Xu Rongmao

Xu Rongmao, , Hui Wing Mau in translation, is the Chinese entrepreneur and billionaire, and the founder and the chairman of Shimao Property, one of the largest property developer in Shanghai.

Biography

Xu grew up in Fujian Province, the oldest of the eight children. After graduating from high school during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, he was sent to the countryside to work as a barefoot doctor. In the 1970s, he emigrated to Hong Kong and worked as a textile worker.

In 1988, he claimed to invest RMB$1.2 million in a knitting factory in his hometown, but he intended to build a hotel instead, although investments in private hotels were forbidden at that time. However, as soon as the construction was completed, the government policy was changed to allow private owners to have their hotels. Then Xu became the owner of the first private three-star hotel in China. He then started to invest into developing residential complexes and resorts in Fujian.

In the 1990s, he pushed his real estate business into Beijing and Shanghai just before housing prices rose up.

In the 2000s, he expanded his business by listed companies and changing their names. They are Shimao Holdings and Shimao International , while the latter was privatized by him in 2007. His third company, Shimao Property, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2006.



On the 14 September 2008 it was rumoured he was interested in buying Newcastle United from under fire owner Mike Ashley.

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Reference

Sara Baiyu Chen

Baiyu is a Chinese-American: singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress. At the age of eight, her entire family settled in Maryland, and she was given the American name of “Sara”. While in the DC area Baiyu's interest in music and acting began to materialize. Sara Baiyu Chen has worked with , appeared in four independent films, and was a for mtvU's hit show "The Freshmen" for three years. She graduated from the number one ranked Princeton University in 2008 with a degree in Sociology.

Filmography

Television Appearances

* 2006-2008: mtvU’s “The Freshmen" – Herself

Robert Ng

Robert Ng Chee Siong born in 1952 in Singapore with family roots in Fujian, China, is the Chairman of the Sino Group, a position he has had since 1981.

He has been actively engaged in property development in Hong Kong during the last 30 years and is also the director of a number of subsidiaries and associated companies of the Company. Ng is the Chairman of Tsim Sha Tsui Properties Limited , the holding company of the Company, and the Chairman of Sino Hotels Holdings Limited . In addition, he is a Director of Yeo Hiap Seng Limited, which is listed in Singapore, and an Independent Non-executive Director of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited and a Non-executive Director of SCMP Group Limited. Ng is the father of Daryl Ng Win Kong, an Executive Director of the Company.

Robert Ng is the eldest son of Ng Teng Fong, the Singaporean real estate billionaire. Forbes listed the two as the 30th richest people in the world.

Philip Wong

Philip Wong Yu-hong, was born December 23, 1938 in Quanzhou, Fujian province in the People's republic of China. He is a legislator in Hong Kong as a member of the and a representative of the National People's Congress.

Criticism

Questionable academic credentials

On the Legislative council website, Wong is listed to have a master's degree in engineering from the University of California, Juris Doctor from Southland University and from the California Coast University.
Share market analyst requested an investigation be launched to check for his possible fake academic credentials. California Coast University bulletin claimed that it "does not require formal, on-campus residence or classroom attendance". Wong did receive the engineering degree on August 27, 1984. Southland University however is now defunct, and is a typical diploma mill offering
degrees with substandard or no academic studies. Albert Cheng had once asked in an October 2004 meeting whether his middle finger gesture has been referred to a committee for consideration. Fellow pro-Beijing supporter Jasper Tsang replied that he already apologized the day before.

Ng Teng Fong

Ng Teng Fong is a Singaporean real estate billionaire. His family owns the development corporation Sino Group.

Ng made his fortune with the help of one of Singapore's early billionaires, Eliya Thamby. Despite his fortune, he has a reputation for leading a frugal and unostentatious lifestyle. Though he controls at least a quarter of Singapore's housing market, Ng lives in the same house he has had for 30 years, and used to take his own lunch on to airplanes.
Today, he is one of Hong Kong's largest real estate developers, and he is one of the largest landholders of Far East Organization in Singapore. He also owns The Fullerton Singapore in Singapore. His older son, , and younger son, Philip, are in charge of the Hong Kong and Singapore businesses respectively.

Ng's family net worth was US$6.7 billion in 2007.

