Wikileaks: 16 More Secrets on China to Follow
Of the U.S. diplomatic cables that Wikileaks intends to release in the near future, at least 16 are going to be highly embarrassing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and a number of their foreign associates, according to a recent article on the overseas dissident website Boxun.
Some of the items implicate the former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, a former Taiwanese president, and some of the richest men in the world, who are said to be helping top CCP officials launder money in Hong Kong. One item even makes the claim that China put nuclear weapons in North Korea.
Wikileaks is releasing about 100 cables per day of its archive of over 250,000. The author of the piece, apparently a member of the Chinese democracy movement, indicated that it may be several months until the cables related to the following information are made public. The individual does not explain how he was supposed to have gained access to the files before their release. He says he is publishing the abstracts now in case something happens to the Wikileaks drip machine.
The piece on Boxun is also unusual because it says it is a reposting of something published in “Hong Kong Forum,” (xianggang yibao) a publication that does not exist. The Epoch Times contacted the webmaster of Boxun about the origin of the Dec. 2 post, but he knew nothing more on the matter.
The 16 points, some of which would be explosive if true—such as items 3, 6, 8, and 15—some highly recondite or even peculiar—such as 12 and 14—are as follows:
1. Chinese high-ranking officials have about 5,000 Swiss bank accounts, two thirds of them from members of the central government. Of this list, there are currently 150 names to be confirmed, but most members of the Standing Committee are said to have one of these Swiss bank accounts, the article says.
2. This name list came from France, specifically from a French client of a Swiss bank who took a list of bank clients without permission with the intention of handing it over to French tax authorities. Chinese officials names are on the list in Romanized formed (i.e. in Pinyin; no Chinese characters).
3. Hong Kong is the main place that corrupt Communist Party officials launder their money, exploiting Hong Kong’s free legal and financial systems. Each faction in the CCP has its own bank connection and “dealer,” the Boxun article says, some of them prominent politicians or businessmen. Connection pairs include: Jiang Zemin, former Communist Party head, matched with Henry Tang, Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong; Zeng Qinghong, top Communist Party apparatchik, with Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong; Xi Jinping, Party apparatchik and probable next leader of the CCP, with Henry Fok, a major Hong Kong businessman; Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and [Li Ka-shing,] one of the richest men in the world.
4. A hostess with last name Yang opened a jewelry dealership in Hong Kong to help the son of a certain Central Political Committee official launder money. The jewelry came from a Taiwanese official; this man personally took a large amount of cash to Hong Kong, bought jewelry, and took it directly to Australia, avoiding leaving bank records.
5. Beginning in 2002 a number of sub-ministry level and deputy sub-ministry level officials working in Taiwan had Swiss bank accounts for the proceeds of their embezzlements. These included individuals from the Liaison Department, the Hong Kong-Macau Affairs Department, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the United Front Works Department. Their pay and power is limited; it’s possible that the cash came from overseas bribes, the piece notes.
6. Beginning in 1998, Beijing used its friendly relationship with the Liberal Party of Canada to invest a large sum of money in the province of British Columbia; Chinese officials took kickbacks in the bargain. When the Conservative Party took power it began checking up on the deals. Chinese fugitive Gao Shan in Canada is actually not a corrupt official from a Chinese bank, but a project manager. Gao Shan and Lai Changxing, China's most wanted fugitive in Canada, have provided a relatively complete picture of how CCP officials launder money.
7. Zhou Yongkang, a roughneck communist political operative notorious for his role in the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual group, has $2 million in a Canadian bank account. Some of the money went to support protesters before the Olympics. Weizhen Tang, a rich man known as “China’s Warren Buffett,” may have been the one that organized the specifics, the article says. There are youth organizations affiliated with the Communist Party on university campuses across Canada.
8. Beginning in 2006, China transferred funds from Canada to Australia. Large orders for ore all have kickbacks associated with them. Kevin Rudd unintentionally got entangled in the Communist Party’s internal political conflicts: the “Shanghai faction” (associated with Jiang Zemin) sent evidence to Rudd’s political enemies in Australia about how Rudd's family had been “specially taken care of” (teshu zhaogu) in China. The Boxun piece says that “Rudd shortly resigned” due to this, but this version of events seems to contradict the known process by which Julia Gillard took leadership of the Australian Labor Party.
9. The post says that “We must remind Canberra that Beijing might exploit the opportunities of business investments to obtain the national defense secrets of foreign countries.” Australia began to do some housekeeping on its relationship with China, and in 2010 Chinese dirty money started to flow into Indonesia instead.
10. The clan of Lee Kuan Yew, boss of Singapore, believes that a war between China and Taiwan would destroy the East Asia economically. Authorized and acknowledged by Beijing, Lee tried to reconcile the relationship between China and Taiwan from 2001 to 2007. Government officials from China have repeatedly flown to Singapore to meet with representatives from Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party. In September 2007, Mr. Chen from China's the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and Mr. Shie from the Democratic Progressive Party had a meeting.
11. Taiwan's “South Route Project” is a plan to develop nuclear weapons and test them outside of Taiwan for the purpose of evading investigations from the International Atomic Energy Agency. A lot of money was spent on research in 2005 for research, wired to Australia from the Hong Kong “HKFB” (an editor to the piece suggests what may have been meant is actually “HSBC” Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which seems more likely). It is alleged that the Democratic Progressive Party did not pass the control of nuclear weapons to Taiwan's new administration led by Ma Ying-Jeou.
12. Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui's clan mostly made their investments in Japan and Switzerland, and lost a lot of money in their Swiss account.
13. In the 1990's, Lee Teng-Hui agreed to give kickbacks to the French for arm sales to Taiwan. Part of the money was wired from Hong Kong to America. The payment went into the bank account in Chicago of Qian Ning, son of Qian Qichen, a well-known Chinese diplomat. Later Qian Ning obtained a Green Card, and was investigated by the IRS, with whom he cooperated.
14. In the spring of 2001, Vice Premier Qian Qichen visited the U.S. and established a “cooperative relationship.” The majority of the staff working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were Qian’s students, the kind that would turn to him as their Godfather when they needed advice. Qian would take into consideration their suggestions, and “send people to explain important agendas to the Beijing embassy,” the article adds.
15. The informant claims that North Korea has no nuclear weapons of its own, and that Beijing in fact placed some there secretly, for the purpose of balancing out the United States’ influence regarding Taiwan. North Korea and China are attempting to have the U.S. relinquish Taiwan through incessant, ineffectual, and meaningless “Six-party Talks”. If the U.S. doesn’t give up, it could face possible nuclear war with North Korea as an “agent”, while China would stay aloof and reap the benefits, the article claims.
16. Most of the American bonds sold to Chinese institutions were underwritten by Goldman Sachs. The kickbacks of the sales were wired to hundreds of accounts in New York, where family members of CCP apparatchiks Wang Qishan and Zhou Xiaochuan were beneficiaries.
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