19 August 2022
image source,Chinese University of Hong Kong
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Xiao Jianhua was ranked 32nd in the Hurun Report in 2016. In early 2017, he mysteriously disappeared from Hong Kong, which attracted widespread attention both inside and outside China.
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The Chinese court in Shanghai announced that billionaire Xiao Jianhua, who holds Canadian citizenship, was convicted of multiple financial crimes and corruption and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
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The Intermediate Court No. 1 of Shanghai condemned on Friday (Aug.19) that the actions of Xiao Jianhua and his Tomorrow Holdings Co., Ltd. constituted the crime of illegal absorption of public deposits, the crime of breach of trust in the use of entrusted property, the crime of illegal use of funds and the crime of bribery by units. Tomorrow Holdings was sentenced to a fine of 55.03 billion yuan ($ 8.085 billion), Xiao Jianhua was sentenced to 13 years in prison and a fine of 6.5 million yuan.
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Xiao Jianhua disappeared from Hong Kong in February 2017 and was later confirmed to be detained in mainland China. The case begins on July 4, 2022. The Canadian embassy in China said it repeatedly asked to observe, but the Chinese side refused.
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Xiao Jianhua’s foreign nationality was not recognized and he was not entitled to foreign consular protection.
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“It has been verified with interested parties that Xiao Jianhua was being prosecuted by the judicial authorities in accordance with the law for being suspected of a criminal offense,” Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Friday at a regular press conference. .
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“According to the Nationality Law of the People’s Republic of my country, our country does not recognize dual nationality of Chinese citizens. Xiao Jianhua has Chinese nationality and China will try its citizens for criminal acts in accordance with the law, and they do. they do not enjoy the right to consular protection in other countries “.
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News of the trial on Xiao Jianhua’s case in early July was first disclosed by the Canadian embassy in China.
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Xiao Jianhua, a Canadian citizen, disappeared from Hong Kong in early 2017.
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In early December 2018, Ottawa authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the Chinese founder of Huawei, in response to a US judicial extradition request. China subsequently arrested Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, respectively, and accused them of spying.
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In September 2021, Canada and China each released three people. In early 2022, China lifted its ban on imports of Canadian canola and the outside world waited to see if relations between the two countries could improve.
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Who is Xiao Jianhua?
image source,Chinese BBC News
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Hong Kong newspapers had published a front-page statement of what was said to have come from Xiao Jianhua himself, denying his disappearance.
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Xiao Jianhua was born in 1971 into a family of ordinary teachers in Nanxiahui Village, Anjiazhuang City, Feicheng City, Shandong Province. He was admitted to Peking University Law Department at age 15 and became president of Peking University Student Union at age 18, at age 27 he became general manager of the company listed Huazi Industrial. At the age of three, he controlled four listed companies.
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In 2016, Xiao Jianhua and his wife Zhou Hongwen ranked 32nd in the Hurun Report with 40 billion yuan.
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Xiao Jianhua acts discreetly and is best known as the head of the “Department of Tomorrow”. He not only owns stocks and owns dozens of listed companies, but he also builds a complete chain of the financial sector that covers stocks, banks, insurance, trust, futures, funds, etc.
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And it all started in 1996, when he was just 25 years old. In 1999 you founded Tomorrow Holdings.
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Information online shows that Tomorrow Holdings is “one of the first companies to engage in equity investments in China and is committed to building a respected and sustainable global investment institution.” According to media reports in China, Tomorrow is a behemoth in the capital market, relying on strict internal confidentiality mechanisms, public relations teams, media scrutiny and other means to be invisible for a long time.
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It is widely believed that the outside world has built a huge financial empire in just 20 years, thanks in large part to its political ties to the Chinese government and the upper echelons of the Communist Party.
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On January 27, 2017, Xiao Jianhua, a permanent resident of Hong Kong and a Canadian national, was whisked away from the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong in a wheelchair that had once become the center of media attention.
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What does the Shanghai court say about your case?
image source,AFP
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The Intermediate Court n. 1 in Shanghai did not announce in advance the opening of the Xiao Jianhua case.
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Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate CourtAnnouncement via social media, the court found that Tomorrow Holdings was formed in 1999 and Xiao Jianhua was the current controller of Tomorrow Holdings. Since 2004, Tomorrow Holdings and Xiao Jianhua “have adopted decentralized means of capital, multilevel and anonymous holdings” to effectively control New Era Trust, Tianan Property & Casualty Insurance, Tianan Financial Exchange Center, Baoshang Bank, Huaxia Life Insurance, Tianan Insurance on life, Yi’an Yi’an Property Insurance and many other financial institutions and Internet financial platforms.
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The court found that Xiao Jianhua and Tomorrow Holdings sold trust products of actively managed collective funds, sold investment insurance products in excess of sales ratio and sales scale, sold individual and corporate wealth management products, and absorbed illegally over 311.6 billion yuan of funds; unauthorized use of customer funds and Entrusted property was more than 148.6 billion yuan; the insurance funds were transferred to Mingli Holdings through the direct or indirect purchase of trust plans and the illegal use of funds amounted to over 190.9 billion yuan. Tomorrow Holdings will primarily use the aforementioned criminal and illegal proceeds for the acquisition of financial institutions, securities transactions and overseas investments.
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In addition, in order to circumvent financial supervision and seek other illegitimate interests, the defendant and the defendant unit bribed a number of state officials with bribes of stock, real estate, cash and other property, totaling more than 680 million. yuan. . The case will be treated separately.
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As a result, the court ruled that the actions of Xiao Jianhua and Tomorrow Holdings constituted the offense of illegal absorption of public deposits, use of entrusted assets in breach of trust, illegal use of funds and bribery by units. place should be severely punished according to the law ”.
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However, the court also found that “Tomorrow Holdings and Xiao Jianhua had the circumstances to surrender, plead guilty and accept punishment and cooperate in the recovery of stolen assets and the restoration of losses. Xiao Jianhua also performed meritorious service and could be punished with leniency in accordance with the law. “
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Before that, the outside world knew almost nothing about Xiao Jianhua’s case.
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Xiao Jianhua has mysteriously disappeared from Hong Kong
image source,AFP
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Xiao Jianhua was picked up from the Four Seasons Hotel in central Hong Kong in 2017, where he would be staying for more than two years.
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After Xiao Jianhua was kidnapped from the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong, his family filed a missing person report with Hong Kong authorities, but withdrew the report the next day, saying they had “reconnected” with Xiao Jianhua.
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Hong Kong police said surveillance footage from the scene showed Xiao Jianhua had left the hotel under duress but refused to release the footage.
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Xiao Jianhua later released a statement and posted a front page statement in a Hong Kong newspaper that she was receiving treatment overseas. He also praised China’s “rule of law” and claimed he was not kidnapped and taken to mainland China.
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His company also released statements on his behalf saying he was fine, though those statements were later deleted.
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The mysterious location of the billionaires in Hong Kong caused shock. This case of lost contact raises strong questions about the Chinese government’s “cross-border law enforcement” in Hong Kong and deepens the fears of the people of Hong Kong that they could be forcibly taken to the mainland for trial by Chinese police and national security.
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A large-scale “anti-extradition” protest march erupted in Hong Kong in 2019. The protests that began with the Hong Kong SAR government’s revision of the Fugitive Criminals Ordinance turned into clashes between police and people that lasted more than six months.
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Carrie Lam, the then chief executive of Hong Kong, later announced the suspension of the amendments, but the incident aroused Hong Kong citizens’ dissatisfaction with society’s deep-seated problems and turned into the gravest political turmoil after the switch. of deliveries of Hong Kong autonomy.
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