[Epoch Times August 23, 2021](Epoch Times reporter Luo Ya and Gu Qing’er interviewed and reported) Recently, many officials in Zhejiang Province have been dismissed one after another, especially the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee Secretary Zhou Jiangyong. The listing case of Alibaba’s Ant Group was related, but Ant Group came forward to refute the rumors. The Hangzhou official immediately announced that it would start a clean-up operation of political and business relations, which triggered speculation.
Some experts believe that the CCP’s large-scale purge of private enterprises is on the one hand because the CCP is not at ease with private enterprises, and on the other hand, the CCP’s finances are severely short of money. While Zhou Jiangyong and other officials who have fallen from the horse are closely related to Jack Ma and Alibaba, Beijing wants to use this to beat other officials of the CCP to stay in line with the Central Committee, rather than stand in line with these private entrepreneurs.
A number of officials sacked, Lu media disclosed mutual implicated relations
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.
The Mainland’s Caijing Magazine reported that from August 21 to 22, there have been widespread reports that Zhou Jiangyong’s family was suspected of making a surprise purchase of shares in a local company’s initial public offering (IPO). In addition, Zhou Jiangyong and the previously investigated Chu Mengxing The close relationship with officials from Ningbo has also received wide attention.
In addition to Zhou Jiangyong, on June 1, the former secretary of the Haishu District Committee of Ningbo City, Chu Mengxing fell from the horse. On July 22, Zhang Shuitang, former deputy secretary general and director of the reception office of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Government, who had retired for 7 years, was investigated. On August 19, Ma Xiaohui, deputy party secretary of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress, sacked.
According to reports, like Zhou Jiangyong, Chu Mengxing has served in Ningbo for a long time. The head of a law firm in Zhejiang has a close relationship with Chu Mengxing, while Zhou Jiangyong has a close relationship with Chu Mengxing and the person in charge of this law firm.
Zhou Jiangyong, Ma Xiaohui, and Chu Mengxing are all from Ningbo. Ma Xiaohui and Chu Mengxing are old colleagues for many years, and they have successively served as Deputy Secretary of the Ninghai County Party Committee and Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee. Zhou Jiangyong and Ma Xiaohui are old classmates of Grade 96 in the School of Public Administration of Zhejiang University.
Analysis: Beijing used the purge of officials and businessmen to tie up and beat other officials
After Zhou Jiangyong’s fall, Alibaba and Ant Group were also pushed to the forefront of the storm, and Ma Yun, the actual controller of these two companies, also became the focus of public opinion.
Earlier, Lu Media reported that Zhou Jiangyong awarded Ma Yun the title of “Meritable Hangzhou Native”. Ma Yun said that the Hangzhou Municipal Government and Alibaba have defined a brand new relationship between government and enterprise.
Li Hengqing, a scholar at the Washington Institute of Information and Strategy, said in an interview with Epoch Times on August 23 that Zhou Jiangyong’s predecessor and his colleagues had fallen behind. And Zhou Jiangyong has visited Alibaba on important occasions several times to show condolences to employees, New Year’s greetings, and any major sales and promotions. He has been there.
Li Hengqing said that in fact, government officials supporting enterprises, helping them to do sales and after-sales services are also matters of local officials, but they are not accepted by the authorities. Why? It is nothing more than that Zhou Jiangyong’s views are inconsistent with the central government on the issue of Alibaba. They are all integrated with Alibaba in principle, and the three people in a row are Alibaba’s affairs.
He further analyzed that 99% of Communist Party officials are problematic. Any official arrested involves “including money trading, corruption, bribery, and relationship between men and women, and there are almost no clean people.”
“The reason why these officials are cleaned up is because they are tied up with these entrepreneurs, which makes the central government even more worried.” He said, this is also a warning to all the CCP officials. “, or “go to stand in line” with private entrepreneurs.
