South China Morning Post

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World

Politics is all in the family for corruption fugitive Michael Ching Mo Yeung

Vancouver developer has donated widely to Canadian parties, while daughter Linda Ching - photographed with would-be PM Justin Trudeau - is BC president of Liberal youth wing

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Linda Ching with Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau (left); her father, Michael Ching Mo Yeung in 2011 and as he appears in an Interpol Red Notice (top right); and Michael Ching Mo Yeung's father, the late disgraced Hebei leader Cheng Weigao (bottom right). Photos: SCMP, Twitter
Ian Youngin Vancouver

UPDATE: Michael Ching Mo Yeung has commenced legal proceedings against South China Morning Post in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.  Mr Ching alleges in his lawsuit that this article contains false and defamatory statements, and that the conduct of South China Morning Post and its reporter was malicious, reprehensible, high-handed, and blameworthy.

For Vancouver real estate developer Michael Ching Mo Yeung, politics is a family affair.

The wealthy 45-year-old businessman - who was identified by the South China Morning Post last week as Chinese corruption fugitive Cheng Muyang – is the only son of the late Cheng Weigao, who rose to become governor and Communist Party secretary of Hebei province before being expelled from the party in 2003 after a graft investigation.

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Online databases show that Ching - who relocated to Canada in 1996, a year after the allegations against his father were launched - has donated thousands of dollars to Canadian political parties. Ching, who admitted over the weekend that he is wanted by mainland authorities but denies guilt, was photographed with then federal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff at a 2011 event in the Liberal Party leader’s honour.

Meanwhile, Ching’s young adult daughter, Linda Ching, has emerged as an aspiring political figure in her own right, as president of the Young Liberals of Canada in British Columbia.

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A string of Liberal MPs have posed for photos with Linda Ching - including party leader and would-be Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who was snapped alongside the political science student at a gay pride march in Vancouver last August. In October 2012, as a 16-year-old, Linda Ching was chosen to ask the opening question to Trudeau at an event in Richmond, BC, while he was campaigning to head the party. She reportedly declared in English, French and Putonghua that her first vote would be for Trudeau, who had just one day before declared his candidacy for the Liberal leadership once held by his father, Pierre.

“@JustinTrudeau and I getting ready to march in #VanPride with #TeamTrudeau!,” Linda Ching said of the 2014 photo, which she posted on Twitter and now uses as her profile picture.

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