Red Roulette By Shum Desmond-pdfread.net

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Feng’s son, Feng Bo, had been a so-so student. In 1987, after Feng Boperformed poorly on the college entrance examination in China, his father sentthe eighteen-year-old to the United States to stay with an American friend,hoping he’d gain some direction. Feng Bo landed in Marin County, California,took remedial English classes at the College of Marin, and learned to surf atStinson Beach. To make ends meet, he worked as a busboy, waiter, sushi chef,and Chinese cook. He dabbled in avant-garde photography and dreamed ofdirecting art house lms.In Northern California, Feng Bo met Sandy Robertson, the head ofRobertson Stephens, a boutique San Francisco investment bank that rode—andeventually crashed in—the dot-com bubble. Robertson learned of Feng Bo’spolitical pedigree, trained him, made him an executive vice-president in his rm,and encouraged him to use his family connections to nd Internet-relatedinvestments in China. In an April 1994 letter to Ron Brown, who was thenserving as the secretary of commerce for the Clinton administration, Robertsonreportedly boasted about Feng Bo’s family ties. Along the way, Feng Bo marriedan American woman and they had two children.For me, Robertson’s cultivation of Feng Bo peeled back the curtain on theinner workings of a political system that mouthed Communist slogans while thefamilies of senior o cials gorged themselves at the trough of economic reforms.These sons and daughters functioned like an aristocracy; they intermarried, livedlives disconnected from those of average Chinese, and made fortunes sellingaccess to their parents, inside information, and regulatory approvals that werekeys to wealth.Following the AsiaInfo deal, ChinaVest hired Feng Bo as our rst Beijingbasedrep. In the fall of 1997, after only a year at ChinaVest, Feng Bo left topursue his own investments. Feng Bo ultimately divorced his American wife andmarried Zhuo Yue, a granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping. It seemed to me thatFeng Bo leveraged his connections to the Deng family into substantial wealth.He also became a show-o , exchanging his dream of avant-garde lmmaking forthe trappings of immense wealth. For a time, he cruised Beijing in a red Rolls-Royce convertible with military plates. Even people in his circle thought that wasa bit much. China’s red aristocracy was generally more subdued.
Soon after Feng Bo left ChinaVest, the rm held a management gathering.Right before the meeting, founder Bob Theleen’s wife, Jenny, pulled me aside.“Hey, Desmond, how about moving to Beijing?” she asked casually. “You couldbe our new China rep.” I thought she was joking, but the look on her face wasserious. I jumped on it. At twenty-nine my life—born in China, educated inHong Kong and the United States, and now heading back to the mainland—had come full circle. A few minutes later, Bob announced my promotion to thegroup.
Page 3: Thank you for downloading thisSimon
Page 7 and 8: INTRODUCTIONON SEPTEMBER 5, 2017, W
Page 9 and 10: had such a transformative e ect on
Page 11 and 12: family treasure. Seeing as China’
Page 13 and 14: overseas Chinese,” a signal to au
Page 15 and 16: I was born big and grew fast. I was
Page 17 and 18: “Stupid birds need to start ying
Page 19 and 20: Our trainer, Coach Shi, was a typic
Page 21 and 22: CHAPTER TWOIN THE SUMMER OF 1978, w
Page 23 and 24: Still, if nothing else, my father
Page 25 and 26: School, an Episcopal school. But th
Page 27 and 28: chau eured BMWs; the poorest grew u
Page 29 and 30: Queen’s College and move into the
Page 31 and 32: From my father’s experience at Ty
Page 33 and 34: The Art of the Deal. I liked the id
Page 35 and 36: I was too young and too sheltered t
Page 37 and 38: The swim team kept me emotionally g
Page 39 and 40: that rst journey to the States, I w
Page 41 and 42: Domino’s, along with electronics
Page 43 and 44: pens, writing pads, glassware, and
Page 45: Getting to know some of the partici
Page 49 and 50: that if the authorities wanted to t
Page 51 and 52: denizens of Beijing’s demimonde,
Page 53 and 54: At PalmInfo, our results left somet
Page 55 and 56: end and I at the other. She talked
Page 57 and 58: Ours was more a connection of the s
Page 59 and 60: be more. Being attached to someone
Page 61 and 62: Whitney grew up in a one-room dormi
Page 63 and 64: army. She attended lavish dinners.
