Mystery Surrounds Whereabouts of Chinese Tycoon

Hong Kong police investigate after speculation billionaire Xiao Jianhua was abducted.
By JOSH CHIN in Beijing and CHESTER YUNG in Hong Kong

Xiao Jianhua is a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong police waded into a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a Chinese billionaire on Wednesday, saying they had asked mainland authorities for more information after determining the businessman crossed the border into China.
The police probe came after speculation the billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, a finance tycoon who had been living in Hong Kong, had been abducted by Chinese agents. 

The reports rekindled concerns over threats to the independence of the city’s legal system, which bars such operations. 

Many in Hong Kong were rattled last year when local bookseller Lee Bo, a British citizen, was seized by Chinese agents and taken to the mainland.
Xiao is the founder of Tomorrow Holding Ltd. Co, also known as Tomorrow Group, a Beijing-based holding company with investments in areas ranging from real estate to agriculture. 

The Hurun Report ranked Xiao, who is in his mid-40s, as No. 32 on its latest list of China’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated personal fortune of $6 billion.
China’s financial media frequently marvel at the quick rise of Xiao, who graduated from Peking University in 1990 while still a teenager. 

Several news organizations, including the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily, have referred to him as xiaoxiong, a play on his name that describes someone who is uncommonly ambitious and formidable.

Xiao Jianhua
Reports by Bloomberg in 2012 and the New York Times in 2014 said Xiao has helped broker deals for members of China’s political elite, including relatives of Xi Jinping. 

In a public statement in response to the New York Times profile, Tomorrow Group denied that the financier’s wealth stemmed from political connections, saying instead he made money by studying the methods of American investor Warren Buffett.
In the same statement, the company spoke about Xiao’s decision not to join the 1989 student protests around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, saying the aggressiveness of the protesters led him to avoid politics and instead concentrate on his studies.
Disquiet over Xiao’s fate is likely to spread further if it emerges that Xiao, a well-connected businessman, was subject to the same treatment as Lee, the bookseller, in a city long celebrated as a capitalist sanctuary. 

Lee returned after three months and gave few details of his absence beyond saying he had gone to the mainland voluntarily to assist in an investigation
Concern around Xiao’s whereabouts was reported to Hong Kong police on Saturday, though police declined to say by whom. 

It set off a whirlwind of speculation. 

Some Chinese media, including the website of the state-run Securities Daily newspaper, dismissed as rumors reports that he had been abducted.
One of Xiao’s relatives reported to police on Sunday that the businessman told his family he was safe, according to Hong Kong police, which said that the investigation would proceed nonetheless.
Securities Daily and others quoted a statement posted Monday to Tomorrow Group’s public account on the WeChat messaging app that said Xiao was “recuperating overseas.” 

The Securities Daily article was no longer accessible by Wednesday morning.
Another statement posted to Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account on Tuesday explicitly denied that Xiao had been abducted, describing the Chinese government as "civilized" and "law-abiding".

It also said he is a Canadian citizen with permanent-resident status in Hong Kong. 

Both statements were attributed to Xiao himself.
“I’m a patriotic overseas Chinese. I’ve always loved the Communist Party and the nation and have never participated in any activity that harmed the interests of the country or the image of the government,” read the statement, which was reprinted as a full-page ad in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper on Wednesday. 

“Nor have I supported any hostile forces or organizations.”
By Wednesday, the two posts had been deleted from Tomorrow Group’s WeChat account. 

Calls and emails to Tomorrow Group went unanswered. 

The company’s website was also unavailable.
The Canadian consulate in Hong Kong said it had contacted authorities for more information and to provide assistance. 

It said it couldn’t release further information because of privacy concerns.
An official in the press office of China’s Ministry of Public Security said the office couldn’t process requests for comment during the Lunar New Year holiday. 

Calls to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office went unanswered.
A number of high-profile businessmen have gone missing since Xi vowed to sweep away corruption four years ago. 

One notable example is Hua Bangsong, the founder of refinery designer Wison Engineering Services Co., who was detained by investigators in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison for bribery. 

Days after he was detained, he made his debut on the Hurun Report rich list at No. 335 with an estimated worth of $900 million.
Others reappeared after brief periods in government custody. 

They include Guo Guangchang, the billionaire founder of conglomerate Fosun Group, who disappeared briefly in December 2015. 

The company said Mr. Guo had been assisting authorities with an unspecified investigation.
In April 2015, property developer Kaisa Group Holdings welcomed back chairman Kwok Ying Shing less than four months after he resigned and disappeared amid speculation of his involvement in a corruption probe in the southern city of Shenzhen. 

Neither Mr. Guo nor Mr. Kwok have given details from their time away from the public view.

