Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon join forces to imply Beijing involvement in Wang Jian’s death
- The ex-Trump adviser compared Wang’s death to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal
- Bannon said he partnered with Guo to draw attention to the disappearance of high-profile investors in China and the country’s growing overseas investments
The much-discussed shock death earlier this year of Wang Jian, the former chairman of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, was not an accident, according to a fugitive Chinese tycoon known for making allegations about corruption in China.
Self-made billionaire Guo Wengui, who fled to the United States in 2014, made the claim at a press conference on Tuesday in New York. He was joined at the event by Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist.
Wang, 57, died on July 3 during a trip to the village of Bonnieux in the Provence region of France. Law enforcement officials there concluded that he fell off a wall and have ruled out foul play.
Guo sought to support his allegation by presenting footage collected from surveillance cameras in the village, which he claimed contradicted the conclusions of the French investigation. However, the film appeared to show nothing out of the ordinary and included only footage of people moving around in and around the hotel in which Wang was staying. Guo offered no other evidence.
Wang’s death attracted considerable attention as he was regarded by some as the mastermind behind HNA’s ambitious global shopping spree. HNA had been on a leveraged buying binge until about a year ago, spending an estimated US$40 billion since 2015 on a 25 per cent stake in the Hilton hotel group, shares in Deutsche Bank, several golf courses and four pieces of land in Hong Kong that sold for record prices.
