Kidnapped Billionaire Sentenced to 13 Years Jail

Xiao has been sentenced to 13 years in prison

Big news coming out of China with billionaire Xiao Jianhua, 50, sentenced to 13 years in prison for embezzlement and bribery in a court in Shanghai. His company, Tomorrow Group, was fined more than US$8 billion.

Five years ago around Chinese New Year, there was a bizarre story that Xiao, who lived in the Four Seasons Hong Kong apartments, was visited by Chinese agents, who quickly subdued his female bodyguards and he was taken out by a wheelchair with a bag covering his head. 

Xiao had close connections with political elite

The hotel has surveillance video of the time but refuses to reveal the footage.

He was whisked across the mainland border and never heard from again -- until July 4, when Canadian diplomats in China reported Xiao, who is a Canadian citizen, was standing trial. The diplomats were refused entry into the courtroom to attend the trial.

AFP reports Xiao and his firm were found guilty of "illegally absorbing public deposits, breaching trust in the use of entrusted property... [and] illegal use of funds," a statement from the Shanghai court said. It also said Tomorrow Holdings was guilty of the "crime of bribery".

It added that Xiao and his firm had "severely violated the financial management order" and "hurt state financial security".

Xi's family was apparently one of Xiao's clients

The court said Xiao and his company pleaded guilty, and had cooperated with the authorities, and so their punishment was mitigated. Perhaps Xiao's jail sentence may be shorter than 13 years?

Xiao was one of China's richest people, apparently with close connections to the political elite of the ruling Communist Party, including President Xi Jinping's family.

Perhaps he knew too much?

By 2016, Xiao's net worth was an estimated US$6 billion, according to Hurun Report, which ranks China's wealthiest people.

Xiao's kidnapping in 2017 was shocking because it was so brazen, and that it targeted wealthy people, not just businessmen like the Causeway Bay booksellers, who made money selling books that uncovered the unsavoury side of Chinese officials. 

Still no clarity on verdict, how Xiao made billions

The trial ends without any reporters able to attend so it is not clear how Xiao ran afoul of senior party leaders and why such a severe punishment.

Xiao will be over 60 when he gets out... 

Lam Gives Herself Stellar Report Card

Lam at Legco for her last Q&A session as Chief Executive

It is quite rich for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to finally come round in the last three weeks of her job and chime in with the same complaints as every other Hongkonger has made for over two years with regards to the city's "zero-Covid" policy.

"The border control measures have really made people very impatient," Lam said in an interview with CNBC. "Of course, they've undermined Hong Kong's status as a hub.

Lam passed anti-mask law but here masked up

"If you cannot travel freely to other places and into the mainland, how can you be a hub?" she asked.

That's exactly what everyone was wondering, but Lam up till now has constantly said the border restrictions will be lifted soon, that the economy is bustling, more deposits have been made into bank accounts than in the past two years, and that Hong Kong is open for business.

But now she has joined the chorus in complaining about China's "dynamic zero Covid" strategy?

So bizarre.

Lam said once the border restrictions are lifted, that could bolster Hong Kong's international reputation. 

"Once we could bring down the hotel quarantine period, or as some have suggested, replace it with home quarantine measures, I'm sure we will be seeing a lot of people coming to Hong Kong," she said.

So when is that? At this rate probably sometime in 2023?

Lam did not even try to dialogue with protestors

People can't wait anymore which is why they have left Hong Kong in droves. Or is she only realising that now?

Reflecting on her five-year leadership of Hong Kong, Lam told lawmakers in her last question and answer period in the Legislative Council that she has "submitted a report card that I will never be ashamed for" and has "drawn a full stop for my 42 years of civil service."

So she has no shame as going down in history as the city's worst-rated leader since 1997, for proposing the anti-extradition bill in 2019 and not withdrawing it when over 2 million people marched peacefully on the streets, and not calling for a truly independent investigation into police brutality, for passing the prohibition on face covering legislation and then during the pandemic insisting that everyone break the law and wear a mask, destroying the city's economy by not giving subsidies directly to workers but their employers, and not doing enough to tackle the housing crisis.

There are many more but these are the main ones.

There was no independent inquiry into police

She even has to give herself a report card -- a stellar one at that -- we are not in grade school anymore.

But as CE she can do whatever she wants, right? And a report card she's not ashamed of, well then that's a very, very low bar.

In the meantime it is interesting that news has come out that Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua -- who was whisked out of the serviced apartments at the Four Seasons Hong Kong in a wheelchair and sent to the mainland -- will finally face trial five years after being detained.

Xiao will apparently be charged with illegal collection of private public deposits. 

During these last five years, he has apparently cooperated with the authorities, and since mid 2020 the authorities have taken over nine financial firms under him.

Xiao finally faces trial as early as this month

His older brother, Xiao Xinhua, has said the case is "very complicated and full of drama".

If China thinks no one is interested five years later, it is terribly wrong. Every other billionaire wants to know what went wrong, along with the rest of us.

Before his disappearance, Xiao Jianhua's fortune was estimated at US$6 billion.