Li Hengqing said that apart from the CCP’s worry about these companies, the CCP’s financial problems are very serious. Recently, the issue of “three distributions” has been raised. The three distributions are “you do not divide, I will help you.” A few days ago, Tencent has taken the initiative to pay 50 billion (RMB, the same below), “You can’t make it if you don’t pay now.” Alibaba was previously fined 18.228 billion yuan by the “Anti-Monopoly Law.”
He said that now that the power is in the hands of the Chinese Communist authorities, you have to confess and punish you, and you still cannot have any backlash. “Alibaba didn’t immediately say that we took it. Now the key is that it won’t work, so Zhou Jiangyong was also arrested.”
It is rumored that Zhou Jiangyong’s family bought a stake in the financial technology company Ant Group to “refute rumors”
After Zhou Jiangyong’s downfall, the mainland’s self-media “Focus View” article stated that this series of cases was related to the operation of “fishing people and saving husbands” by Hu Minchun, director of Zhejiang Chenghang Law Firm, and involved the listing of Ant Group last year.
Hu Minchun’s husband (it is said to be a cohabitant) is Chu Mengxing, the former secretary of the Haishu District Committee of Ningbo City. The article stated that the goal of Hu Minchun’s operations is Zhang Shuitang, and Zhou Jiangyong, Ma Xiaohui and others are the umbrellas that Hu Minchun has high hopes for. Unexpectedly, Zhou and Ma Wei gave substantial assistance, and Hu simply exposed the official scandal.
The article revealed that one of the clues provided by Hu Minchun is: In November 2020, the listing plan of a financial technology company in Zhejiang was urgently suspended. Before the IPO, Zhou Jiangyong’s family spent 500 million yuan to buy shares first, and got 520 million yuan refunded if they failed to go public; another family member of a leading cadre in Yuhang bought 50 million yuan of shares and received 52 million yuan refund. The other people involved in Zhejiang still don’t know where the spread has spread.
The article stated that a financial technology company in Zhejiang that Hu Minchun was referring to was considered by the outside world to be the Ant Group.
Hu Minchun and his team are familiar with this matter because she has not only acted as an agent for some clients to make a surprise purchase of shares, but also participated in the aftermath of the failure of the listing, and even included some funding path arrangements.
In response to the above rumors, the Ant Group issued a statement on August 22 stating that “it is a false rumor that relevant personnel have invested in Ant Group on the Internet” and stated that in the previous IPO issuance process, there was no situation of relevant personnel taking shares… Ant The group has never entered into any form of business cooperation with the law firms and lawyers mentioned in the rumors.
Hangzhou official announced the cleanup of political and business relations at sensitive moments
Whether Zhou Jiangyong, Ma Xiaohui and others have improper government-enterprise relations with the Ant Group, the Chinese Communist Party has not yet said about it.
At this sensitive moment, the website of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China published an article on “Hangzhou Launches Governance of Issues Affecting Pro-Qing Politics and Business Relations” on August 23, stating that the special governance covered all incumbents and cities that had retired and resigned in the past three years. Manage leading cadres.
The article stated that this special governance mainly has three aspects: “Leaders’ self-examination and self-correction of matters concerning conflict of interest prevention by leading cadres, a review of the special governance of illegal borrowing by leading cadres, and regulation of the conduct of leading cadres’ spouses, children and their spouses in business-run enterprises.”
On November 5, 2020, Ant Group was originally scheduled to be simultaneously listed in Shanghai (A shares) and Hong Kong (H shares), but was suddenly suspended from the IPO on the eve of the listing. Subsequently, the senior executives of the company, including Jack Ma, were interviewed by the regulatory authorities.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February this year that the real reason why Ant Group’s listing plan was suspended by the Chinese Communist Party in November last year was an investigation by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which found that the equity structure behind Ant Group is complicated. Behind the opaque investment tool is a small circle of well-connected CCP dignitaries, which involves multiple CCP dignitaries, including Boyu Capital, founded by Jiang Zemin’s grandson Jiang Zhicheng, and Beijing Zhaode Investment, the son-in-law of the former Politburo Standing Committee member Jia Qinglin’s son-in-law Li Botan .
Editor in charge: Lin Congwen#
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