Thread by @moritheil

This is how the Chinese do you when you piss off the wrong person. You would think this is just a simple case of an old man being a pervert, right?

Nothing is that simple in China.

https://twitter.com/DiariesPolar/status/1147245797810900992

Recall that a central problem to Chinese business is how to trust strangers. It's an understatement to say China is not a high trust society.

The modern solution? Engage in risky sex at the same venue; have dirt on each other.

chinafile.com/reporting-opin…

Though the charge for the books is "child molestation," the story was apparently that this billionaire ordered a pair of call girls to his hotel room.

In high stakes business, this is the cultural equivalent of buying a round of drinks. Mr. Wang was no doubt familiar with this.

Update: apparently these girls were preteens, not merely teenage call girls. That puts a rather different spin on it, hence the severity of the reaction, but it wouldn't be out of character to use as potential business partner bonding (after all, it's extreme blackmail material.)

The astute reader will note similarities between this and persistent allegations toward politics and business in the US. It has even been said that it's hard to get elected to the Senate without letting billionaires have similarly powerful dirt on you.

So, if this was a political hit job, what prompted it? I can only offer speculation.

China watchers might recall the case of Zhou Yongkang, a Politburo member publicly tried and shamed for corruption in 2014.

Now, the thing with cleaning house in China is it's rarely done all at once. First they purge the obvious wrongdoers, but then they have to purge anyone connected to their power base, for fear that they might one day get into power and attempt revenge.

Of course, there is an art to this. Too slow a purge and you might not finish in time; too fast a purge and you alert everyone that you are in fact conducting a wholesale purge of one faction.

One of the officials involved in the Zhou case was Jiang Dingzhi, from Changzhou. Oh, but he got off with a demotion, you say? Yes. Although they purged his right hand man, they kept him in a reduced capacity.

Almost as if they wanted him powerless for what was to come...

Well, who else is from Changzhou? Ding Xuedong, who heads China Investment Corporation (~1 trillion under management.)

Oh, and some billionaire property investor named Wang Zhenhua.

Coincidence!

Maybe.

One of the things ancient empires do is punish people by specific area of origin, for people from the same area share stronger bonds. The Romans purged villages when they felt soldiers from the village had shamed them or turned traitor.

So, with the reminder again that this is speculation, if the Powers That Be felt the Changzhou faction was dangerous and wanted to neutralize them, this is the kind of play they would use: wait for someone to do something shady, then jump in and enforce the law on them.

"Hey it's not a purge, we're just enforcing the law. You want this guy to get away with harming a kid? Her mom pressed charges, you know!"

I remind the reader that normal people do not press charges against billionaires in most of Asia or the Middle East.

This is actually the strongest evidence that points to a setup.

Most wouldn't have the guts to press charges... But the math would change substantially if a high ranking Party member were to hint that the Party would back the family up if they wanted to bring charges.

Of course it's not impossible that this really was a case of a rich old man being arrogant, having his way with a girl, and assuming 10,000 yuan would shut up her poor family. And the police, the prosecutor, etc. all simply wanted justice.

But this is China. It's unlikely.