U.S. media unveiled the inside story of Ma’s accident Jiang Zemin’s grandson and Jia Qinglin’s son-in-law alarmed Xi
Photo: The corporate logo on the headquarters building of Ant Group in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
The real reason for Ma’s purge is still a mystery. Recently, the US media revealed that after a long investigation into the shareholding structure of Ant Group founded by Jack Ma, the Chinese Communist Party found that the grandson of Jiang Zemin and the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party, were secret investors in Ant, prompting Xi Jinping to personally stop Ant’s IPO plan.
The Wall Street Journal interviewed more than a dozen Communist Party officials and government advisers and published an article on Feb. 16 saying that the top brass had begun investigating Ant’s shareholding structure long before Jack Ma publicly criticized Communist regulators last October.
According to these CCP officials and government advisers, the CCP government investigation found that behind Ant Group’s stake is a small circle of well-connected powerful CCP figures, some of whom have ties to a number of political families that pose a potential challenge to Xi and his inner circle.
Since taking power, Xi has been cracking down on corruption, real estate speculation and other high-risk financial activities, the report said. And Ant Financial’s planned IPO is the kind of fortune making and wealth accumulation that Xi has long opposed.
People briefed on the investigation say Xi does not want to see the Ant Group’s IPO funnel huge benefits to prominent princelings. In Xi’s view, it would undoubtedly widen the gap between rich and poor and undermine his efforts to eradicate poverty.
After a lengthy investigation into Ant Group’s shareholding structure, the Chinese Communist Party found that Jiang Zhicheng, son of Jiang Zemin’s eldest son Jiang Mianheng, and Li Botan, son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, a former member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, were secret investors in Ant.
Jiang Zhicheng, a graduate of Harvard University, is the most notable for founding Boyu Capital, a private equity fund in Hong Kong, and for his close friendship with Jack Ma.
In 2012, Boyu Capital, together with China Investment Corporation, China Development Bank and CITIC Group, formed a consortium to raise $7.1 billion to help buy back the shares of Alibaba held by Yahoo. After the consortium bought about 5% of Ali’s shares, Ali went public in the U.S. two years later, and the consortium made a huge profit.
Boyu Capital also has a stake in Ant, with a very roundabout approach. The report said that because the Chinese Communist Party restricts foreign companies from investing in the payment business, Boyu Capital first set up a subsidiary in Shanghai, which then invested in the company, and then the company invested in the private equity fund Beijing Jingguan Investment Center (Beijing Jingguan), which stepped in to invest in Ant.
In 2016, Ant Group raised RMB 4.5 billion from 16 investors, with BJSC as one of the investors, and in 2018 Ant raised RMB 21.8 billion, with BJSC becoming one of Ant’s top 10 investors, holding nearly 1% of Ant’s equity.
However, in Ant’s prospectus, only the name of Beijing Capital Management is seen, and there is no mention of Boyu Capital or Jiang Zhicheng.
The de facto controller of Boyu Capital is Jiang Zhicheng, the eldest grandson of Jiang Zemin.
The report also mentions Jia Qinglin’s son-in-law Li Botan as one of Ant’s secret investors. Li Botan first set up Zhaodu Investment Co. The company invested through multiple layers, with Shanghai Zhongfu Investment eventually stepping in to take a stake in Ant.
Lee Pak-tan is known as “Old Hong Kong” by the media. In 1991, he set up Excelsior Investment Ltd. in Hong Kong, which has five records of property sales and purchases, and bought a unit in Lippo Centre in Admiralty in 1993, and made a huge profit of $20 million in the following year.
Li Botan’s other company registered in Hong Kong, Northern Tonghe Holdings, has a variety of businesses such as oil, mining, agriculture, real estate, etc., all the shares are held by Northern Zhao De Investment Holdings, is a huge business kingdom.
In January 2009, Baotou Tomorrow announced a RMB 350 million investment to acquire a real estate company in Lijiang from Beijing Zhaodu Real Estate. In 2006, Xiao Jianhua, the head of Baotou Tomorrow, was the white glove of the Zeng Family, and in 2006, he indirectly intervened to buy Shandong Luneng for Zeng Wei.
