Hong Kong‘s Phoenix Satellite Television broke the news Wednesday (Feb. 10) of a major personnel change in its management, as company founder Liu Changle, who has a Communist Party military background, and his Family have completely withdrawn from the company’s management team, and the positions of chairman and chief executive officer, which Liu held, have been replaced.
According to several media reports, the replacement for the chairman position is Xu Wei, secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and the replacement for the CEO position is Sun Yusheng, deputy director of China’s state television station CCTV.
Xu Wei, who comes from a media background, has long been the head of Shanghai’s propaganda department and was formerly the director of the Shanghai Municipal Government Information Office.
Some commentators have said that Phoenix TV was originally owned by the Chinese Communist Party and now no longer needs to play.
The news, although not yet officially announced, has already spread in all directions through the social media.
Reports say Liu Changle himself is believed to still be in Hong Kong. The Central Investigation Team, led by a deputy minister, has stayed in Hong Kong to conduct the investigation, implementing 24/7 operational surveillance of Liu Changle.
Related reports said the trigger for the major shake-up of Phoenix’s top team was the break in funding for Phoenix Financial’s business, which suddenly stopped issuing online loan products without warning on Sept. 11 last year. Phoenix Financial told outsiders at the Time that the online lending business was suspended because “some of the products were not paid back in time”.
At the time, Phoenix Financial’s platform had a reported 70,400,000 stock users and a stock lending balance of RMB 9.8 billion.
A netizen who claimed to be a victim commented, “I am one of the victims. The trappings of the Phoenix network have blinded too many people, otherwise they would not have touched this thing ah. The interest rate is not high either, so be careful and careful again, or be pitted!”
In fact, Liu Changle’s problems have long been circulating among the people, saying that he joined hands with Wang Xuebing, the former president and party secretary of the Bank of China, to divert funds from the Bank of China to Liu Changle and issue loans out through Phoenix. In total, about $500 million was loaned out over the years.
After Wang was transferred to China Construction Bank (CCB), CCB continued to provide funds to guarantee Phoenix Financial’s loan business. During the lending process, Liu Changle gave some of the kickbacks to Wang Xuebing and his family, and deposited some of the kickbacks in his family’s name in a Swiss bank in Zurich.
Wang Xuebing was expelled from public office and the Party in 2002 and sentenced to 12 years in prison in December 2003 after a court found him guilty of taking large bribes. After his release from prison, he joined CITIC Guoan Fund Management Co. and served as chairman of the company’s advisory board.
Liu Changle was born in Shanghai in 1951 to a senior cadre of the former East China Bureau of the Communist Party of China. He graduated from the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and joined the military department of the Central People’s Radio as a journalist.
Phoenix was founded in March 1996 and has always claimed to be a Hong Kong-based media organization. Last year, Phoenix’s China correspondent claimed that she came from a private Hong Kong media outlet when answering questions from President Donald Trump at a White House press conference. In reality, however, insiders know that Phoenix is a media outlet directly under the control of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus.
Recent Comments