Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on telegram
Share on whatsapp
Share on linkedin
Share on print
Share on email

A Warning About Fugitive Chinese Tycoon Guo Wengui

◎ Guo’s accusations and claims against CCP officials are largely contradictory, unverifiable, and/or proven false.


Controversial fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui is making headlines in Western media again, appearing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Epoch Times, Washington Free Beacon and the Drudge Report. He is scheduled to speak in Washington D.C. on Oct. 4 at an event hosted by Bill Gertz of the Free Beacon.

Inconsistent and not credible: Guo is your typical elite Chinese businessman intertwined in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politics and business. Guo’s accusations and claims against CCP officials are largely contradictory, unverifiable, and/or proven false. Other times, he may be presenting facts alongside fiction, rendering it impossible to tell one from the other.

  • In 2015, Chinese financial magazine Caixin ran an in-depth exposé on Guo colluding with high-ranking Chinese domestic security officials to forcibly seize assets from businesses and political rivals.
  • In China, he was well known for being a corrupt businessman, and his underhanded tactics include using his political guanxi to sentence his business partner to prison for 15 years. His partner was released in September after the courts found out that there was “insufficient evidence” used against him.  
  • In a 2016 video, Guo hinted that he was very close with anti-corruption chief Wang Qishan. However, during his live interview on Voice of America in April 2017, Guo began accusing Wang’s family of corruption. VOA abruptly shut down the live broadcast. 
  • In a March live broadcast on social media, Guo accused media associated with Falun Gong of making up organ harvesting claims. Then without reason, he tweeted an apology for his “error in speech.” Days later, when he was interviewed by The Epoch Times (ET), a Falun Gong-associated newspaper, Guo expressed his support for Falun Gong.
  • Later, after successfully obtaining attention from Western news media, Guo turned around and began attacking pundits from ET and the Falun Gong-associated New Tang Dynasty Television, as well as giving high praise to Jiang Zemin, who masterminded the persecution against Falun Gong.
  • In May, Guo claimed on Twitter and YouTube, that he had reunited with his wife and daughter who were just released by Chinese authorities. However, in his third live interview, Guo slipped and said, “In the 2-3 years my wife was here [in the US], she would wake up at midnight and ask me…” thereby contradicting his earlier statement.
  • On Sep. 1, six months after he initially mentioned organ harvesting, Guo claimed that Political and Legal Affairs Commission Party secretary Meng Jianzhu was Jiang’s “retainer,” and accused Meng of arranging three kidney transplants for Jiang’s son over four years, resulting in the deaths of five people. Guo never explained why he didn’t expose this information in his initial interview with ET on organ harvesting, six months prior.
  • Thus far, Guo has made many claims on an assortment of affairs, including a theory on why Malaysian flight MH370 went missing.

Our take: Considering Guo’s inconsistencies and the timing of his appearances in Western media, as well as his upcoming event in D.C. scheduled exactly two weeks before the 19th Party Congress, it appears Guo is deeply involved in the power struggle between Xi’s administration and the Jiang faction. With the Western media paying close attention to him, he will likely target Wang Qishan at the D.C. event at the Hudson Institute, which will greatly benefit the Jiang faction. His claims, whatever they may be, will likely be detrimental to Xi and Wang, possibly diminishing U.S. trust in the Xi administration.

In the past, Guo has admitted to spying for the CCP; whether he still is a spy and to what extent, only Guo himself knows. Regardless, the act of spreading disinformation through Western media has been a common CCP spy tactic. Although Guo denies that he is a Jiang faction member, the information he releases is a pressure point against the Xi administration, especially at this critical juncture before the 19th Party Congress on Oct. 18.

If anyone at this point in time still buys into Guo Wengui’s claims, they may find themselves caught in an international controversy, just like the Voice of America.

 

Contact us for an in-depth report about Guo Wengui.

