Ren Zhiqiang – property tycoon, Community party member and vocal critic – is reportedly being investigated after he went missing last month, following an essay where he suggested president Xi Jinping was a «clown».
Ren was accused of «serious violations of discipline and the law», according to China’s top anti-graft commission, and said he would undergo disciplinary review and supervision by authorities in Beijing.
According to a «Reuters» report, Ren’s friends had been in contact since mid-March saying that they were «extremely anxious» as they were unable to reach the missing tycoon.
«A Clown Stripped Naked»
Ren’s essay was released in late February this year and called the current outbreak as a revelation of sorts including a «crisis of governance», adding that he saw «not an emperor standing there, exhibiting his 'new clothes’, but a clown stripped naked who insisted on continuing being emperor».
«The reality shown by this epidemic is that the party defends its own interests, the government officials defend their own interests, and the monarch only defends the status and interests of the core,» according to a translated version of the essay.
Ren Zhiqiang
Ren has a diverse history, having served as an engineer and platoon leader in the People’s Liberation Army before shifting to the corporate world where he would rise to become head of state-owned Huayuan Real Estate Group once the highest-paid executive amongst all listed firms in China.
Career achievements aside, he is a vocal critic of the party of which he is a member, once calling state media CCTV «the dumbest pig on earth» for allegedly unfounded accusations of unpaid tax against property giant China Vanke.
