On November 10, Sun Deshun, the former president of China CITIC Bank, was sentenced to death by the Intermediate Court of Jinan City, Shandong Province for accepting a bribe of 979.5 million yuan, with a two-year suspension of execution, and all personal property was confiscated. After his death was commuted to life imprisonment, Life imprisonment without the possibility of commutation or parole.
What kind of bank is CITIC Bank?
China CITIC Bank was established in 1987 and is headquartered in Beijing. It is one of the earliest emerging commercial banks established after the CCP implemented “reform and opening up”. It is the first commercial bank under the CCP to participate in domestic and foreign financial market financing.
In 2007, CITIC Bank was simultaneously listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s A+H shares. It is one of the six banks and three guarantees for Chinese financial stocks in Hong Kong.
CITIC Bank’s largest shareholder is CITIC Group, which holds more than 60% of the shares and is in an absolute controlling position.
Rong Yiren, the founder of CITIC Group and then Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China, served as the honorary chairman of CITIC Bank when it was established.
Judging from the history of CITIC Bank, it is a state-owned enterprise with important influence at home and abroad. The president of China CITIC Bank is a very important position within the CCP system. It is impossible for someone who is not particularly trusted by the CCP’s top leaders to hold this position.
Sun Deshun has worked in the People’s Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Bank of Communications.
In October 2011, Sun Deshun was transferred to Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the Head Office of China CITIC Bank; from December 2011 to May 2014, he served as Vice President of China CITIC Bank; from May 2014 to July 2016, he served as Executive Vice President of CITIC Bank. From July 2016 to February 2019, he served as President of China CITIC Bank.
Who promoted and re-employed Sun Deshun?
The president of China CITIC Bank is at the deputy ministerial level. The appointment of deputy minister-level officials of the Communist Party of China must be inspected and approved by the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and then submitted to the Political Bureau meeting of the Communist Party of China for discussion and approval.
When Sun Deshun was promoted to president of China CITIC Bank, Zhao Leji served as director of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
In other words, when Sun Deshun was promoted and re-appointed, it was Zhao Leji who was responsible for the inspection. Accordingly, Zhao Leji had direct leadership responsibility for Sun Deshun’s promotion and appointment as president of CITIC Bank.
Afterwards, Xi Jinping, leader of the Communist Party of China, chaired a Politburo meeting to discuss and approve Sun Deshun’s appointment. Accordingly, Xi Jinping bears the highest leadership responsibility for the promotion and appointment of Sun Deshun.
After Sun Deshun became president of China CITIC Bank, he became a cadre managed by the Central Organization Department, commonly known as “central management cadres.”
From 2017 to 2019, the director of the Central Organization Department was Chen Xi. Accordingly, Chen Xi is responsible for the management of Sun Deshun’s disciplinary and illegal behavior during this period.
After Sun Deshun became president of China CITIC Bank, he became the subject of supervision by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
From 2017 to 2019, the secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection was Zhao Leji. Accordingly, Zhao Leji is responsible for supervising Sun Deshun’s disciplinary and illegal behavior during this period.
What serious disciplinary and law violations does Sun Deshun have?
In mid-September 2019, Sun Deshun suddenly “lost contact”. In fact, he was secretly arrested by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Six months after Sun Deshun “lost contact”, on March 20, 2020, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a notice stating that Sun Deshun seriously violated disciplines and laws, and “will not restrain himself” after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. This is the reason why the CCP’s “corruption problem in the financial sector is particularly serious.” , a typical example of a particularly bad nature and a particularly huge amount.”
The bulletin listed Sun Deshun’s “five crimes”:
First, it has “no sense of politics or the overall situation” and “seriously violates” the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s “decision-making arrangements on financial services for the real economy, restricting and reducing manufacturing loans.”
Second, “Illegal borrowing of real estate from loan customers, and having others pay the expenses that should be borne by themselves”;
Third, “Failure to report personal matters as required, and violate regulations to seek benefits for others during employee recruitment”;
Fourth, “their values are extremely distorted. He wants to be an official but also wants to get rich. He runs businesses in violation of regulations and makes huge profits for himself and his relatives and friends.”
Fifth, “Greed is extremely expanded, using the power of loan approval as a bargaining chip to seek personal interests, colluding with unscrupulous businessmen, engaging in power-for-money transactions, and taking advantage of the convenience of position to benefit others in terms of loan credit, approval, etc. And illegally received huge amounts of property.”