In 2009, Li Botan and Maotai Group, Ji Keliang and Yuan Renguo, established the Maotai Club private club in Beijing, Ma was also the first deputy director of the Council. Ma later founded the Jiangnan Club in Hangzhou, which was once considered the Jiangnan branch of the Maotai Club, and became a gathering place for senior Communist Party officials and powerful people.
Xi Jinping: You People Will Die Either at the Drinking Table or in Bed
The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to sources familiar with the matter, Xi Jinping said in a meeting with senior officials early in his rise to power, “You people, you’ll either die at the wine table or in bed!”
And the anti-corruption campaign set off by Xi Jinping’s first term pointed directly at the lavish banquets and harems of mistresses of senior officials, and private clubs like the Maotai Club were seen as harmful. At the Time, private clubs in Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing and many other cities were regulated. Among them, Maotai Club was named as operating on top of the wind.
The report said that many of Ma’s friends also hide their identities to invest in Ant, including Guo Guangchang, chairman of Fosun Group, Lu Zhiqiang, chairman and president of China’s Pan Ocean Holdings Group, and Shi Yuzhu, chairman of Giant Network, among others.
For example, Xiao Feng, vice chairman of Wanxiang Holdings Co., invested in a company called “Chi-Pay (Shanghai) Investment Center” by his wife Huang Rongping, who then invested in Ant.
The president of Microsoft and Jack Ma greet Xi Jinping in Redmond, Washington, on Sept. 23, 2015.
Ma also got China Pension Fund and China Investment Corporation to invest in Ant so that it could go public, so the Ant IPO process took only 36 days. But the IPO was eventually halted by Xi Jinping.
Commentator Wang Youqun analyzed the 2015 stock market crash as a “financial coup” by Jiang Zeng’s forces, which have long held the Communist Party’s financial markets. After the stock market crash, Xi Jinping has been cleansing the financial market of Jiang Zeng’s forces. But Xi has not touched Ma so far.
The company’s financial regulator gave the green light for Ant Group to go public, said Wang Youqun. The company’s main goal is to make sure that the company’s products and services are available to the public. This is likely to remind Xi Jinping of the financial coup, so a multi-pronged approach to urgently call off the Ant listing, and Ma Yun frustrated, in fact, Xi and Jiang Zeng infighting white-hot.
Party media suggested that leftover men in rural areas should be given to leftover women in cities, and was blasted for “mating chickens and ducks”.
The Chinese Communist Party’s inhumane policy of family planning has caused a serious gender imbalance in Chinese society. A few days ago, the party media quoted an expert’s suggestion that leftover men from rural areas could be paired with leftover women from cities, which was criticized as “a mating of chickens and ducks.
On Feb. 15, Xinhua News Agency published an article on how to solve the problem of older leftover men in rural areas.
The article quoted Wu Xiuming, deputy secretary-general of the Shanxi Think Tank Development Association, as suggesting that, in the long run, narrowing the urban-rural and regional gaps would solve the problem of many leftover men in the countryside and many leftover women in the cities at the same time. The problem of gender “structure” can be solved as much as possible.
The article was sent out on Weibo and sparked outrage among netizens. Some questioned, “You think it’s so easy to breed chickens and ducks”. Others said, “I can’t believe this is an official Weibo post.
Some netizens angrily denounced, “urban leftover women do what’s wrong ah to match with rural leftover men?” Others responded, “We suggest that the expert’s daughter marry first!”
In June last year, Chinese Fudan University professor Huang Youguang also posted an article that he could try to “legalize brothels” and “monogamy” to solve the problem of leftover men caused by family planning, which could also increase the birth rate of children.
This article has caused a lot of scolding. Hong Kong netizens said that this proposal is the same as the Chinese Communist Party’s “communist co-wife” and condemned it for equating human beings with pigs on farms, which is simply morally bankrupt.
