e Chinese business tycoon revealing the secrets of Beijing's elite

 

it's no scoop to tell you the chinese

regime is thin skinned

anyone criticizing beijing does so at

their own peril and can expect immediate

and often heavy-handed payback

and it's not just foreigners who face

the consequences

desmond schum is a chinese tycoon who

used to be fated at the highest levels

of the communist party the businessman

could do no wrong

until four years ago when he and his

equally prominent ex-wife inexplicably

tumbled out of favor

now desmond is a pariah of the state

so he's decided to fight back

by revealing the many secrets of china's

elite leaders

chinese business tycoon desmond schum is

a marked man

these days he lives in the united

kingdom with his 12 year old son

a long way from china but he says that's

no guarantee of safety after his

unprecedented decision to publish a book

detailing the disappearance of his

ex-wife billionaire whitney dewan in

beijing

he knows telling her story will make him

a target for one of the most brutal

totalitarian regimes in the world

desmond thanks very much for talking to

us your publishers have been quite

paranoid

about the security surrounding the

location that you are currently speaking

to me from

are you genuinely worried about your

safety

there's sufficient reason to be worried

about it

from the moment i decided to publish the

book and then going

forward

i basically

may i use the worse i'm alive away do

you think that even in the uk

you

are at risk

is is it possible for these people to

get to you in that way

or is that being melodramatic no i think

the way to uh

to to look at it is you know a party

state that can lock up a woman

in a dark cell and throw away the key

for four years

is capable of all evils

so i mean you know just before i came

over i mean

in the last few days i was uh talking to

my partner now and say well you know

let's uh reveal our

my wheels

if something happened to me make sure

all things are taken care of

in 2017 whitney duan one of china's

richest women became one of china's

countless disappeared

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[Applause]

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[Applause]

under the reign of president xi jinping

celebrities academics media figures like

australian television anchor chiang lai

and even china's richest man

jack ma have simply vanished

their fate is a state secret that is

until now and what happens to them

most of them you know appears maybe like

a year or two and come out and then

pre uh plead guilty to whatever the

states charge them right and then

i think that's a field that's still in

disappearance desmond any of the people

that you know

have any of them been able to make a

comeback and be

rehabilitated so to speak

no

not anyone i know of

it's once you've been taken

you sort of tainted

in the system and nobody in the system

want to associate themselves with you

so it's not a system where you can be

forgiven no

no

once you're out you are generally out

desmond schum has participated in

business at the highest levels in

communist china

and is revealing for the first time a

system where money means nothing

billionaires are expendable

and blood ties to the communist party

are valued above all else

what do you think whitney is worth

what would her net asset wealth be

roughly

couple billion to three billion

two or three billion

so so money alone

in this system in china

does not cannot protect you

money comes from nothing your bloodline

your being a red electric bloodline

protects you

everyone else is uh expendable

everyone else is expendable so if you're

not a relative

of others in the party machine in the

communist party from

a generation or two generations before

then

you're on the back foot already yeah you

may have a good ride you may not have a

good ride and a turn the tie may turn

for

for nothing you control

and that's obviously you know her case

uh exemplify that if she could be simply

taken and made to disappear

with her contacts at her level then then

nobody is safe absolutely

absolutely

before things turned bad they were very

very good for desmond and whitney

they built the largest air cargo

logistics facility in china and had

lucrative real estate interests

whitney was not part of the communist

establishment rather she was a self-made

entrepreneur supremely skilled at

cultivating and maintaining

relationships with communist officials

which were critical to any business

success

those contacts went to the very top her

key ally was the wife of china's former

second-in-charge premier wen xiaobao

when you were doing business in china

when you and your former wife were

building your business yes did you ever

think during all that time when you were

connected to party officials

that

she or you could be in physical jeopardy

not really i mean in the back of my head

you know i always have

a sense of that there is a danger

involved when you're in at this level

but

but

not really so we were extra careful you

know in you know during in our during so

you know some official because they are

so blatantly corrupt and in in and you

know and we just avoid them because you

know we don't want to swept up with what

they're doing and then we always want to

make sure absolutely we you know we're

not going to get caught in in this kind

of system so while you were making all

that money you were very aware acutely

aware of the underlying corruption and

made sure that you weren't part of that

yes

but everything changed for desmond and

whitney when xi jinping came into power

and cracked down on corruption and

political rivals

by then their relationship as a couple

was over and desmond moved to london

with their young son

he urged whitney to leave china but she

refused

in 2017 whitney disappeared off the

streets of beijing

there was no acknowledgement she'd been

taken by the government or any legal

charge

she thought she was protected and just

too much confidence into the system so

your former wife starts off with the

right contact and that contact then

becomes

on the nose slightly with xi and then

your former wife's in trouble this must

all be a very machiavellian game

loyalties must change

quite swiftly and

behind the scenes yes absolutely

absolutely especially with xi jinping

that the roofness of his regime

he took a country on a different course

and a different speed right and i think

that really

make this

the whole system more deadly

desmond heard nothing from whitney or

anyone else about her fate for four

years

that is until a couple of weeks ago on

the eve of the publication of his book

let me just get this right

your former wife gets taken it literally

vanishes out of thin air

four years later

all of a sudden

she's released

yeah that's exactly what happened

it's kind of miraculous and kind of

very coincidental if i put it mildly

right

whitney called you

first time in four years when she made

that call to you what did she say

[Music]

