‘Red princess’ Wan Baobao - the bling and the bliss

Last month, an event was held at the St Regis Macao hotel to announce the first St Regis Connoisseur in China. The title is bestowed upon individuals who act as ambassadors for the hotel brand. Current connoisseurs include British jazz player Jamie Cullum, Canadian-raised fashion designer Jason Wu and Keren Craig (whom I had to look up on Wikipedia – she’s the other half of American fashion label Marchesa, along with Georgina Chapman, also a connoisseur).

The press release heralded the arrival of the “first ever Chinese St Regis Connoisseur” which, as Jason Wu was born in Taipei and lived there until he was nine, could be a matter for some discussion. It wasn’t the only debatable moment during proceedings, but more of that later. The new connoisseur is Bao Bao Wan – Wan Baobao in Chinese form – a high-end-jewellery designer. Amid all her baubles, however, it’s probably her family tree that glitters brightest, at least within China: her grandfather was Wan Li, a vice-premier in the 1980s and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress until he retired, in 1993.

I looked him up, too. In Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine (1996), Jasper Becker – former Beijing bureau chief for the South China Morning Post – mentions Wan Li twice. When Wan became Anhui’s party secretary after Mao Zedong’s death, in 1976, he issued six guidelines that eased restrictions on private farming in the province. Their success earned Deng Xiaoping’s blessing and were replicated else­where. Becker suggests this is the moment when Mao’s commune system was abandoned. In 1980, food supplies in Tibet improved when Wan went to Lhasa with Hu Yaobang, then the party’s secretary general, and sacked those in charge. Not, perhaps, a global hero but not a complete stooge, either.

Because of her illustrious lineage, Wan Baobao was raised within the confines of Zhongnanhai, the government compound set in the former imperial gardens next to Beijing’s Forbidden City. For that reason, she’s sometimes referred to as a “red princess” or, in a 2009 China Daily piece that I read with some interest, as a “red scion”. Wan told the paper that she used to dream of becoming a bus conductor because they had “extremely beautiful bags”. Her family background was “a halo” but she longed for people to know her inner self.

“For anyone in a family like mine, all the burdens are nothing compared with the bliss,” she explained. “We benefit so much, not necessarily materially but mentally. It’s priceless.”