The Nazi Interpol

Fears For Dissidents As China Security Czar is Appointed as the New Head of Interpol
By Dominique Rowe

Meng Hongwei (R), Chinese Vice Public Security Minister in Beijing, China, Aug. 26, 2016.

Global police body Interpol announced the appointment of its new chief Wednesday, China’s Vice Minister for public security Meng Hongwei.
Meng is the first Chinese national to take up the role as head of Interpol, but rights groups are concerned that the nomination will facilitate efforts to target Chinese dissidents living overseas, reports The Guardian.
“This is extraordinarily worrying given China’s longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad,” Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East Asia, Nicholas Bequelin, told the Guardian on Thursday.
Bequelin added that Chinese police have a “political mandate” to protect the power of the Communist party.
As part of Xi Jinping’s far-reaching crackdown on corruption, last year, Beijing launched Operation Sky Net, a campaign to nab 100 suspected corrupt former Communist Party officials who had allegedly fled overseas. 

The names were placed on Interpol’s “Red Notice” list with the aim that the police body would help extradite them back to China.
Amnesty’s fear is that some of those on the list, rather than being guilty of graft, may be political dissidents whose real crimes exist only in the eyes of the Communist Party.


Chinese Official Named Head of Interpol, Drawing Criticism
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING — A top Chinese police official was elected president of Interpol on Thursday, setting off alarm bells among rights advocates over abuses and a lack of transparency within China's legal system, as well as the misuse of the police organization to attack Beijing's political opponents.
Vice Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei was named as the first Chinese to hold the post at the organization's general assembly on the Indonesian island of Bali, Interpol announced in a press release.
The Lyon, France-based International Criminal Police Organization has 190 member nations and has the power to issue "red notices." 

It's the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today. 

Interpol circulates those notices to member countries listing people who are wanted for extradition.
While Interpol's charter officially bars it from undertaking "any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character," critics say some governments, primarily Russia and Iran, have abused the system to harass and detain opponents of their regimes. 

Interpol says it has a special vetting process to prevent that from happening.
Quoted in the Interpol release, Meng said he takes over at a time when the world is facing some of the most serious global public security challenges since World War II.
"Interpol, guided by the best set of principles and mechanisms to date, has made a significant contribution to promoting international police cooperation," Meng was quoted as saying. 

"Interpol should continue to adhere to these principles and strategies, while further innovating our work mechanisms in order to adapt to the changing security situation we see today."
Interpol's president is a largely symbolic but still influential figure who heads its executive committee responsible for providing guidance and direction and implementing decisions made by its general assembly. 

Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock is the organization's chief full-time official and heads the executive committee.
Meng, who takes over from Mireille Ballestrazzi of France for a four-year term, will assume his new duties immediately.
His election comes as Xi Jinping is seeking to give new momentum to his 4-year-old campaign against corruption, including a push to seek the return of former officials and other suspects who had fled abroad. 

China filed a list of 100 of its most-wanted suspects with Interpol in April 2014, about one third of whom have since been repatriated to face justice at home.
The anti-corruption drive is led by the Communist Party's internal watchdog body, the highly secretive Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, rather than the police, prompting questions about its transparency and fairness.
More than 1 million officials have been handed punishments ranging from lengthy prison terms to administrative demerits or demotions. 

While authorities deny their targets are selected for political purposes, several of the highest-profile suspects have been associated with Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao and other rivals.
China's police and judicial systems have been routinely criticized for abuses, including confessions under torture, arbitrary travel bans and the disappearance and detention without charges of political dissidents and their family members. 

That has prompted reluctance among many Western nations to sign extradition treaties with China or return suspects wanted for non-violent crimes.
China also stands accused of abducting independent book sellers who published tomes on sensitive political topics from Hong Kong and Thailand. 

U.S. officials have meanwhile complained that China has asked for the return of corruption suspects while providing little or no information about the allegations against them.
Given those circumstances, Meng's election is an "alarming prospect," said Maya Wang, Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"While we think it's important to fight corruption, the campaign has been politicized and undermines judicial independence," Wang said. 

Meng's election "will embolden and encourage abuses in the system," she said, citing recent reports of close Chinese ally Russia's use of Interpol to attack President Vladimir Putin's political opponents.
Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's regional director for East Asia, tweeted: "This is extraordinarily worrying given China's longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad."
At the same time, China's 3-decade-old economic boom has produced waves of embezzlement, bribery, corruption and other forms of white-collar crime that have forced the government to spread a wide net to track down suspects and their illicit earnings. 

China also says it faces security threats from cross-border "extremist" Islamic groups seeking to overthrow Chinese rule over the far-western region of Xinjiang.
Along with electing Meng, Interpol also approved a call for the "systematic collection and recording of biometric information as part of terrorist profiles" shared by the organization.
About 830 police chiefs and senior law enforcement officials from 164 countries joined in the four-day meeting. China became a member in 1984.