A Case of Mistaken Identity

Ma Jian, the former spymaster was jailed for life today for corruption

Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption continues with a vengeance. Today a former top spy chief was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of accepting 109 million yuan (US$15.8 million) in bribes, and crimes related to insider trading and forced share transfers.

Ma Jian was appointed deputy head of China's Ministry of State Security in 2006, in charge of counter-espionage operations. However, the crimes he was convicted of spanned a 15-year period, between 1999 and 2004.

Ma accepted bribes from Guo Wengui

After four years of detention was tried at Dalian Intermediate Court in northeast China, where he was also fined 50.5 million yuan.
The court ordered all of Ma's personal property confiscated and demanded the return of his ill-gotten gains.

During the trial, Ma confessed to the charges and said he would not appeal.

He received bribes totaling 109 million yuan to benefit several associates, including the brash tycoon Miles Guo Wengui, who is in self-imposed exile in New York City.

Ma is the highest ranking security official to be jailed since Zhou Yongkang, a former Politburo member who once oversaw the government's security operations but was jailed for life in 2015.

The ex-spy has the same name as novelist, Ma Jian (above)

One would think this story is straight forward, except that some media outlets have used the wrong picture of Ma and used the one of novelist Ma Jian -- who had trouble presenting his novel China Dream in Hong Kong in early November.

Both the former spy chief and the novelist have the same Chinese characters in their names (马建) which makes it all the more amusing and the latter has joked about it on Twitter:

"My children are puzzled to learn that I am not the author of China Dream, who has just made them seaweed dumplings for supper, but am instead a former spymaster who has just been jailed for life for accepting 'extremely large bribes'," he wrote.

Ma tweeted his amusement at being "jailed for life"

"This is a strange China Dream. Am I a banned novelist dreaming that I'm a corrupt spy chief, or am I a corrupt spy chief dreaming that I'm a banned novelist?"

Perhaps this is potential fodder for Ma -- the novelist's -- next story.

10 Chinese Cities to Watch

Of all the Chinese cities, Chengdu is considered to have a booming economy

It's interesting to discover Chengdu is considered to have the most successful economy in China, according to a US-based think tank, considering such factors as job growth, foreign investment and high value-added industries.

Shanghai and Tianjin were second and third respectively, while the Chinese capital was 13th in the Milken Institute study.

Shanghai is in second place in the Milken Institute study

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province was praised for its "human capital, central government support, established industries in high-end aerospace and aircraft design, and a more recently developed electronics manufacturing sector".

The study said mainland cities were developing in two ways: For Shanghai and Tianjin it is about urbanization, industrial clustering and infrastructure investment bolstering larger regional economies.

The other way, due to the slowdown in economic growth, was the focus on technology, private investment and consumption.

This is the first time the institute has ranked mainland cities, assessing 266 at the prefecture level and above, and divided them into two categories -- 34 first and second-tier cities, and the rest as third-tier cities.

Tianjin comes in third with lots of potential for growth

The study didn't just look at economic growth, but also job and wage growth, gross regional production, foreign direct investment and the strength of high value-added industries.

Chengdu may have done well in the study due to having several respected universities and has lower labour costs.

Interestingly Shenzhen just made number 10 on the list, and seven of the top 10 third-tier cities were in Jiangsu province, which has a strong transportation network of airports, highways and high-speed rail links.

The top 10 cities are:

1. Chengdu

2. Shanghai

3. Tianjin

4. Dalian

5. Nanjing

6. Hefei

7. Xiamen

8. Changchun

9. Chongqing

10. Shenzhen

There should be lots of information to be gleaned from this study and potential investors and entrepreneurs should take note.