[Mr. Guo’s newly public persona — more akin to
a dissident Russian oligarch and highly unusual in Chinese politics — comes at
an awkward time, just before China’s president, Xi Jinping, and Mr. Trump are
to meet at the resort for their first summit meeting. The Chinese billionaire’s
ties to the club are a new twist in how President Trump’s business interests
can complicate diplomacy, in this case with arguably the world’s most important
bilateral relationship.]
By
Michael Forsythe
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Guo Wengui was in London
recently at the prestigious Mark’s Club in Mayfair,
which requires men to
wear jackets “at all times.” He said he was a member
of the club. Credit
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
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He is a billionaire who made his fortune in
real estate. He has been called a narcissist. He posts to Twitter — incessantly
— about politics and his battles against the media. Lately, he has been
spending time at a Florida resort named Mar-a-Lago.
His name?
Guo Wengui.
Mr. Guo is a Chinese property magnate who has
been living outside the country for more than two years. In recent weeks, he
has launched a broadside — in television interviews and on Twitter —
criticizing the effectiveness of the Communist Party’s fight against
corruption, all from the safety of financial capitals like London and New York.
He is also a member at President Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, and posted
photos of himself on the grounds last month with Mar-a-Lago’s managing
director.
Mr. Guo’s newly public persona — more akin to
a dissident Russian oligarch and highly unusual in Chinese politics — comes at
an awkward time, just before China’s president, Xi Jinping, and Mr. Trump are
to meet at the resort for their first summit meeting. The Chinese billionaire’s
ties to the club are a new twist in how President Trump’s business interests
can complicate diplomacy, in this case with arguably the world’s most important
bilateral relationship.
At Mar-a-Lago, moneymaking, socializing and
statecraft converged in February, when Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister,
conferred with Mr. Trump over a North Korean missile test in full view of the
club’s members. Entry into Mar-a-Lago will be more strict this time than during
Mr. Abe’s visit, said a United States official with knowledge of the
preparations for the meeting, who was aware of Mr. Guo’s remarks, but could
offer no details about the security protocols.
At the very least, it would be embarrassing
if Mr. Guo, who is also known as Miles Kwok, were to show up at the seaside
resort during the meeting Thursday and Friday. At worst, his presence could
incense Mr. Xi and the Chinese delegation. Mr. Guo left China during a
corruption scandal linked to the jailing of his political patron, a top
security official. Mr. Guo said his assets in China — he puts the figure at
more than $17 billion — were seized.
“Guo would certainly be a very disruptive
wild card at Mar-a-Lago,” said Christopher K. Johnson, a former senior China
analyst at the C.I.A. who is now at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington. Mr. Johnson said in an interview that China considered
Mr. Guo a criminal and sought his return, although there is no public record of
him being charged with a crime.
During Mr. Abe’s visit, club members and
guests were permitted to enter without undergoing all the stringent security
protocols imposed at the White House. The United States official, who was not
authorized to speak to the news media and asked for anonymity, did not know if
members would be barred from the grounds during the Xi-Trump meeting.
Mr. Guo, when asked, would not say whether he
intended to show up for the summit. Even if he is kept out, the vetting of a
president’s paying guests before a major summit meeting presents a staffing
challenge that no previous administration has faced. The allure of rubbing
shoulders with the rich and powerful is an attraction of Mar-a-Lago, which
recently doubled its initiation fee to $200,000. Mr. Trump has called it the
“Southern White House.”
Mr. Guo’s membership could be especially
sensitive because of the lengths China’s leaders go to stamp out any political
discussion that deviates from the Communist Party line, particularly remarks
about the wealth of top leaders. Mr. Guo has leveled specific accusations
against a former top party leader.
In two recent Chinese-language interviews and
on Twitter, Mr. Guo, while highly critical of many current and former Chinese
leaders, has praised Mr. Xi, or at least refrained from directly criticizing
him.
“I pray that President Xi’s visit is smooth,
for relations between the peoples of the United States and China to start a
great new era,” Mr. Guo said in a text message in response to questions from
The New York Times.
Mr. Guo is not the first Chinese tycoon to
leave the country in a cloud of controversy and decamp to the United States or
another Western country. Mr. Johnson said he was most likely second on a list
of prominent business executives Beijing was seeking to repatriate, behind the
younger brother of a top official who held a post equivalent to the White House
chief of staff. That man, Ling Wancheng, left China for the United States about
three years ago before the arrest of his brother, who is now serving a life
sentence for graft.
