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China sentences tycoon critical of Xi Jinping to 18 years in prison for corruption

2020-09-22T18:20:11.915Z


Ren Zhiqiang had been arrested in March, after publishing an essay critical of the management of the pandemic.


Chinese tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, a former real estate developer and prominent critic of the president, Xi Jinping, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Tuesday on corruption charges.

Ren, 69, had been arrested in March after he posted an essay on social media criticizing the management of the pandemic and calling Xi - without naming him directly - a "clown."

According to a statement issued by the Beijing Intermediate People's Court Number Two, Ren has pleaded guilty to all charges, including accepting bribes worth 1.25 million yuan (about 160,000 euros), and will not appeal.

The millionaire was nicknamed "the cannon" for his direct way of expressing his opinion, without mincing words, on all kinds of subjects, including political ones.

For years he was protected by his excellent connections and political credentials: like Xi Jinping himself, he was one of the "little princes," the sons of the first generation leaders of the Communist Party of China (CCP).

His father had been with Mao Zedong during the civil war that led to the birth of the People's Republic of China, and had become vice minister.

He himself was a member of the Party;

He ran a state real estate company.

But in 2016 he already had a first run-in with the authorities.

Xi Jinping had just completed a round of visits to state media, in which he stressed the need for these media to have service to the Communist Party as their main priority: "You have to call yourself Party" (

bixu xing tang

), he then proclaimed the leader. Then, Ren replied that journalism should be at the service of the people, not the authorities, in a comment on his Weibo account, the Chinese Twitter, where he had almost 40 million followers. His account was closed and He was suspended as a member of the CCP for a year for making "inappropriate comments" that resulted in "a vile and damaging influence on the image of the Party," according to that institution at the time.

Since then, it had remained in the background.

But on February 23, in the worst weeks of the covid-19 pandemic that had started in Wuhan, central China, Xi Jinping delivered a speech on fighting the virus.

Ren soon published an essay on social media in which he spoke of a "governance crisis" in the party and secretly criticized the leader, whom he described, in an allusion to Hans Christian Andersen's children's story, as "not a emperor dressed in his new suit, but a completely naked clown. "

"The Party defends its own interests, government officials defend their own interests and the sovereign defends only the status and interests of the nucleus," wrote the millionaire.

In March, the tycoon was disappeared.

In April, the Discipline Investigation Commission, the police arm of the Communist Party, confirmed that he was in the hands of the authorities, was being investigated for corruption and had been definitively expelled from training.

The former real estate developer was tried on September 11, in a hearing in which he was found guilty, among other charges, of accepting bribes of 1.25 million yuan (about 160,000 euros) and of using 111 million yuan from public funds for personal expenses.

In addition to the harsh jail sentence, which given his age is almost a life sentence, Ren will have to pay a fine of 4.2 million yuan (530,000 euros).

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has launched a tough anti-corruption campaign, in which more than a million officials have been investigated and which experts say has served as a tool to combat potential political rivals.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-09-22

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