China Wife (23 page)

35

The news of the arrest of a number of businessmen and their associates was deliberately withheld from the Chinese media for several days and not picked up by the world media for almost a week. To the Communist authorities, this was a fairly minor piece of media management. Not only did the public at large not realise that a major anti-corruption exercise was under way until it was largely complete, but as a result of the structured way that the arrests had been made, the key players in what were to be the final stages of the crackdown were also kept in ignorance. This secrecy, however, was a major achievement, Chinese officialdom being notoriously leaky.

‘They don't even know who the good guys are, let alone who among the Communist elite are bad guys,' Susie Peveral said to David Hutchinson in a hurried mobile phone call. ‘The word on the street in Hong Kong is that the canker reaches way up the hierarchy.'

It was a dangerous statement to make, even for a British diplomat, on an open line, but Susie realised that David would need to know just how fragile were the relationships that he might get involved with.

Hu Hengsen was one of those who knew nothing about the arrests. Something of a recluse, he spent most of his time at his luxurious country house several kilometres outside of Shanghai. The anti-corruption authorities were counting on this. Mr Hu, in common with many of the new Chinese
oligarch generation, like their Russian counterparts, had close and often convoluted relations both with government officials but also, more dangerously, with politicians. The relationship was mutually beneficial, but a growing awareness among the very highest ranks of politicians that the corruption was beginning to undermine the burgeoning national growth rate and feed discontent that might threaten the Communist grip on power meant that counteraction was inevitable.

Being aware that the Western world regarded the convoluted and corrupt relations between the less scrupulous of businessmen, officials and politicians as unacceptable for a country of China's status, the Chinese President had ordered firm action. Also being aware that the Western world regarded transparency as being as important as integrity, the project to use David Hutchinson as an independent observer was, to every-body's total amazement, established. Keeping him at arm's length from the official British establishment, and holding Susie Peveral in Hong Kong, was insurance against accusations of external influence over the journalist's eventual report.

The Security Service, being more alive to the risks than the often aged and remote Party leaders, had been developing its own countermeasures for some time. Mr Hu was unaware of the extent of their penetration of his business organisation. For some time, the penetration had been benign because the Security Service was in effect riding on the back of Mr Hu's overseas business dealings as a means of gaining intelligence and of building its organisation in Western countries. This had been the most successful in the US and particularly South America where the Chinese communities were more under pressure from local priorities and the assumption that Chinese loyalties were always to China.

This was a myth that Susie Peveral had warned David about.

‘There's always an undercurrent in the Americas around the idea that mainland China will always command Chinese loyalties over local citizenship wherever Chinese people settle.
Since most of the Chinese communities in the UK and other Commonwealth countries have origins in Hong Kong or Singapore, this is not a view that is prevalent with us.'

But, as Susie knew full well from her work on people trafficking, there were nonetheless other aspects of the UK Chinese communities that were equally undesirable. One of the reasons why Hu Hengsen was of interest to the Chinese Security Services was that his organisation had established itself very successfully among the Hong Kong-based activities in the UK and Europe, both through his extensive family connections in the former colony and by his corruption of a number of lesser Chinese diplomats and trade officials. And, like his cousin Hu Ziyang, who was now languishing in a Beijing prison, Mr Hu was moving into consolidating his financial position outside mainland China and with it ensuring his own security by engineering the movement of both his own funds and those of his associates in official and political circles. Mr Hu was a business associate of Mr Shi and an extensive user of the objectionable Mr Xu's services. However, unlike his cousin he lacked an emissary like Rose Zhu to facilitate the movements of his money to the fullest extent. This was the deficiency that he was about to try to remedy.

‘Mr Hu is very rich. His basic source of wealth was initially largely legitimate and comes from both property development and manufacturing. But, like so many of his kind, he is beginning to move into illegal activities, particularly the exporting of his private capital abroad.'

The Chinese authorities were very clear about the distinction between private capital and sovereign wealth and what each might be used for.

Janice Liang had joined David Hutchinson for breakfast at his hotel. It was part of her role to keep him abreast of the events that the Chinese authorities wanted him to verify. The arrest of Hu Ziyang and his associates was something that he
needed to know about but was not central to the eventual arrest of Hu Hengsen; it was Hu Hengsen that Janice was concentrating on. The Chinese authorities had special plans for him and were at great pains to keep him in ignorance of what was going on among his associates and colleagues.

This was not an easy task but it was a tribute to the sort of control that the Communist authorities could exert – when it felt it needed to – that it was so successful. The authorities knew, of course, that this success was time-limited.

At no time was it made clear to David why Hu Hengsen was being singled out in the way he was. David's assumption that it might be based on something personal rather than political or business led wasn't too far from the mark.

‘Through contacts with at least one Russian oligarch and a merchant bank owned by a group of Hong Kong businessmen, who all appear to be totally ignorant of Mr Hu's plans and activities, he has opened a number of bank accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and, we believe, Jersey. All of these bank accounts have only nominal sums in them at present but there is emerging evidence that Mr Hu is planning to make large transfers of money held in the PRC – on both his own behalf and, we believe, for others – into them. These transactions, for which he obviously has no approval, and for which he is clearly not planning to seek approval, amount to a significant portion of his total wealth.'

‘Hang on, Janice,' interrupted David, ‘what the hell has this got to do with people trafficking. People trafficking of what you called high-class women?'

David hadn't been paying much attention since he couldn't relate what this woman was saying to his understanding of what he was supposed to be there for. He had no interest in the financial dealings of Mr Hu, legal or illegal, or in the Chinese authorities' strict controls on the outflow of private capital. He just wanted to do what he had been asked to do and get out of China; it was not one of his favourite places.