Page 65 and 66: curious; Whitney was more closed. S
Page 67 and 68: Auntie Zhang had a welcoming smile
Page 69 and 70: Whitney discovered why Auntie Zhang
Page 71 and 72: Following the crackdown, Party inve
Page 73 and 74: CHAPTER SEVENWHAT REALLY INTRIGUED
Page 75 and 76: Singapore’s state-owned investmen
Page 77 and 78: to senior Party o cials who live in
Page 79 and 80: I visited the house several times,
Page 81 and 82: would wonder what in the world Aunt
Page 83 and 84: quality that attracted them was tha
Page 85 and 86: CHAPTER EIGHTWHITNEY AND I WERE DUM
Page 87 and 88: Nothing was on paper; it was all do
Page 89 and 90: COSCO’s stake in Ping An to dress
Page 91 and 92: invariably makes it retroactive, so
Page 93 and 94: For us, owning all this stu was a t
Page 95 and 96: CHAPTER NINEALTHOUGH WHITNEY AND I
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Back in Beijing we’d been trying
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Bureaucrats deployed thugs to battl
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monopolized power during the day, t
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on the big decisions Whitney and I
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which had bureaus at all levels of
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lling most of the positions in our
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level of culture is very high!” H
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We started the airport project with
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even if I’d wanted to. Right in t
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to join them. He called his doctor
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down. But I also needed to work har
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CHAPTER ELEVENWHITNEY AND I HADN’
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from word-for-word interpretation,
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Communist communitarian norms, and
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before, I procrastinated and though
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job was to shadow Zeng and take pic
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Approaching seventy, Auntie Zhang w
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given them a leg up by acknowledgin
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After the meal, Wang invited Whitne
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chance to change that, to leave beh
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appointed Party chief of Chongqing,
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With its many seminars and fellowsh
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were that despite their academic ac
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engineering, and math. During Mao
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Kaifeng think tank, we hired as our
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structure. Before, I’d made most
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Alibaba, or Pony Ma, the CEO of the
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The Li Peiying case started me thin
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Second, I argued that we should sta
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Jintao as the next general secretar
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that she and her husband would get
Page 159 and 160:
Moutai believing that foreign store
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construction company mogul nickname
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included a smattering of French cou
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Zhang for a meal in Beijing, he’d
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After a few days, the bandages came
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CHAPTER FIFTEENI’VE WRITTEN BEFOR
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Huadu Hotel had taken up about 450,
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China is awash in hotels partly bec
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In hindsight, I believe that Whitne
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CHAPTER SIXTEENON OCTOBER 26, 2012,
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The Party reacted to the Wen story
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Bo Xilai was the son of Bo Yibo, an
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Xilai or Bo’s wife, because the i
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prognostication; it was her year of
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considering that in the meantime he
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Xi had Chen appointed vice-minister
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Xi’s government curtailed Hong Ko
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didn’t feel that the bulk of the
Page 195 and 196:
donated several million dollars to
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many people gullibly believe the Pa
Page 199 and 200:
If Ling Jihua and Sun Zhengcai hadn
Page 201 and 202:
During one particularly acrimonious
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1949. Machiavelli would have been a
Page 205 and 206:
The rm continued to make solid pro
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me back. It showed that on some lev
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Communist secret police will inject
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that the Party’s main purpose is
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Here I am in Hong Kong soon after m
Page 220:
This is a classic Chinese-style por
Page 223 and 224:
This picture of me—on the left—
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We took this picture in Inner Mongo
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This picture of Premier Wen Jiabao
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We are in Paris in June 2011 doing
Page 231 and 232:
Chinese mega-artist Zeng Fanzhi sta
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This is the library at Tsinghua Uni
Page 236 and 237:
This is the Genesis development pro
Page 238:
Our friend Sun Zhengcai was destine
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Ariston painted this portrait of Wh
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than themselves. I still remember J
Page 246 and 247:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR© JONTY DAVIESDESM
Page 248 and 249:
NOTES
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Chapter SixParty elders had already
Page 252 and 253:
Chapter Eightcontract to provide a
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Chapter TwelveA painter, Deng Lin h
Page 256 and 257:
Chapter Sixteenthe Wen family was w
Page 258 and 259:
Chapter EighteenHe was the grandson
Page 260 and 261:
ve-star hotels in, 228Four Seasons
Page 262 and 263:
intellectual property theft in, 62I
Page 264 and 265:
give-no-quarter approach, 270-71job
Page 266 and 267:
fear of the Chinese state, 100ferti
Page 268 and 269:
average height for men in, 27behavi
Page 270 and 271:
suspicious car crash death of, 260L
Page 272 and 273:
Sandel, Michael, 182Shandong Provin
Page 274 and 275:
capitalism in China and, 169-70cash
Page 276 and 277:
Wen Ruchun (Lily Chang), 90-91, 97-
Page 278:
ScribnerAn Imprint of Simon & Schus
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