THE first official acknowledgement came five days after the fact. The small announcement buried at the bottom of the second page of the Xinmin Evening News said simply: ''The managing director of Shanghai Volkswagen and Communist Party member, Senior Engineer, Comrade Fang Hong, unfortunately died of illness on March 9, 1993, aged 58.'' What the announcement did not say - but the whole of Shanghai had been talking about - was that Fang, a dynamic and influential businessman who had been at the head of China's most prestigious joint venture for more than two years, died after falling from his fifth floor office window.
''They say he jumped,'' said a taxi driver at the wheel of one of the company's Santana saloons. ''But the newspapers are not allowed to report that.'' Whether Fang jumped, was pushed or fell accidentally would perhaps never be known for sure but many informed people in Shanghai are convinced he was involved in some kind of financial scandal and was about to be investigated by the authorities.
It is understood Communist Party General Secretary Mr Jiang Zemin has ordered an in-depth investigation into Fang's death but it is unlikely the results will be made public.
The only certainty at the moment is that he hit the ground, as a number of witnesses can testify.
''I was driving from the engine plant past the office building when I saw a crowd gathering so I stopped to take a closer look,'' said a German technician who had worked at the plant for two years and had met Fang on numerous occasions.
''Fang Hong was lying on the concrete, half his face was gone, the other half was so smashed in he was barely recognisable.'' He reportedly fell to his death after going back to his office during a break in a senior management meeting that afternoon.