The Chinese business tycoon revealing the secrets of Beijing's elite | 60 Minutes Australia

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 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [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 [Music] the communist regime's crackdown on perceived opponents is reminiscent of past communist leaders [Music] is behaving like an emperor who is settling in for the long haul and has no plans to be overthrown [Music] 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 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on nine now dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 1,574,086

Rating: 4.7302923 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, china, xi jinping, communism, chinese, whitney duan, red roulette, true story

Id: bOtVMFPjNUA

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Wtfcmi]

So do you want this to happen to your own country? Freedom and liberty was demanded and fought for, do not forget that so do not give it away willy nilly people.