‘Trafficking people into China is illegal. Immigration can be legitimately undertaken but the rules are strict. People like Mr Hu don't generally live by the rules of the State. And people like Mr Hu don't generally expose themselves to action by the authorities.'

David was getting impatient, but Janice was working through her briefing in her own way and at her own pace and he realised that he was going to have to work at this pace.

‘All but two of the high-class women that we are aware of, who have been trafficked, have been married to wealthy individuals and have become pregnant almost immediately. There's a shortage of women in China, particularly these educated and independently minded women, and for these it's a seller's market in the marriage stakes. But this, we are sure, is not the prime reason for the trafficking.'

Once again, Janice spoke in the first-person plural without explaining who this encompassed.

‘Such local Chinese women as there are in this category don't usually want to be married, let alone to be subservient to domineering husbands; they want independence and careers of their own. The new breed of successful local Chinese businessman, oligarchs, whatever you want to call them, understand this, but developing a more global vision they see opportunities and benefits in having wives with a broader Western background. Or, more to the point, they want wives with the knowledge and background to move readily between China and the West. Some of these men want to found business dynasties; others want to be rich and powerful on a less restricted stage than China. Our Mr Hu is very much one of the latter. He's arrogant and ambitious and sees the unending Communist hegemony as too entrenched to change in his lifetime.'

Janice's use of the term ‘unending Communist hegemony' amused David, but she seemed oblivious to the incongruity of her words as an official of that hegemony.

David, when he worked over the day later that evening, picked up on Janice as describing herself in the group of independent and career-oriented women. But having been deliberately set up for kidnap and sale in the Chinese efforts to combat people trafficking, she was fully aware of the motivations of women like Alice Hou, which were confused, ambivalent and, in Alice's particular case, complicated by a faltering understanding of her own sexuality and her ability to relate to both men and women. Alice's suitability for the role that Mr Hu wanted her for was something that neither Janice nor David had given any consideration to.

David found it hard to generate any feelings beyond contempt for the likes of Mr Hu.

‘One woman we know about is Rose Zhu,' Janice continued, ‘who originally came from the UK and who is certainly married but had not become pregnant. But what she did do was make a number of trips to the UK and Switzerland that corresponded to subsequent transfers of large sums of money from Chinese banks. The man to whom this woman is married is a cousin of Hu Hengsen and is generally in the same sort of business with a similar retinue of corrupt officials and politicians to cover his tracks.'

‘Except that he obviously didn't cover his tracks too well,' muttered David.

‘It's our belief that our Mr Hu is similarly planning to marry Alice Hou and to use her as a vehicle for exporting his, and other people's, wealth from China to the West.'

Janice's confidence in her assertion impressed her listener.

‘Jesus,' David said to himself, ‘can it really be that simple?'

To the sophisticated Western mind, such simplicity might be suspected to mask something more complex, but David at least knew from previous trips to China and Vietnam that the Oriental mind was capable of seeing things in simple terms but at the same time seeing them as much more important than a European or an American might.

Her continued use of the first-person plural served to confirm for David that Janice was a part of some unspecified official organisation. He also realised that an endgame was in play and that Janice was a part of it. It was this endgame that he was obviously supposed to witness and report on.

Janice's briefing continued into the details of what was expected to happen that day.

Linda Shen, had she been able to hear Janice's background explanation, would have been pleased to note that her multiple trips to Britain had so far not attracted the active interest of the Chinese authorities to the extent that Rose Zhu's had, even if they had made at least one trip together. A more thoughtful and less arrogant man, Mr Shi had been careful to maintain as low a profile as possible with the Communist authorities while at the same time developing a deep mutual-protection regime with a select few officials. Linda had benefited from that. But if the knowledge of her trips to the UK wasn't advertised to the Chinese authorities, they were certainly well known to the UK police and Border Agency and to Susie Peveral, even if the reasons for them were not yet clear.

‘So,' David said, ‘we're off to a wedding that might not take place.'

‘Alice?'

Viewed from behind, the white satin slim-line wedding gown that Alice was wearing looked stunning.

As she turned to face Janice, the tight facial expression and dead blank stare were anything but those of a radiant bride. But then, as the slow-motion sound of Janice's voice and her broadly smiling face percolated into Alice's overwrought and almost non-functioning brain, enlightenment dawned.

Alice threw herself into Janice's arms.

Hu Hengsen, the seriously under-excited bridegroom, and Mr Xu's new chief of staff scanned the arriving guests with
curiosity rather than interest. Neither knew who the tall foreigner was. Neither knew who the young woman accompanying him was, although alarm bells tinkled vaguely for the chief of staff when it was apparent that the bride knew her.

How can that be?
he thought.

With the ceremony soon to start and with the need to identify as many of the attendees as possible, on Mr Xu's direct orders, he didn't have time to consider how a freshly smuggled young woman who had arrived in China only a couple of days previously could be on such strikingly obviously affectionate terms with someone who was clearly a local girl.

However, his subconscious brain did tell itself to find out who the local girl was when he had the opportunity. There was something too confident, too commanding about the woman. The new breed of Chinese career women intimidated him almost as much as Mr Xu did, but they were often members of the officialdom; that was his worry.

How Janice got the invitations to the wedding David didn't bother to ask. Now in the knowledge that she was almost certainly part of the Chinese Security Services, he was way beyond wondering what Janice Liang was capable of. Equally, he was unaware that the other young woman looking anxiously at Alice as she threw herself at Janice was the mysterious operative that the Australians had planted within the trafficking organisation. But he soon concluded that that was who she was.