, Wang Xing and other wealthy people have donated huge sums of money for their release.
However, it is not just about asking the rich to donate money. The CCP also has other legalized ways to search for people’s wealth. Gambling is a good way. So Zhou Zhuohua slammed into the gun when his patron couldn’t protect himself.
Zhou Zhuohua’s case is the second model case of Zhejiang’s “common prosperity”
The author believes that the Zhejiang Wenzhou authorities ordered Zhou Zhuohua to be arrested, probably because Zhejiang is a test field for the CCP to pursue “common prosperity” and some “model cases” need to be handled. Yuan Jiajun, the current secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, is a representative of the aerospace department that Xi Jinping has collected in recent years.
Before Zhou Zhuohua’s case, Zhejiang had set up its first negative model case. On August 21, Zhou Jiangyong, member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, was investigated.
After the incident, rumors of the interest link between Zhou Jiangyong and Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma became widespread. It is said that Zhou Jiangyong has an interest relationship with the listing of Ant Group, a subsidiary of Ali: Zhou’s 500 million yuan rush to buy shares, after the listing was urgently suspended, 520 million yuan was returned. But the Ant Group denied this.
Some pro-Beijing media pointedly stated that the arrest of Zhou Jiangyong is about how to clarify the ongoing chaos between government and business, and it is Zhejiang’s top priority as a “demonstration zone for common prosperity” that the CCP wants to create.
Obviously, Zhou Zhuohua’s case is the second major model case of Zhejiang local authorities’ demonstration of “common prosperity”. It is the political consideration of the Zhejiang government to take gambling and create a killing environment for “common prosperity”.
Xi Jinping’s fundamental intention is to have the party run the casino
In short, the arrest of Zhou Zhuohua, Zhongnanhai is multiple birds with one stone: cracking down on gambling money laundering and preventing the outflow of funds; forcing Macau gambling companies to hand over VIP customer lists, bringing out problematic officials to help fight corruption; cracking down on the umbrella of high-level powers behind the Macau gambling industry; and “Common Wealth” tree model case, etc.
But basically, the Beijing authorities used Zhou Zhuohua to seize huge amounts of money to replenish the Party State’s treasury. At the same time, using this as a breakthrough, take the opportunity to purge Macau’s political and business circles and the gaming industry, and finally realize the party’s management of casinos. In the future, all the casinos’ money will go to the party.
Editor in charge: Sun Yun#
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