Sunday, September 9, 2012

Puzzled at the wealth of Chinese civil servants - Jiang Weiqiang and Focus Media edition


In March 2006, Weiqiang Jiang, the father of Jason Nanchun Jiang (the CEO/controller of Focus Media), provided a short-term loan to the Group of approximately $2.5 million to relieve a temporary shortage of Renminbi the Group experienced at that time. The loan is unsecured and was provided to us at no interest. The loan will become due and payable in full on June 30, 2006.
Now the only Jiang Weiqiang I can find works as a civil servant for one of the most powerful of Chinese departments - the State Council Information Office. Here is an English language CV:

Jiang Weiqiang

Director-General, International Bureau, State Council Information Office

Jiang Weiqiang and his State Council Information Office colleagues was set to play a leading role in Beijing's media courtship of Africa ahead of the fourth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November 2009. At the FOCAC Media Seminar in Beijing, 15-19 July, Jiang tried to develop a united front with African state media organisations. He insisted that the message of China-Africa cooperation should be taken directly to the people and not depend on Western media, which he described as anti-China and anti-Africa. Representatives from 27 African countries attended, as did Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun and Liu Yunshan, Politburo member and Director of the Central Propaganda Department. 
Trained as an engineer, Jiang entered the People's Liberation Army in 1970. While serving, he studied English at the Luoyang PLA College of Foreign Languages, responsible for training intelligence agents. In 1991, Jiang left the PLA to join the SCIO, the administration overseeing China's state media, including the People's Daily newspaper and Xinhua news agency. Xinhua is planning its own multi-billion dollar global and African media expansion.

My questions: is this the same Jiang Wieqiang? And if so (and it seems so) how does a Chinese civil servant come up with USD2.5 million to make an unsecured interest free loan to a business controlled by his son?

I seek help from anyone with a well-followed Weibo account. If this can be crowdsourced in China then I might get good answers.

Thanks in advance.





John
at

9 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 9, 2012 at 7:28 PM

    Jason Jiang's wikipedia entry has been deleted, supposedly on the ground of copyright infringement, but the original entry can still be found in Google's webcache.

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cqPNcn8h5LkJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Jiang+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    Like father, like son.

    'Gwailo

    ReplyDelete
  2. John HemptonSeptember 9, 2012 at 9:28 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. mprSeptember 10, 2012 at 12:05 AM

    John, large amount of references to Jiang Weiqiang being father of Jiang Nanchun when searching both names in Chinese: http://goo.gl/VNlwX (word for father 父亲)

    How'd he end up with the money? There are so many cases like this in China, I think we've all got an idea...

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 10, 2012 at 8:40 AM

    John, I don't think there is likely a link between the two persons.

    The Jiang Weiqiang of State Council was probably 19 years old and a young solider enrolled in the army, when Jiang Nanchun of Focus Media was born in Shanghai in 1973. Things like this never could happen in 1970s China (19 yrs old, solider, having a child, married or not).

    I like your blog but I think this particular post is bizarre.

    Don't you know that Weiqiang (meaning great and strong) is one of the most common given names for Chinese!

    ReplyDelete
  5. john bSeptember 10, 2012 at 9:34 AM

    OT but related, a Canadian chap finds himself in a Chinese jail for working on short-selling reports: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/asian-pacific-business/in-china-silvercorp-critic-caught-in-campaign-by-police/article4528671/

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  6. AnonymousSeptember 10, 2012 at 1:36 PM

    Reminds me of Ying He, the CEO of Deer Consumer products (DEER).
    He had a reported annual salary of USD$24,660. His CV indicated that he had worked his way up through middle management positions, and he had never previously sold any stock in DEER. Then last year Mr He reportedly bought $15 million worth of DEER stock.
    (DEER was halted on 13 August 2012)

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousSeptember 10, 2012 at 2:43 PM

    人肉搜索! Well done, foreign devil!

    ReplyDelete
  8. WilfriedSeptember 10, 2012 at 4:32 PM

    @john b, the Chinese are civilized people, they throw short-sellers into jail. Remember Dick Fuld? He wanted to tear a short seller's heart out instead!

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousSeptember 10, 2012 at 10:57 PM

    According to various interviews Jiang gave to the Chinese media, his father was an auditor or an accountant (depends on which reports you believe in). here's one example, you can google translate it.

    http://www.lusin.cn/people/guonei/2006-7-23/11773.htm

    and this one.

    http://www.7808.cn/news/201111/17787.shtml

    ReplyDelete