Steve Wynn's Luck Turns South

Steve Wynn in Macau before allegations of sexual harassment surfaced

Tycoon Steve Wynn's luck might be running out. Even though he denied allegations of sexual misconduct, Wynn, 76, resigned as the Republican National Committee finance chairman late last month and the other day resigned as CEO of and chairman of Wynn Resorts.

He claimed the allegations were "preposterous" and blamed "an avalanche of negative publicity" driven by a non-fact-based "rush to judgment" for his decision to step down as head of the eponymous casino empire.

Allan Zeman is now non-executive chairman of Wynn Macau

At first he blamed his ex-wife Elaine for the allegations, claiming they were still going through a nasty divorce, but now he has been silent.

Meanwhile shares in Wynn Macau plunged at the end of January when the allegations first came to light, but yesterday after his resignation, his right-hand man Matthew Maddox replaced him as CEO of Wynn Macau and Wynn Resorts, while Allan Zeman was named non-executive chairman of Wynn Macau.

Shares of Wynn Macau closed at HK$27 today and analysts believe Wynn's resignation will stabilize things. However, there are questions as to how much longer Wynn Macau will be allowed to keep its casino concession. It is set to expire in 2022, and on January 22, days before the bomb was dropped, Wynn was confident the concession would be renewed.

Two pairs of rare porcelain vases Wynn bought at auction

Nevertheless, with this recent news, the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau which regulates casinos, has declined to comment.

In the meantime, Wynn's abrupt departure will be difficult -- he was the face of the casinos, who put his own personal touches in everything from operations to decor. In Macau he knew how to kowtow to Beijing and Macau.

He shelled out US$12.7 million for four large porcelain vases from the Jiaqing period (1796-1821) at a Christie's London auction in July 2011.

"We are delighted to be able to return these extraordinary examples of Chinese culture to the People's Republic of China, and place them on display in the city of Macau, which we are so fortunate to be a part of," Wynn said at the time.

The future of Wynn Macau may be in in the balance

The vases aren't the only treasures he has brought back to the mainland,but also a Ming dynasty vase that Wynn donated to the Macao Special Administrative Region.

So is his guanxi good enough to keep him out of trouble in Macau? We shall see...

Elections with Chinese Characteristics

It is expected Carrie Lam will win the election, but by how many votes?

Beijing seems to be fretting over the "election" of the next chief executive of Hong Kong, because it is worried that its preferred candidate Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor may not have an outright win.

According to an anonymous source who is a local member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference who has met with senior leaders in Beijing, said they are concerned that their lobbying for Lam may have a negative impact on her.

John Tsang is giving Lam a run for her money, and Beijing too

Last week Lam also voiced concern for Beijing outright lobbying for her, saying she would discreetly tell them not to do it, knowing it could affect her votes as well as the public's perception of her.

The anonymous source said Lam may have trouble governing effectively because her rival John Tsang Chun-wah has greater popularity with the public than her. "But they [Beijing] said they have no choice under current circumstances", the source said.

These revelations behind the scenes show how desperate Beijing is to orchestrate the election, but yet Tsang seems to be throwing a spanner in the works which is interesting.

But why is Beijing so worried?

Its preferred candidate will win -- she already garnered 579 nominations, way more than both Tsang (159) and Woo Kwok-hing (180).

Woo Kwok-hing is popular with locals as well as Tsang

How about worrying about how she is going to persuade the public in televised debates how she is going to represent the average person, and stand up for Hong Kong's interests? That's what people care about, and Woo and Tsang already focused on getting the popular vote as a vital part of their strategy. They didn't have the guanxi, but they have local appeal. Lam has the opposite.

Lam may not win on the first ballot, but she will definitely on the second.

For Beijing to worry so much about this reveals how it cannot even deal with democracy at all. No wonder they keep delaying it!

