Desmond Shum made a fortune in China, investing in Ping An, helping build Beijing’s Airport City Logistics Park and creating a hotel and business complex called the Genesis Beijing. His business partner was his ex-wife, Whitney Duan (aka Duan Weihong), a politically-connected billionaire who disappeared from the streets of Beijing in 2017. I met Shum in October 2012, while I was working on an investigation for The New York Times about the enormous wealth held by relatives of then-Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. At the time, Shum and Duan disputed aspects of my reporting.Shum has written in his book that Zhang Beili told him I went to Hong Kong and got a box of documents from associates of Bo Xilai. This is a ridiculous claim. I never got any box of documents from Hong Kong or anywhere else, and no one aided me. Most of my research was based on the government's corporate records, which I ordered. Anyone could have done it, and I still have all the receipts! But now, Shum has published a re
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