The notice determined that Sun Deshun “seriously violated” the CCP’s political discipline, organizational discipline, integrity discipline, work discipline and life discipline, constituting a serious job violation and being suspected of bribery.
In view of the above situation, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection decided to expel Sun Deshun from the party and cancel his deputy ministerial treatment; confiscate his illegal gains that violated discipline and discipline; and transferred his suspected criminal issues to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.
How did Sun Deshun make money?
According to the January 2022 CCTV anti-corruption feature film “Zero Tolerance”, Sun Deshun was “unwilling to accept cash” and believed that doing so was “too low-end” and “too simple and crude.” He used “shadow companies” and financial means to make money.
On the one hand, Sun De successfully used his power to approve loans for business owners; on the other hand, some of these bosses injected huge sums of money into the platform companies he actually controlled in the name of investment, while others presented high-quality investment projects or investment opportunities; The platform company under actual control uses the funds provided by these bosses to invest in projects provided by these bosses, generates money from money, and shares profits and dividends with the bosses.
Sun Deshun arranged for two of his old subordinates to open two investment platform companies and let them be legal representatives while he served as the boss behind the scenes. These two investment platform companies are his core management team and the first layer of “shadow” that covers him.
Under the two investment platform companies, more than 10 project companies have been established as the second layer of “shadows.”
The project company and the bribery company are not directly involved in the transaction. Instead, each party sets up a shell company as the third layer of “shadow”.
Sun Deshun stands behind the scenes at the top of the three-tier shadow company, and actually controls the transactions of the three-tier shadow company. He has the final say whether the deal is concluded or not.
The capital transactions of shadow companies are disguised as various seemingly legal financial products, equity investment agreements, etc.
In this way, the huge amount of public funds Sun Deshun loaned out, on the one hand, became the capital for those business owners to engage in power, money, and sex transactions; on the other hand, as a reward, those business owners used part of the loan through three-tier shadow companies The capital transactions are returned to him and become his private property.
Loan 4 billion yuan, profit 100 million yuan
At the end of 2014, an energy company heavily in debt applied for a loan from China CITIC Bank.
For such an enterprise, in a country where “the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation”, banks will definitely not give it a loan.
However, in China, where “power plays a decisive role in the allocation of resources,” transactions are “operated behind the scenes” and are not open to the public, so there is no talk of fairness and justice.
The two parties to the transaction are the bank president who has the power to lend money, and the other party is the company boss who is usually backed by official backstage bosses. The latter promised to give the former generous returns after obtaining the loan. After the two parties negotiated the terms in private, the bank president gave a hint, and the people below took care of the matter.
At CITIC Bank, Sun Deshun was the president and had great power. After learning that the energy company was willing to give him huge returns, the two parties hit it off. With Sun Deshun’s intervention, a loan of 4 billion yuan was successfully issued.
After the incident was completed, the actual controller of the energy company signed an “equity investment agreement” with the shadow company controlled by Sun Deshun, called “Investment”, which actually returned a benefit fee to Sun Deshun. How much is this benefit fee? 100 million yuan.
This 4 billion yuan loan soon became a non-performing loan and could not be recovered.
In this transaction, the owner of the energy company made a huge profit, Sun Deshun made a big profit, the bank suffered a huge loss, Yageo suffered a huge loss, and the people’s hard-earned money was hugely lost.
Sun Deshun is Xu Jiayin’s biggest financial sponsor
In August 2018, “China Securities News” published an interview report “Sun Deshun, President of China CITIC Bank: Full support to the real economy, bank asset management has broad prospects.”
However, according to CCTV’s anti-corruption feature film “Zero Tolerance” in January 2022, when Sun Deshun took charge of CITIC Bank, he did not pay attention to supporting the real economy at all, but focused on making money quickly and achieving quick results.
The report said: “He prefers lending to real estate. When presiding over the president’s office meeting, he publicly and bluntly demanded that the entire bank must immediately stop manufacturing loans. Even if you have 100% mortgage, that won’t work.”
Liu Cheng, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of China CITIC Bank, recalled that during Sun Deshun’s tenure, the bank’s loan structure underwent significant changes. The growth rate of real estate loans reached more than 40%, and the decline in manufacturing loans reached more than 30%.
Xu Jiayin, the boss of Evergrande Group, the real estate company with the most debt in the world today, was once Sun Deshun’s “most important customer.” Sun Deshun, President of China CITIC Bank, is Xu Jiayin’s largest “financier”.
