The fallout from a Chinese billionaire’s apparent abduction in Hong Kong has engulfed a Beijing newspaper, deepening the mystery over his disappearance and setting the city’s mainland Chinese community on edge.
The fallout from a Chinese billionaire’s apparent abduction in Hong Kong has engulfed a Beijing newspaper, deepening the mystery over his disappearance and setting the city’s mainland Chinese community on edge.
Xiao Jianhua, a 45-year-old Chinese-born Canadian citizen, vanished from his home at the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong in the early hours of Jan. 27, raising suspicions that he was abducted by Chinese security agents and whisked onto the mainland. Chinese law enforcement officers do not have the legal authority to operate in the city, a former British colony now governed as a “special autonomous region” by Beijing.
Since Xiao’s disappearance, conflicting reports suggest that he may be under investigation for financial crimes — or may be the victim of a political crackdown overseen by China’s president, Xi Jinping. Xiao had a fortune of nearly $6 billion in 2016, according to the respected Hurun Rich List, making him China’s 32nd-richest person.
Caixin, an independent news magazine in Beijing, reported this weekend that Securities Daily — a state-backed securities industry newspaper — is under investigation for links to Xiao. Authorities have ordered the newspaper to undergo two months of “rectification” for “various business issues,” Caixin reported, without detailing allegations against the paper.
Xiao’s conglomerate, the Tomorrow Group, has investments in real estate, insurance, banking, coal, cement and rare earth minerals — as well as a substantial stake in Securities Daily Media, the beleaguered newspaper’s parent company, Caixin reported.
The news has fueled speculation that Xiao’s disappearance may be related to a financial industry crackdown. The head of China’s securities regulator, Liu Shiyu, told an official meeting on Feb. 10 that China will “capture” a group of tycoons living abroad and “bring them back to the mainland” to face justice in relation to a stock market rout in summer 2015, which knocked an estimated $3.2 trillion in value from global markets.
The South China Morning Post reported last week that Xiao returned to the mainland to “help authorities in investigations related to the Chinese stock market crash in 2015 and over his business ties with relatives of some top Chinese leaders.”
Yet experts say the timing of Xiao’s disappearance may be related to a major Chinese political meeting scheduled for October, when Xi — widely considered China’s most powerful leader since Mao Tse-tung — is expected to further consolidate his authority.
Willy Lam, an expert on elite Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that Xiao had two political liabilities — his financial dealings with the son of Zeng Qinghong, China’s vice president from 2003 to 2008, and with family members of Xi himself.