Search past entries by date
“The breadth of SinoInsider’s insights—from economics through the military to governance, all underpinned by unparalleled reporting on the people in charge—is stunning. In my over fifty years of in-depth reading on the PRC, unclassified and classified, SinoInsider is in a class all by itself.”
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Unique insights are available frequently from the reports of Sinoinsider.”
Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow for China Strategy, The Heritage Foundation
“Thank you for your information and analysis. Very useful.”
Prof. Ravni Thakur, University of Delhi, India
“SinoInsider’s research has helped me with investing in or getting out of Chinese companies.”
Charles Nelson, Managing Director, Murdock Capital Partners
“I value SinoInsider because of its always brilliant articles touching on, to name just a few, CCP history, current trends, and factional politics. Its concise and incisive analysis — absent the cliches that dominate China policy discussions in DC and U.S. corporate boardrooms — also represents a major contribution to the history of our era by clearly defining the threat the CCP poses to American peace and prosperity and global stability. I am grateful to SinoInsider — long may it thrive!”
Lee Smith, Author and journalist
“Your publication insights tremendously help us complete our regular analysis on in-depth issues of major importance. ”
Ms. Nicoleta Buracinschi, Embassy of Romania to the People’s Republic of China
"I’m a very happy, satisfied subscriber to your service and all the deep information it provides to increase our understanding. SinoInsider is profoundly helping to alter the public landscape when it comes to the PRC."
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Prof. Ming’s information about the Sino-U.S. trade war is invaluable for us in Taiwan’s technology industry. Our company basically acted on Prof. Ming’s predictions and enlarged our scale and enriched our product lines. That allowed us to deal capably with larger orders from China in 2019. ”
Mr. Chiu, Realtek R&D Center
“I am following China’s growing involvement in the Middle East, seeking to gain a better understanding of China itself and the impact of domestic constraints on its foreign policy. I have found SinoInsider quite helpful in expanding my knowledge and enriching my understanding of the issues at stake.”
Ehud Yaari, Lafer International Fellow, The Washington Institute
“SinoInsider’s research on the CCP examines every detail in great depth and is a very valuable reference. Foreign researchers will find SinoInsider’s research helpful in understanding what is really going on with the CCP and China. ”
Baterdene, Researcher, The National Institute for Security Studies (Mongolian)
“The forecasts of Prof. Chu-cheng Ming and the SinoInsider team are an invaluable resource in guiding our news reporting direction and anticipating the next moves of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.”
Chan Miu-ling, Radio Television Hong Kong China Team Deputy Leader
“SinoInsider always publishes interesting and provocative work on Chinese elite politics. It is very worthwhile to follow the work of SinoInsider to get their take on factional struggles in particular.”
Lee Jones, Reader in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London
“[SinoInsider has] been very useful in my class on American foreign policy because it contradicts the widely accepted argument that the U.S. should work cooperatively with China. And the whole point of the course is to expose students to conflicting approaches to contemporary major problems.”
Roy Licklider, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
“As a China-based journalist, SinoInsider is to me a very reliable source of information to understand deeply how the CCP works and learn more about the factional struggle and challenges that Xi Jinping may face. ”
Sebastien Ricci, AFP correspondent for China & Mongolia
“SinoInsider offers an interesting perspective on the Sino-U.S. trade war and North Korea. Their predictions are often accurate, which is definitely very helpful.”
Sebastien Ricci, AFP correspondent for China & Mongolia
“I have found SinoInsider to provide much greater depth and breadth of coverage with regard to developments in China. The subtlety of the descriptions of China's policy/political processes is absent from traditional media channels.”
John Lipsky, Peter G. Peterson Distinguished Scholar, Kissinger Center for Global Affairs
“My teaching at Cambridge and policy analysis for the UK audience have been informed by insights from your analyzes. ”
Dr Kun-Chin Lin, University Lecturer in Politics,
Deputy Director of the Centre for Geopolitics, Cambridge University
" SinoInsider's in-depth and nuanced analysis of Party dynamics is an excellent template to train future Sinologists with a clear understanding that what happens in the Party matters."
Stephen Nagy, Senior Associate Professor, International Christian University
“ I find Sinoinsider particularly helpful in instructing students about the complexities of Chinese politics and what elite competition means for the future of the US-China relationship.”
Howard Sanborn, Professor, Virginia Military Institute
“SinoInsider has been one of my most useful (and enjoyable) resources”
James Newman, Former U.S. Navy cryptologist
“Professor Ming and his team’s analyses of current affairs are very far-sighted and directionally accurate. In the present media environment where it is harder to distinguish between real and fake information, SinoInsider’s professional perspectives are much needed to make sense of a perilous and unpredictable world. ”
Liu Cheng-chuan, Professor Emeritus, National Chiayi University
Previous
Next