Wanting Qu’s mother arrested 'in connection to sale of state assets'
Zhang Mingjie oversaw the restructuring of a state-run enterprise in 2009 when she was the deputy chief of a district in Harbin city in Northeastern China.
The arrest of Zhang Mingjie, mother of Wanting Qu, the pop star girlfriend of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, was “closely related” to the selling of more than 2.3 billion yuan worth of state assets at a low price of 61 million, according to the Chinese newspaper, the National Business Daily.
Zhang Mingjie, the mother of pop singer Qu Wanting, oversaw the restructuring of a state-run enterprise in 2009 when she was the deputy chief of a district in Harbin city in Northeastern China and sold a state-run farm to a private company at 61.6 million yuan, the newspaper reported. The land use right of the farm was worth 2.3 billion yuan.
The company was not eligible to bid for the farm because of its undersized registered capital, according to the newspaper.
An official told the Daily that Zhang’s arrest was “just” because of the project and investigators have asked another official who worked on the project about how the restructuring plan was made and how the 61.6 million was calculated.
The private company later set up a real estate developer, Xianfa Real Estate, to develop apartment buildings on the former farmland in July 2011, despite Zhang’s initial pledge that the farm would remain for agricultural use after restructuring.
The newspaper also claimed Zhang’s brother holds important positions at the real estate company and her niece also works in that company.