But Mr. Ling has stayed quiet and kept his
whereabouts secret. For the first two years of his exile, Mr. Guo did the same.
That all changed in late January, when he
activated his Twitter account and gave the first of two rambling interviews
with the Mirror Media Group, a Chinese-language news company based on Long
Island.
China has more billionaires than any other
country with the possible exception of the United States, but none as outspoken
and flamboyant as Mr. Guo. He has a penchant for posting photos of himself in
workout tights and camouflage, performing planks and other exercises. He sips
vintage French wine in front of a picture of an aviator glasses-wearing,
cigarette-smoking chimpanzee in his London office and likes to show off the
private jets he uses for his frequent trans-Atlantic flights. One American who
met with him described him as affable.
But Mr. Guo is anything but happy-go-lucky.
He built a fortune in the Darwinian world of Chinese real estate, and people
who crossed him soon rued the day. In 2006, he handed to the police a sex tape
of a Beijing deputy mayor who had disputed one of his land deals. The official
was imprisoned and Mr. Guo got the property, building the torch-shaped Pangu
Plaza next to Beijing’s Olympic Green, a landmark during the 2008 Summer Games.
He kept his extensive car collection in a
vast underground parking lot, arranging the dozens of Ferraris, Rolls-Royces,
Bentleys and Bugattis in petal shapes to show to visitors, said one person who
knows him.
He is in a long-running public battle with
China’s most prominent journalist, Hu Shuli, whose newsmagazine, Caixin,
reported in 2015 that Mr. Guo used his ties to Ma Jian, a former vice minister
in the country’s spy agency, to further his business interests. Mr. Ma was
expelled from the Communist Party and is being prosecuted on graft charges. Mr.
Guo accused Ms. Hu of being corrupt and working for a “behind the scenes” power
broker. Caixin sued Mr. Guo, saying he defamed Ms. Hu.
Mr. Guo claims that he was the victim of
corruption that went to the highest level of Chinese politics, the elite
standing committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo, but that the official in
question — now retired — has not been prosecuted. Mirror Media says its Chinese
audience reaches the hundreds of millions, making Mr. Guo’s assertions
particularly sensitive for Mr. Xi, who is trying to consolidate power before a
major Communist Party leadership meeting later this year.
“We have all been used as tools,” Mr. Guo
said in a March 8 interview.
Mr. Guo named names. His most eye-popping
statement is that his former business partner, now in jail, was backed by the
son of the Communist Party’s former top discipline official, He Guoqiang. He
also described an audiotape he obtained, which detailed threats his erstwhile
business partners were planning. “They said that they would beat Guo Wengui to
death, and to put Guo Wengui to death,” Mr. Guo said during the Mirror Media
interview.
Chinese billionaires living abroad are not
immune to the long reach of Beijing’s security apparatus. The day after Mr.
Guo’s first public broadcast in late January, another prominent billionaire,
Xiao Jianhua, was apparently abducted from his apartment at the Four Seasons
Hotel in Hong Kong, whisked across the border and taken into custody in
mainland China. Mr. Guo says he knows Mr. Xiao, and they have something in
common: business ties that intersect with top Chinese leaders.
Mr. Guo was in London last week at the
prestigious Mark’s Club in Mayfair, which requires men to wear jackets “at all
times.” He said he was a member there.
Earlier in March, he was at Mar-a-Lago,
posing for pictures. He posted photographs of himself with Bernd Lembcke, the
club’s managing director. During his stay, he also visited Bethesda-by-the-Sea,
an Episcopal church that the Trumps attend, and spent some time at an elegant
beachside home, decorated with an Asian motif and featured in Architectural
Digest that is now owned by a limited liability company tied to Victor Vargas,
a Venezuelan banker. Mr. Guo, posting on Twitter in Chinese, said he had done
business at the club, convening a meeting of his limited partnership company
there. Mr. Guo, in a Twitter message to The New York Times, said he was a
member, which was confirmed by a person briefed on the matter.
“Over the years, there have been many
memorable moments here,” Mr. Guo wrote of Mar-a-Lago. “I’m feeling a lot of
emotion. In the last few months a controversial businessman became the American
president. Why he wanted to become president I just don’t understand. But I
admire his persistent character. Don’t give up!”
Mark Landler contributed reporting, and Kiki
Zhao contributed research.