Businessman's trial begins in China
11 June 2003
AMSTERDAM — The trial of high-living Chinese-Dutch businessman Yang Bin on fraud and bribery charges has begun in Shenyang in northeast China.
His lawyer Tian Wenchang said on Wednesday that the case would probably take at least two days, but it remains unclear what sentence Yang, 40, faces if convicted.
The Communist authorities have imposed very stiff penalties in recent years to try to reign in rampant corruption among the new business class that has emerged since the opening up of the country to capitalist enterprise from the late 1970s. Several national and local government officials have been sentenced to death in fraud and bribery scandals.
Yang is listed number two on the Forbes Magazine list of the richest Chinese business leaders. He is valued at an estimated USD 900 million (EUR 768 million), but his business affairs have been badly hit since his arrest last October.
He based himself in the Netherlands in 1987 and was granted political asylum here two years later after the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tianamen Square. He ran a textile firm in the Netherlands before returning to his native land seven years later with USD 20 million to his name.
Using this money he set up an orchid trading operation and also expanded into other sectors, including the construction of property in Shenyang in the old Dutch style.
Yang has a reputation for high-flying with sports cars and a private airplane. Days before his arrest, he was appointed by neighbouring North Korea to run its new Special Administrative Region (SAR) in Sinuiju.
North Korea is the only remaining hard-line Stalinist State in the world, but Kim Jong-il's regime hopes the SAR will emulate China's successful flirtation with capitalism and help revive the hermit state's ailing economy.
China is Kim's last important Communist ally, but Yang's arrest has led to speculation about friction between Beijing and the North Korean capital Pyongyang over Kim's plans to compete with China economically.
[© Novum Nieuws 2003] |