China Lacks More Voices on Global Stage

Not many Chinese are employed at the various UN agencies

It's interesting that even though China has expanded its presence around the world economically, politically, and through emigration (legally or not), the mainland hasn't been able to flex its muscles when it comes to diplomacy.

When one looks at the numbers of Chinese working in international institutions like the United Nations and World Bank, it's at less than 3 percent according to Chinese officials.

For example, only about 200 of the 10,000 people who work at the World Bank's headquarters and country offices are Chinese.

One would think this was strange considering so many mainlanders study abroad.

Niu Dun says Chinese candidates lack professional knowledge

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization employs, 3,200 people around the world, but only about 50 are Chinese, says Niu Dun, China's permanent representative at the agency.

"Over the past three decades, we've never been so deeply engaged in so many global issues as we are now, neither have we been so close to the centre of the world stage," says Niu, a former deputy agriculture minister.

"But no matter how good a policy we have, above all, we need a team to realize our goal... It's an urgent issue and also a long-term task."

He said the main issue was that Chinese candidates lacked professional knowledge.

"Even though someone has some diplomatic experience and speaks a foreign language well, it's very difficult if he is incapable of discussing professional problems," Niu said.

One wonders what he means by "professional". It's a word that's bandied about often in Chinese circles in an attempt to explain the difference between someone qualified and an amateur.

There's also the political factor, as it is highly likely only those with really good guanxi would be allowed to rise in the ranks, and not necessarily well qualified.

Less than 3 percent of World Bank employees are Chinese

A finance ministry source said most of the employees from China at the World Bank were consultants, and few assumed positions at or above the level of director. "For senior positions in intergovernmental institutions we have seen more Chinese faces in recent years, but that was more a result of government intervention," he said.

On the other side of the spectrum, there were about 460,000 Chinese students who studied abroad in 2014, compared with 114,700 a decade earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Education.

However, one cannot assume that just because someone studied abroad makes them an ideal candidate for diplomacy -- and do they want to do that kind job or are they well suited for it?

Nevertheless, China needs to groom its young people -- on propaganda mode or not -- to represent the motherland on the world stage. And wouldn't they take their job seriously if they were given the opportunity to do so?

Or is the government terrified the next generation will not do a good job because they have been educated overseas and thus been polluted with other belief systems too?

It's an intriguing dilemma China is in now, but one that needs to be addressed quickly otherwise the country could be crippled by its own lack of diplomatic skills.

Going Through the Motions

Li Keqiang (right) checks out the site of the explosion earlier today

The number of dead in the Tianjin explosions has now reached 112, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang finally made a visit to the site today, though Xinhua only gave a brief summary of what he would do: visit firefighters, rescuers and those injured.

"He will also direct further rescue operations and treatment of the injured, as well as handling of the aftermath and production safety," the report said.

So... does Li have experience in dealing with chemical explosions and have medical knowledge in how to treat victims who were injured in the blasts on Wednesday night?

Surely he should really be deferring to experts in the field? Or do these rescuers and medical staff not know what to do, or must wait for his signal before going ahead?

These phrases seem so anachronistic, but they are brought out each time a disaster happens and a senior Chinese officials dutifully goes to inspect the site.

Meanwhile Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote instructions that the Tianjin blasts and a string of serious accidents exposed severe problems in the work safety sector, and the authorities must always keep "safe development" and "people's interest first" in mind to avoid such accidents.

These seem quite obvious, but surely an investigation needs to take place before such vague statements can be made?

Work safety has never been much of a priority for China, and all of a sudden it is on the President's mind.

Will this accident finally give work safety the attention it sorely needs? Or is this just another stock phrase to show the government is concerned?

But many Chinese citizens are not buying it, particularly those who are related to the victims of the disaster, or living in the port city near Beijing.

Some have joked that the air was too toxic until Sunday for Chinese leaders to breathe, despite local officials saying the air was fine, and adding no emergency crews were ill from chemical contamination.

