Miles Kwok - International Man of Intrigue
Whose side is he REALLY on?
Photo: South China Morning Post
What happens when a Chinese real-estate billionaire is accused of corruption, leaves China for the US, sets up a new luxury residence in Manhattan, then sets up a YouTube channel to denounce the Chinese government, builds a large following, publishes allegedly secret Chinese official documents, becomes friends with Donald Trump's close friend Steve Bannon, joins Mar-a-Lago, and they jointly start fund-raising to create a Federal State of New China to replace the current Chinese government?
That is exactly what Guo Wengui郭文贵 (Mandarin name and pronunciation; Kwok is the Cantonese pronunciation of the same surname) did. With China's policy of reform and opening-up, many Chinese officials were able to make private and illegal fortunes from opening government land use up to private developers. This happened all over China; developers would need official permission to build new buildings, and the early developers usually came from overseas. In order to get this permission, they would pay bribes to the officials. Since the banks in China are all state-owned, these payments would be either made in cash which they would keep at home, or funds would be deposited in banks outside China.
Guo Wengui originally came from Shandong, but went to Beijing to make his fortune. His wheeling-and-dealing to get development permits brought him into close contact with many senior Chinese government officials. In 2014, Caixin, a Chinese magazine covering financial news, accused Guo of corruption, and threatened to reveal his connections. Guo immediately left for the US, and set up residence in a luxury Manhattan high-rise. From his penthouse apartment, he set up his own YouTube channel, where he promised to uncover Chinese government corruption. He soon gained a large following among Chinese who were unhappy with the Chinese government and Chinese government policy.
After Donald Trump became President in January 2017, it soon became apparent that US-China official relations would take a steep dive, starting with a trade war between the two giants. Instead of just being another critic of the Chinese government, Guo soon saw an opportunity to align himself with the Trump administration.
As Guo's charges against the Chinese government spread, the Chinese government asked the US to extradite Guo back to China. This request was informally made through Steve Wynn, the casino magnate who had large holdings in Macao and was a Trump supporter. At first, the Trump administration gave serious consideration to this request, but then they found that Guo had purchased membership at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private membership club in Florida. At this point, the Chinese deportation request was denied.
Guo soon became friends with Steve Bannon, a policy advisor and close friend to Trump. Bannon had latched onto the idea that China was now a major threat to US supremacy, and saw Guo as a major fundraising ally in creating an anti-China alliance US conservatives would be willing to support. They came up with the idea of raising money in the name of a new Federated State of New China, to replace the official People's Republic of China, even though this was only a bogus idea with no substance.
Guo has been an erratic character, and there are multiple theories about what his main purpose and true loyalties are. Here are some of them:
He was a successful real-estate developer in China, but because of Xi Jinping's campaign against corruption, he became a target of investigation. In order to save himself, he fled to the US. By publishing Chinese government secret documents, and making accusations against Chinese officials, he could claim political asylum in the US, preventing his extradition back to China. He then leveraged that into getting close to the Trump administration through Steve Bannon and becoming influential with US right-wing causes.
Guo made his fortune in China, and really doesn't care about the Chinese government and its policies; he is just acting to get media attention. He is like a politically astute Chinese version of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, and is out for his own benefit.
Guo is a double agent, still loyal to the Chinese government and party, and is in fact a honeypot whose job is to attract a following among Chinese outside China who do not like the Chinese government, and other anti-Chinese forces such as Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and their allies and organizations. This is why he has had a testy relationship with Chinese dissidents in the US, who have accused Guo of attacking them and their causes.
Regardless of what his true motivations are, Guo has shown that he knows how to wheel-and-deal among power elites in China and in the US.
Guo Wengui on Wikipedia