The Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, postponed a Wednesday appearance by Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman who has accused some of China’s top leaders of corruption and other misdeeds, The Wall Street Journal reports. The cancellation reportedly came following pressure from Beijing.
Mr. Guo, who last month applied for political asylum in the U.S., told The Wall Street Journal he has set aside over $150 million for legal fees and other expenses that he expects to incur over the next few years as he battles defamation and other lawsuits and steps up his antigovernment rhetoric.
“Nothing can stop me,” Mr. Guo said. He said he is confident the U.S. will grant him asylum and will confront what he called Chinese government efforts to “silence” him. “The U.S. is the last land of justice,” he said. “I would not be alive were it not for the U.S.”
Guo, an exiled billionaire with known ties to China’s intelligence apparatus, has since early this year been levying corruption allegations at those on the top of China’s Party power structure. Beijing has responded by waging a publicity war against Guo, successfully lobbying for Interpol to release “red notice” warrants for his arrest, and issuing repeated censorship directives forbidding commentary on Guo, China Digital Times* reports:
Amid the media war with Beijing, Guo has issued concrete demands for change, and has become an unlikely hero to many democracy-minded Chinese both in– and outside of the Great Firewall. As Guo continues to allege the depth of Party corruption and name the characters that according to him are “plundering of the nation,” he has been steadily gaining followers on YouTube and Twitter. Beijing appears to likewise be continuing their efforts to discredit him.
In an essay at Radio France Internationale’s Chinese service, An Delie writes about the chilling effect that Guo has created with his allegations over the past eight months as the CCP has lent conceivability to his claims with their harsh reactions…RTWT
Headquartered in the southern Chinese island of Hainan, the privately-owned HNA has fielded many questions about its shareholding structure this year after Guo alleged that “officials in China’s Communist Party and their relatives were undisclosed shareholders” in the group, CNBC adds.
Guo Wengui’s Press Conference on Chinese Kleptocracy
Chinese businessman turned whistleblower Guo Wengui, a.k.a Miles Kwok, will hold his first-ever press conference in the U.S. on the high-level corruption in the Chinese Communist regime and its implications for the upcoming 19th Party Congress, as well as the threat China’s kleptocracy poses to the United States and its allies, Initiatives for China adds:
The New York Times described corruption allegations made by Mr. Guo against senior Party officials as “the biggest political story in China this year.” In a recent Washington Times article, Mr. Guo described his revelations as an effort to “expose the leviathan Chinese Mafia state, the most corrupt, tyrannical and brutal state on earth, bar North Korea, a state some of whose leaders systematically have stolen trillions of dollars of the Chinese people’s wealth.”
Joining this press conference will be Bill Gertz, Senior Editor at The Washington Free Beacon, National Security Columnist at The Washington Times, and author of The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America.
WHO: Guo Wengui
WHERE: The First Amendment, National Press Club
529 14 St. NW, Washington, DC 20045
WHAT: Chinese Kleptocracy and Its Threat to the United States
WHEN: October 5th, 2017, 9:00-11:00 am
RSVP: Please email dcoffice@initiativesforchina.org for rsvp link.
*A grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.
