Thread by @ianjamesyoung70

Oh, hi, you don't think China cares what Canada thinks? Well, the media chief of Citic (China's state investment gigacorp) LITERALLY BOUGHT CONTROL of a Canadian newspaper. The insane story (spoiler, he dies in a Chinese prison) is here...A THREAD: scmp.com/magazines/post…

I investigated the astonishing tale of Li Bolun & Global Chinese Press (a major Cdn Chi-language paper) last year. It's cited today in a report by @alliancecanhk to Can parl committee on China. That's Li on right with Citic's late chief Wang Jun, one of China's most powerful men

So, never mind the subtlety of Chinese influence on local media: Here's Citic, THE CHINESE GOVT'S OWN COMPANY, literally buying a Cdn newspaper. Look. Here's the share certificate!

But it all went HORRIBLY wrong. Li claimed the shares for himself & tried to immigrate to Vancouver. And if there's one biz partner you don't want to piss off, it's the CCP. Li was jailed for financial fraud in 2010. Then arrested again in 2015, supposedly in a Beijing METH HOUSE

By 2016 he was dead. “[Li] passed away suddenly in the detention centre on January 5, 2016, when he was criminally detained under the offence of allowing others to take drugs,” said Li’s former deputy at Citic Culture, Sun Yu...

Suffice to say, it is quite the tale. Read it here scmp.com/magazines/post…

Oh also, don't bother Googling "Citic Culture"....the entire enterprise was scrubbed out of existence amid the scandal. Try Googling "Li Bolun". Dude was erased. This despite Li Bolun once being held up by Chinese state media as a figure akin to Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone

Here's @alliancecanhk's report

https://twitter.com/alliancecanhk/status/1399304654203281409?s=20

Usually when I tell CDN reporters stuff like this they glaze over, like it's info overload: "O hey, did you know the CCP's company literally bought a prominent newspaper here, noone realised & the mogul behind the deal got arrested in a meth house & died in a PRC jail? No? Oh ok"

((Not ALL CDN reporters of course))

Part of the problem? Most folk in Canada have no clue what Citic is, even though it's a ginormous CCP enterprise with assets worth more than those of Walmart, Apple & Microsoft combined. Here's what the judge in one CDN hearing about this saga had to say "Who is 'Civic' [sic]?"

"C-I-T-I-C"