For China watchers, the Olympics presented a unified front of sorts, a coming together of Chinese comrades — old and new, both friends and foes. Ex-President Jiang Zemin re-surfaced from political exile and shared the podium with current President Hu Jintao — their respective political protégés and the “fifth generation” rising stars in tow.
Life is now back to normal — and along with it, all the scandals at high levels. Recently, the sacking, executions and suicides of several high-profile party personnel sent tremors in political circles. The National Audit Office (NAO) reported that 53 central government departments and 368 subordinate units misused funds to the tune of $661 million. Clearly, China’s brand of socialism is contending with the hard realities of the hybrid “socialist market economy”.
Oliver August, earlier a Times correspondent in China during the 1990s, explores the country’s dark underbelly in this book. It is the story of a man called Lai Changxing, a modern-day Robin Hood, regarded by the state apparatus as the “most wanted fugitive”. Lai’s was a rags to riches story, a fortune made in China’s coastal boomtown Xiamen, through importing cars, real estate and oil trade. He throws $100 bills to cabbies and vagrants. August suggests that Lai’s meteoric rise — from illiterate well-digger to billionaire — was in part due to his close nexus with a pliable party cadre. Lai worked his trade greasing the system, keeping top cadre well-oiled and heeled with hong baos (red envelopes) and literally, wine, women and song. Lai fell from grace, implicated on grounds of a $3.6 billion tax fraud and smuggling in a scandal that threatened to rock the central government due to the involvement of several key party figures.
The title connects the theme with the 18th century famous Qing dynasty classic Hong Lou Meng, literally translated as “Dream of Red Mansions”. While the original story traces the decline and degeneration of the Jia clan (a wealthy clan), the concubines and the opulence, August’s story goes in search of Lai on the run and Lai’s “Red Mansion”. Lai’s larger-than-life persona and his legendary hospitality, rolled out at the Red Mansion, a seven-storey villa which housed up to a 100 “Miss Temporaries” — modern-day concubines — enabled him to keep the cadre “happy” in good times.
The story winds its way from Beijing as August sets out on a wild-goose chase, which lands him in Xiamen. Thrown in are precocious Uighur dancing girls and a guile mami (Madam) in the know of Lai, wheeling-dealing friends acquired in China, gamblers and migrants; underground churches and hilarious escapades with China’s infamous Public Security Bureau (PSB). Lai, in the meantime, has escaped to Canada and is caught in the middle of an extradition battle. As August reconstructs Lai’s life in China, he stumbles on political intrigue and the witch-hunt surrounding Lai’s flight.
This perhaps is the most interesting part. The book reflects on Lai’s close association with Jia Qinglin (now a Standing Committee Politburo member), who was once in the running as a possible candidate to replace Zhu Rongji as premier. August suggests that Zhu used the Lai-Jia association to make political capital and checkmate the former. Jia, a Jiang Zemin protégé, divorced his wife under political pressure, when the scandal was hotting up — presumably to distance himself from the allegation that his wife had accepted money from Lai. This was later denied by Jia’s wife on public television — when presumably the scandal was behind.
While the scandal stands forgotten and Lai comfortably ensconced in Canada, many heads rolled. Lai’s brother, who testified, “died”. At least 14 were executed and 10,000 associates of Lai detained.
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August’s book does not touch upon certain topics — such as Jiang Zemin’s diktat that no one above the vice-ministerial level should be investigated — which saved his protégé Jia. Also saved was the then Vice-PM Wen Jiabao’s son-in-law, who was allegedly involved with Lai in the scandal.
The book has over-the-top descriptions of people, places and things and captures some Chinese idiosyncrasies, slang and cultural connotations in an amusing, light-hearted manner. It is witty and an easy read — into China’s heart of darkness.
The author is a Sinologist
INSIDE THE RED MANSION
ON THE TRAIL OF CHINA’S MOST WANTED MAN
Houghton Mifflin Company
268 pages
Oliver August