one of china's richest women whitney

duan disappeared from the streets of

beijing in 2017

and was not seen or heard from in four

years

that is until her ex-husband desmond

shum defied the repressive regime and

took the enormous personal risk of

writing a book putting the spotlight on

her disappearance

his fears for his safety were confirmed

when

days before the book was due to be

released he got a chilling phone call

whitney called you

first time in four years when she made

that call to you what did she say

i think the purpose of the core is asked

me to

to stop the book launch that's exactly

what she said and you assumed during the

call that it was being monitored

yes i asked actually i asked her that

and then as

i said you know obviously you are

telling me things because you have been

asked to

and she said no no no no no but come on

i said i told her

your phone number went dead for four

years you were unreachable well the next

day of your temporary lease you said you

should sign a paper of temporary release

your phone is workable and you call you

can call anybody

anywhere in the world

that that's not china

were there any clues

for you as to whether it was or could

have been a prepared script

yeah

yes

because she asked the question she said

what would happen to our son if

something happened to you

and then she follow on the question

what how would you feel if something

happened to our son

i mean that's sufficiently threatening

so that was the first call on the second

call

she was trying to incriminate me she was

like i i'm guilty of crime

and we were partners in life and

business so you must be guilty of crime

too i was like no i don't believe that

tell name the crime and she can't really

name it and then at the end of the call

she actually make us

make a sentence say well you move on

with this project it may cause a life

and i got really angry and i was

essentially yelling to the whoever was

listening in

i was like what do you mean cause of

life whose life are we talking about

here

are we talking about my life our son's

life or is it your life

there's no mistaking

that threat the implication there is

that you could be responsible for your

son's

life if you went ahead and published the

book

yeah it's definitely in pride

that's a terrible thing to say

yeah and then coming from the mama where

did she go wrong

where did whitney go wrong desmond i

would guess most likely she's associated

with the wrong crowd on the wrong

fashion of the power struggle and or

maybe should learn about something

that's very inconvenient

for for the leadership

and then but then it's not a crime by

itself so there's a you're such a

nuisance we're just gonna silence you

and let mature disappear

the numbers of missing and incarcerated

have skyrocketed under xi jinping's

reign

among them australian television anchor

chiang lai who worked in china has not

been seen or heard from in a year

where they are held and what happens to

them is just not known

chiang lai for example it's similar to

your former wife whitney i mean why make

these women disappear

doesn't that demean them in the eyes of

the world in a certain way

i am guessing in a lot of this kind of

situation is

they want you to openly admit to certain

crime

they ascribe to you

and then those people are not complying

that's one possibility

or the second thing is they want you to

give up certain information and you're

not doing it and then the way they're

doing it you know you know my my uh

whitney well you know on the first call

says you haven't had any information for

four years from the outside world

think of it

her mom passed away in june she didn't

know that

she didn't know that pandemic was going

on for two years the rest of the world

to all of us

i mean

they intentionally cut off all

information from the outside and then as

f time moves on

most people give up hope because

that's like no end to things right they

wish like

okay i would tell you anything you

wanted to i would ascribe i will admit

to any crime you want to give it to me

just give me an end to it right if you

sent me 10 years or 15 years i know okay

15 years i can be out

but

in that situation you're desperate

because that's that's no end in sight

and you're completely unaware what's

happening other than what they are

telling you

so it's a it's a method of uh

terrorizing the the people they have

taken

it's complete psychological control yes

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the communist regime's crackdown on

perceived opponents is reminiscent of

past communist leaders

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is behaving like an emperor who is

settling in for the long haul and has no

plans to be overthrown

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do you think we're entering a new era of

authoritarianism oh yeah absolutely we

are there right i mean the guy just may

change the constitution that will and

make himself a president and chairman of

the party for life

will doing business in china ever be

safe again do you think

as my book says you roll your dice red

roulette

you take your chances

the odds are getting worse and worse now

it's a warning to businesses in

australia keen to get a slice of the

lucrative chinese market

the exercise of communist power isn't

confined to individuals but to nations

as australia knows only too well the

communist party has been punishing

australia and the australian government

ever since we dared to ask the world for

an inquiry into the origins of curvat

19. they're very paranoid so they want

to crush all the

descent

the world over

that will could possibly be a challenge

of their power

and then they take on australia because

they feel like they can afford to

they're not doing that to the u.s but

wait until the day they are the number

one economic power they will do the same

thing to the u.s what they're doing to

australia

ultimately they want every country to

submit

but desmond refuses to submit

and through his story wants the world to

know the true cost of doing business in

china

you know you're a marked man now for the

rest of your life anybody in any

position of authority in china will see

you as the ultimate chinese traitor

i know that

i know that you know ironically

i come to this moment because my

indoctrination when i was a

child when i was a child reading chinese

communist comic books and they were

always telling us sacrifice yourself for

the greater good

i believe i'm doing that

and desmond what about whitney

she is still the mother of your son

what will happen to her

i have no clue

whether they she will stay out and still

stay free well to an extent

it's not in my hand

what does your son say to you

you know dad i'm talking to mum for the

first time in four years

he's only 12 now how does he make sense

of that

it's it's very very personal i mean

their first phone call i mean i remember

she was asking him how tall are you now

uh

what's your weight now um

you know it's just it's it is very

touching it's very moving for my son i

think

i mean obviously this explainer this

experience will have a lasting impact on

his personality and his character in the

long term

i just don't know what it's going to be

that's tough for you as a father too

yes

you have all the means you have all the

money in the world and yet you can't

get her out can you you can't do

anything to

to extract her and get her to be with

your son

no that's uh there's nothing

other than to bring the attention of the

world and put a spotlight on her

that's the best i can do

hello i'm tara brown thanks for watching

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