They are racing against time before it next rain to contain the at least 100 tonnes of sodium cyanide at the site that can create noxious gases if reacted with water. That could not be a more stressful task.

And online censors are trying to control heated criticisms of the government and its handling of the disaster, calling it "a real life Pinocchio" in hashtags, and demanding the truth of what is really going on.

At press conferences, Chinese officials are unable to answer a lot of questions posed by journalists, only replying with "let me check" or "next question". Hardly gives anyone much confidence in the authorities.

Interestingly, the day of the blasts coincide with the 1,000th day of Xi's ascent to power, and hint that perhaps this Tianjin incident was the beginning of his end.

But we shall see how much punishment and blame goes around: access to public registries have been blocked, though the National Enterprises Credit and Information System revealed information about Ruihai International, the company that owns the exploded warehouse.

The chairman is listed as Li Liang, that overseas Chinese media have identified as the nephew of Li Ruihuan, a Tianjin-born former Politburo member and chairman of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference.

Considering much has been covered up, Li and his nephew have pretty good guanxi so far...

Is China Changing Tack?

Premier Li Keqiang in the Great Hall of the People today

World markets were watching for the latest signals from China, and today Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered it -- a sombre economic growth target of 7 percent.

This is different from 2007, when then premier Wen Jiabao who pronounced China needed to sustain 8 percent growth to keep people employed and factories humming.

But 2015 is a stark change from the eve of the Summer Olympics and announcing China's rise. Now it's putting on the brakes after sustaining increasing growth for 25 years.

While countries around the world that depend the yuan to prop up their economies may be dismayed (the United States is probably first in line), slowing down China's economy is necessary.

Back in 2009, Wen and then president Hu Jintao had an opportunity to use the global economic slowdown to clean up China's own house financially, but instead threw 1.5 trillion yuan at the problem.

Mostly state-owned banks were forced to shell out the money -- and this led to even greater graft and corruption, and financial institutions are still having trouble collecting their debts.

"The downward pressure on China's economy is intensifying," Li said. "Deep-seated problems in the country's economic development are becoming more obvious. The difficulties we are facing this year could be bigger than last year. The new year is a crucial year for deepening all-round reforms."

So is Li really going to implement serious economic reforms this time around? He and the Chinese government cannot procrastinate any longer. There are many bloated state-owned enterprises that need to be restructured, and it's not always merit that wins out... people, especially those in senior positions will have to battle it out in seeing who has the better guanxi...

Chai Jing gives her findings about pollution in China

Meanwhile slowing down the economy also hopefully means less pollution. A few days ago former CCTV presenter Chai Jing released her documentary Under the Dome, where she chronicled China's pollution and how she believes it affected her daughter's development in the womb, as the baby was diagnosed with a lung tumour.

There's been lots of talk about this independent investigation that Chai spent 1 million yuan in making, as it reveals how it is the rich and the government who are making 1.3 billion people sick one way or another.

The general public don't want break-neck development at the cost of their lives -- they too want to have blue skies, clean water and a healthy environment for their children to grow up in.

So will the Central government pay attention to the desires of the people and give them what they want? By doing this it would mean stability of the Party, no?

Finally Li reiterated that the crackdown on corruption is here to stay, pouring cold water on those who thought it was a temporary campaign.

"Our tough stance on corruption is here to stay," he said. "Our tolerance for corruption is zero, and anyone guilty of corruption will be dealt with seriously."

The hunt for tigers and flies continues... is anyone completely clean in China?

Jack Ma Yun Speaks his Mind

Jack Ma talked about a wide range of topics at the World Economic Forum

Charlie Rose interviewed Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma Yun at Davos at the World Economic Forum. The video is here.

Someone did not brief Rose on how to pronounce Chinese words and names... it was excruciating hearing him say Hangzhou wrong as well as tai chi! Hello?! Who is your research assistant!

Nevertheless, it was a wide-ranging 44-minute interview asking Ma about his background and how he became successful with Alibaba. Ma was born in 1964 in Hangzhou and grew up during the Cultural Revolution and around the age of 12 fell in love with English.