Thousands of residents in Shijiazhuang resist violence without diagnosis
Thousands of residents in Shijiazhuang’s Gaocheng District have clashed with government officials at the Evergrande Oasis. (Epoch Times photo)
On Feb. 7, thousands of residents of the Shijiazhuang Gaocheng District’s Evergrande Oasis neighborhood, which has been under permanent lockdown due to the Epidemic, were unable to tolerate the arrogance of government officials and clashed with them with fists and feet.
Evergrande Oasis owner Mr. Li told the Epoch Times that their community was sealed from the 6th until February 8 when it was reduced to medium risk and was able to leave the community, but to a very limited extent.
Mr. Li said, but the last two days their neighborhood and pull the alarm, do not let downstairs, who downstairs to catch who.
“The first two days of propaganda do not go downstairs, Home do not let downstairs, may be individual downstairs, in the district activities walking, the police came to take people away.”
Mr. Li said that their neighborhood nucleic acid has done thirteen times, 14 and suddenly to do the nucleic acid, simply labor.
On February 7, people from the government came down and above to let residents express their views. Thousands of people from the entire neighborhood came down and demanded the unsealing. Clashes broke out between the owners of the neighborhood and the government people. Tensions finally erupted as owners accused the government of inaction and government agents of arrogance.
The owners of the subdivision tell the story. (Screenshot)
Mr. Li did not hear that anyone was injured, but the scene was chaotic, with several thousand people complaining. The clashes started around 3 p.m. and ended around 6 p.m.
According to Mr. Li, there are about fifteen buildings in their district, and there are said to be 10,000 people.
Mr. Li said, “This sweeping (control) really makes it impossible for people to live.”
Mr. Li said, at the same time, the cost of living but rising, buy high-priced vegetables every day, “you buy a catty two catties people do not give you distribution, restrictions are too much, are how many pounds above before you send, are expensive vegetables …… some are not eaten.”
“The district’s property fees, utilities are still to be paid. Property fees and not less you, what can not be less, what communal fees can not be less.” He said, “The whole period of the epidemic, the government did not send anything.”
Mr. Li said that the authorities engaged in one-size-fits-all means of control of the epidemic really makes the people uncomfortable, and people have to get depressed if they are sealed like this.
Quarantined in January, Hebei old man kills himself on the 29th of the year; quotes go viral
Nangong people posted on social media for help posts were quickly deleted (Photo source: web screenshot) Nangong people posted on social media criticizing the official posts were quickly deleted (Photo source: web screenshot)
Nangong in Hebei has been closed for more than a month because of the epidemic, and now although it has been reduced to a low-risk area, residents are still being kept at home in sealed households. Some informants broke the news that on February 10, the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, Nangong Nanguan community, a sixty-year-old grandfather killed himself, suspected to be related to being imprisoned for more than a month of isolation Life.
Nangong since the beginning of January to close households in isolation, the people’s daily supplies all rely on high-priced rationing.
A Nangong citizen, Mr. Wang, disclosed to Epoch Times, “Buying vegetables is a website given by the community and can only be bought there and settled online. There are only vegetables, rice, noodles, pork, and no other supplies. Many elderly people don’t know how to use the internet to place orders at all, and some don’t even have smartphones. This old man is living alone, he can’t eat or drink, so he can’t think about it. He seems to have a daughter in the field. He did not come back for New Year’s Eve, and can not return ah.”
He revealed, “I have a friend who is a volunteer, he is driving an ambulance, he told me the news, or we seal the household at home, nothing is known. It was the special police who went to deal with this (hanging old man’s) matter. I asked a friend of mine, who also lives nearby, and he told me not to talk about it outside. Everyone is afraid to talk about such things, the news sent to the Internet were immediately deleted, what 58 Tongcheng, Racer and other places, sent up to delete.”
He said, “Now good people can get depressed, I think I’m getting depressed, people are suffocating almost crazy. No one told us when to unblock!”
On February 15, Nangong people posted on social media for help, the local escalation of speech control, the post will soon be deleted.
A famous quote worthy of deep thought by fellow wall countrymen
One tweet is a famous quote most worthy of deep thought by fellow wall countrymen: Plato said that if only one voice is allowed to exist, then the only one that exists is a lie.
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