March Tian Boedihardjo

March Tian Boedihardjo is a child prodigy of descent. Boedihardjo was born c. 1998 in Hong Kong with family roots in Anxi, Fujian, China. He finished his s in at the age of nine, gaining As in Mathematics and Further Mathematics and a B in Statistics. He also gained 8 GCSEs, which he sat at the same time as his A-levels. March was accepted at Hong Kong Baptist University, making him the youngest ever university student in Hong Kong. The university designed a tailored 5-year curriculum programme for March, but on his first day of class he criticized his classes as too easy and unstimulating. He obtained B+ and A- in most of the mathematics course in his first year examination which entered him into the Dean's List, an honour dedicated to students with semester GPA of 3.00-3.49 and with no grade below C for a given semester. He will be conferred a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Science as well as a Master of Philosophy in Mathematics upon successful completion.

March comes from a very talented family, having a brother, Horatio, who enrolled at Oxford University at 13, after studying at Greene's Tutorial College, an institution primarily attended by 16-18 year olds in Oxford. The college specialises in one-to-one tuition, making it possible for March to attain his A levels at such a young age. March commented in an interview that his father does not have sufficient money to educate him at Oxford University.

Lai Changxing

Lai Changxing is a Chinese businessman and entrepreneur from Jinjiang, Fujian in the People's Republic of China. Lai was the head of the lucrative Yuanhua Group in the Special Economic Zone of Xiamen, which became implicated in a large smuggling and corruption scandal in the late 1990s. He has been described by several media organizations as "China's most wanted fugitive", while others maintain that he is the victim of a government witch hunt and that he is a "defender of the free market". He currently resides in Canada.

Yuanhua Group

Lai resided in Fujian province before he moved to Hong Kong in 1991. In 1994 Lai founded Yuanhua Group, a prominent group of upstart companies that took advantage of the economic boom of Xiamen's status as a Special Economic Zone. The group was heavily involved in the city's real estate, clubs, and owned the 88-story Yuanhua Tower and the Yuanhua International Centre. Lai had prominent connections with the Zhejiang power elite; he was also a member of the Provincial Consultative Conference.

Lai was believed to be the mastermind of a US$10 billion scheme, during which he allegedly bribed high level officials in the administration of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone in order to smuggle luxury cars and entire tanker-loads of oil into the country. Chinese authorities do not comment on allegations that Lai's Yuanhua group was also a conduit for clandestine military shipments, such as Silkworm missiles.

Canada

He fled to Canada in 1999 with his wife Zeng Mingna and their children, using a HKSAR passport ,,
Following heavy pressure from Beijing, Lai's and HKSAR passport were revoked in 2002 by the Hong Kong Government, saying that he obtained the status dishonestly.

The Chinese government has refused to drop the charges laid on him, and seeks his extradition. In the same corruption case, one of the largest in modern Chinese history, many high-level municipal and provincial officials were sacked and a few were sentenced to life in prison or death. The complex smuggling case has shifted the entire political scene in Fujian in the late 1990s. Others like Pierre Lemieux defended Lai, saying he is only a criminal because of the communist economic system in China. They say with a free market, there would be no need for smugglers like Lai.

Lai's attorney Winnipeg lawyer David Matas says it is doubtful Lai could ever get a fair trial in China, given the extent of communist party influence in the opaque judicial system. Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, architect of the crackdown on Xiamen-centred smuggling and having a very tough stance on corruption, has publicly stated that Lai deserves not just one but several deaths. Matas has now filed for an assessment of whether Lai's family is at risk if they are return to China. As long as immigration officials are considering this request, he says, they may not be removed from Canada.

Nonetheless Lai has repeatedly been denied political refugee status in Canada, most recently in 2005 September by the Supreme Court in Ottawa. This seconded the Federal court of Appeal, which in April had refused to hear Lai's appeal of the 2002 June Refugee Board decision, i.e. that Lai and Zeng didn't meet the standards to be designated as refugees.

While 14 others involved in the complex racket in China have been executed, China promised Canada, which has no capital punishment, that he would not be executed if extradited from Canada. The promise is suspect, given that Lai's brother died in a Fujian labour-camp after receiving a lesser sentence, a passing noted by Svend Robinson, then New Democratic Party member of parliament for Burnaby-Douglas.