But he said there were no English books so he went to what is now the Hangzhou Shangri-La and would take foreigners around on tour of the city for free to practice his English.

This was how he got the name Jack -- a tourist from the US suggested it, and after practicing for years, people were impressed by Ma's English, saying he sounded much like a native speaker. Ma added he also learned different things from visitors, who taught him things he never would have learned in school or from his parents.

Charlie Rose interviewing Jack Ma in Davos

He talked about being rejected many times, not only in his application to Harvard (10 times), but also Alibaba's IPO the first time around. "I don't know anyone else who was rejected 30 times," he says humbly.

In 1995 he visited the US for the first time and tried the internet for the first time in Seattle. The first word he typed in? Beer. He found there were beers from different countries, but beers from China were not mentioned.

His second search word was "China" and there was no information on the country, so he suggested to his friends that they create a website that he admits looked hokey.

Ma came up with the name Alibaba in the US. He asked a waitress in a restaurant what she thought of the word Alibaba and she said, "open sesame". He asked more people o the street, and they said the same and so the name stuck. "It also starts with A," he said with a smile.

The company has 100 million buyers online everyday and has helped create 14 million jobs. Some 800 million use Alipay.

Rose asked Ma about his relationship with the Chinese government, and the response was direct. He said he didn't want to do anything with the authorities when it came to business, but felt it was important to keep them abreast with what's going on with regards to ecommerce and the internet. "Be in love with the government but don't marry them," he said.

When it started, many wondered if Alibaba would work because most transactions in China relied on guanxi. But now the company does 60 million transactions a day so there must be some kind of trust, he says. Customers don't know who the seller is and yet they give them money in the trust that they will get the product they want.

For the first few years Alibaba was just surviving, but he saw how the company changed people's lives. Ma wasn't making money, but he would go to restaurants, and later find out his bill was paid by a happy Alibaba customer.

Not only does Alibaba sell Chinese products to the world, but vice versa. He gave the example of American cherries, where the fruit was pre-ordered and then sent over to China within 48 hours of being picked. He also cited selling 300 tons of nuts to the mainland as well as Alaska seafood.

When Rose changed the subject to Hollywood, Ma immediately said that his favourite character was Forrest Gump. "He's simple and never gives up. People think he's dumb but he believes in what he is doing," Ma explains. "Life really is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

Towards the end of the interview, Rose says Ma is one of the richest men in China. Ma is humble about it, and tries to explain it's not his money, but investors who believe Alibaba can do better with the money than the government, which is why he feels he must be responsible.

Ma also feels it's crucial to spend more resources on young people, because he observes they lose hope, vision and complain. "We were also depressed at the time, but we found opportunities," he says.

Interesting to hear Ma trying to inspire young people to keep going, and he is the poster boy for being China's Forrest Gump in his determination. He definitely is a trailblazer -- not without his stops and starts -- but can others follow his example?

Youth on his Side

Yu Jiawen boldly challenges conventional China

Yu Jiawen is 24 years old and brash. But he can be because he's one of China's youngest internet tycoons.

He created a mobile social networking app called Super Curriculum two years ago which attracted more than 10 million mainland university students.

Last month the Guangdong native sparked an uproar last month when he appeared on CCTV's Voice of Youth where he encouraged his peers to rebel from society's expectations and embrace the internet.

He said the web offered opportunities to those who were brave and creative. But what really got viewers' attention was his boast of thinking of handing out 100 million yuan in bonuses to his staff next year.

Needless to say reaction online was swift. "Why is this little kid so arrogant?" one person wrote on Yu's microblog. "A 100 million yuan bonus for employees? That can only be a lie."

But the young entrepreneur is unrepentant. "I spoke on the show because I wanted to encourage Chinese people my age who do not have rich or powerful parents. I wanted to share my story, to let them know that we too can succeed without a strong family background," he said. "We just have to be creative and brave to catch the trend of the era."