In March 2015, China CITIC Bank, CITIC Trust and Evergrande Group signed a 60 billion yuan strategic cooperation agreement, of which China CITIC Bank provided a credit line of 40 billion yuan to Evergrande Group.
In February 2016, CITIC Bank Chongqing Branch provided a loan of 1.969 billion yuan for Evergrande Life to acquire 50% of the equity of Chongqing Sino-Singapore Great Eastern Life.
In December 2016, China CITIC Bank Guangzhou Branch invested 31.2 billion yuan in real estate funds to Evergrande Group. It is said that this is the largest real estate fund business in the history of CITIC Bank.
At the beginning of 2017, China CITIC Bank and Evergrande Group reached a “100 billion +” cooperation agreement, that is, the two parties will implement “headquarters-to-headquarters” cooperation. China CITIC Bank will grant Evergrande Group a comprehensive credit line of 40 billion yuan, a real estate fund of 50 billion yuan, and a real estate fund of 200 billion yuan. 100 million yuan of diversified M&A funds, 90 billion yuan of domestic guarantees and overseas loan lines, and a total of more than 100 billion yuan of credit line cooperation intentions.
How much did Xu Jiayin give to Sun Deshun? It is difficult for the outside world to know. Judging from the above-mentioned Sun De loan of 4 billion yuan and the withdrawal of 100 million yuan, it must be far more than 100 million yuan.
The upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked
As the president of China CITIC Bank’s head office, Sun Deshun says one thing, does another, makes another public, and does another behind the scenes. He invests money wherever the money comes in quickly and yields quick results. This will inevitably have an “upward and downward” effect on the entire CITIC Bank system. , leading to systemic corruption in CITIC Bank.
Before and after Sun Deshun was investigated, many senior executives in the CITIC Bank system were also investigated.
In 2018, Bao Xueqin, the former chairman of CITIC Xincheng Asset Management Company, was investigated for suspected job-related crimes.
According to Caixin.com, several people close to CITIC Bank analyzed that Sun Deshun was most likely implicated in the case of Bao Xueqin, the former chairman of CITIC Prudential Asset Management.
CITIC Bank system officials who have been investigated in recent years include: Li Xianwen, former president of CITIC Bank Zhaoqing Branch, Liang Qinghua, former general manager of the business department of Zhaoqing Branch; Chen Ying, vice president and risk director of CITIC Bank Xiamen Branch; Yu Cheng, former president of CITIC Bank Harbin Branch Xin; Xie Hongru, former president of China CITIC Bank Guangzhou Branch; Chen Xuying (female), former vice president and president of China CITIC Bank Shenzhen Branch; Chen Yong, former president of CITIC Bank Yangzhou Branch; Wu Xuewen, former president of CITIC Bank Ningbo Branch; CITIC Bank Kunming Branch Former bank president Lin Zhengyue and others.
Conclusion
A report from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection stated that Sun Deshun “did not restrain himself or hold back” after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and was a “typical example of corruption in the financial sector that is particularly serious, extremely bad in nature, and extremely large in amount.”
So, after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, who promoted and re-employed Sun Deshun? Who managed Sun Deshun? Who supervised Sun Deshun?
Those with direct leadership responsibilities include: Zhao Leji, then Minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, Chen Xi, who succeeded him as Minister of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, and Zhao Leji, then Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection; the person with overall responsibility is the leader of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping.
Since Xi launched the “anti-corruption crackdown” in January 2013, and since Xi launched the “financial tiger crackdown” in 2015, batches of senior CCP officials, including “financial tigers”, have been investigated and dealt with. , under Chen Xi’s nose, Sun Deshun actually embezzled nearly 1 billion yuan. What is the problem?
Absolute power will inevitably lead to absolute corruption.
The Xi administration insists that “the party, the government, the military, the people, the east, west, south, north, and central, the party leads everything.” This means that the party has absolute power. If the party manages everything, it will inevitably manage nothing well, and it will inevitably make foolish moves and be rife with corruption.
Xi killed the “financial tiger” – Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of Huarong Group, and another “financial tiger” emerged – Sun Deshun, the former president of China CITIC Bank. This is clear evidence.
This article represents only the views and statements of the author.
(Reprinted from The Epoch Times/Editor: Liu Mingxiang)
Tags: Wang Youqun root Financial Tiger Sun Deshuns embezzlement billion CITIC Bank Shadow Company Lai Xiaomin
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