The guanxi game has defined China's modern business culture — and no one played it better than Xu Jiayin, the CEO of Evergrande. Now, however, the game seems to have changed on him.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
In 2002, when Xu Jiayin wanted to take his property business public for the first time, he teamed up with a company linked to the brother of Wen Jiabao, who was about to take over as China’s premier. Years later, after his company, Evergrande, had grown into China’s second largest property developer, three Hong Kong billionaires who Xu played poker with gave him cash infusions to help settle some debts. When Xu took a wild leap into electric vehicles, he pitched the project to Jack Ma at a
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