On the show Yu explained he was born into a poor family in Chaozhou, Guandong in 1990. His parents were pork sellers, but he wasn't interested in following them and at 14 set up his first enterprise, an online social platform for local students. Two years later he sold the website for an undisclosed sum.

Then in 2012, while studying in third year software development at the South China Institute of Software Engineering, he launched Super Curriculum.

The app allows students from more than 3,000 universities in China to connect and share information about their courses, notes and other study materials. It was the first of its kind in the country and became an instant hit, drawing 10 million users. The app is now ranked fourth place of free apps in China's Apple Store.

Some venture capitalist firms have invested, including Alibaba Group; he wouldn't say exactly how much, but said it was less than $30 million.

Yu calls himself a "wild child" and demands that his employees be like him and channel their boldness to beat their rivals. He said few companies could do this because their leaders lacked audacity.

While some appreciate his confidence, others are skeptical, wondering if Yu can really be as good as his boasts.

But Yu doesn't regret what he's said. "If I had to do it again, I would repeat my speech without changing a word... Society and adults impose too many shackles on the post-90s generation. We have to have a decent job, an expensive apartment and follow various social rules. We must break free of these shackles. Only then can we be young and fearless, to have more freedom to do what we really want to do.

"The true value of Super Curriculum lies in our [potential] users -- tens of millions of college students across the country. There are millions of freshmen each year, many of whom will use our app," he said. "Our success lies in the fact that my team and I are all young and creative people and we know what kinds of apps and services the young really need. Young people will look for friends and job opportunities, pay loans and spend money through our app."

There are many post-90s young people who talk big like Yu or think they have every right to push their agenda or think they know everything.

But they are not like Yu, who backs up his audacious words with an actual service millions of students enjoy using across the country. He is entitled to say what he wants and adults should be listening to him.

However like every other person though, he too will age and it will be interesting to see how he can continue to make himself relevant in the next 10, 20 years.

Nevertheless, for now he deserves his moment in the spotlight because young people in China need someone like him to look up to and see it's really possible to be successful without guanxi. How refreshing.

Please, Release Him

The New Express calling for the release of Chen Yongzhou again

For the second time in two days, a Chinese paper in Guangzhou has called for the release of one of its staff from police detention.

On the front page of The New Express it says "再请放他" or "Again, Please release him", referring to Chen Yongzhou who was taken away by police last Friday and has not been heard from since.

He had written about a construction equipment company called Zoomlion that is partly owned by the Hunan provincial government. After one of several articles Chen wrote, Zoomlion issued a statement claiming that the story improperly accounted for sales, causing its shares to drop.

In a statement to the Hong Kong Exchange in late May, the company described the claims as "false, groundless and misleading".

Yesterday the newspaper's front page read: "Please release him" and since then many other well known media people such as commentator Li Chengpeng and Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin have called for Chen's release as well as many other Chinese major state media papers.

Even the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued a statement saying it was "very concerned" about Chen's detention, as well as China's publishing regulator, the General Association of Press and Publishing.

Chen is being held in a detention centre in Changsha, Hunan province, on charges of "damaging the commercial reputation" of Zoomlion. The company said it filed a police report on Wednesday, arguing his investigative reports alleging financial fraud was incorrect and damaged Zoomlion's reputation.

The police say they will be pursuing the case, while the media have been placed on a gag order, and tens of thousands of comments on microblogs have already been deleted.

This case will be interesting to watch because if Chen's reports are correct, it will be pitting journalistic integrity against Zoomlion's guanxi to see who will win out in the end. It seems the company is trying to strong arm Chen into surrendering, but with so much media support for him, there will be pressure for the authorities to play by the rules.

We hope Chen is mentally strong and knows there are others out there trying to help him at least have a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.

We need more courageous journalists like him to root out the truth and more bold media outlets like The New Express to help us know what's really going on in China.