Trial begins for billionaire who 'vanished' in HK

Chinese-Canadian tycoon Xiao Jianhua was to stand trial yesterday, according to Ottawa's embassy in Beijing.

Xiao, 50, is said to have vanished from Hong Kong's Four Seasons hotel in January 2017, with some local media saying he was taken by mainland agents.

Hong Kong police said at the time that he had crossed the border into the mainland. His company Tomorrow Group also later said he was in the mainland.

The dealmaker, who helped arrange the business affairs of some of China's most powerful families, was one of the country's richest people at the time.

Nothing more had been known about Xiao, who is a Canadian citizen, since his disappearance, until the embassy confirmed yesterday that he was facing trial.

The embassy did not specify the location of the trial or charges against him but there were reports it was to be heard in Shanghai.

"Canadian consular officials are monitoring this case closely, providing consular services to his family and continue to press for consular access," it said.

But mainland authorities have been silent about the case, reportedly linked to an anti-corruption drive championed by President Xi Jinping.

Xiao's disappearance also followed the alleged kidnapping into mainland custody of five people working for a bookstore which published salacious titles about China's leaders. The booksellers later appeared on mainland TV admitting to a variety of crimes.

Xiao rose from a poor family to become one of China's richest men, founding the Beijing-based Tomorrow Group. He was head of the official student union at the prestigious Peking University in 1989 when the government used troops and tanks to crush demonstrations.

Xiao had tried and failed to defuse the protests, with his firm later denying a New York Times report that he had been rewarded by the government for his role.

After university, Xiao began selling computers and in the years that followed built an empire with diverse interests, including in banking and insurance. The Hurun Report, which ranks China's wealthiest people, said Xiao was worth US$6 billion (HK$46.8 billion) in 2017.

He had reportedly denied allegations he fled to Hong Kong in 2014 to escape the corruption crackdown in China.

"After five years of quietly waiting, our family is still, based on my brother's strict instructions, putting faith in the Chinese government and Chinese law," Xiao's elder brother Xinhua told The Wall Street Journal last month. "[The case is] very complicated and full of drama."

The years after his disappearance have also been marked by plummeting relations between China and Canada, sparked by the arrest in Vancouver of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou - the chief financial officer of telecoms giant Huawei - at the request of the United States.

Following Meng's arrest, Beijing detained two Canadians in China and targeted Canadian agricultural exports. All three were released in September 2021 after Meng reached a deal with US prosecutors on the fraud charges, ending her extradition fight.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE