In mid-October, China’s most powerful officials were locked in intense backroom negotiations over who would join the elite Politburo Standing Committee at the upcoming Party Congress. Everyone who was anyone in the Chinese Communist Party was there. 

But Wang Qishan, China’s vice president and once one of Xi Jinping’s closest deputies, was in Kazakhstan.

Though it was a seemingly routine diplomatic visit — Wang attended a multilateral Asian security summit and met with the Kazakh president — the timing of the trip seemed ominous. With only a few days to go before the start of the Congress in Beijing, and with stringent Covid quarantine requirements still in place, speculation swirled that Wang — a man who has been near the zenith of power in China for two decades — might not be present at the meeting. 

In the West, where Wang is revered for his candor and competence in pushing market reforms, concern over his political standing has been slowly building. Multiple people in his orbit have been imprisoned or investigated in recent years, suggesting to some observers that Xi Jinping might be tightening the noose around him. 

Wang did end up attending the Congress; pictures show the 74-year-old seated four chairs to the right of Xi Jinping at the closing ceremony. But the fact that some thought he wouldn’t show up underscores how his stature has fallen — from Xi’s trusted sidekick and an internationally respected economic policy maker to a semi-black sheep with little official remit. Although many experts on Chinese politics doubt that Wang himself will face arrest (there have been no allegations of wrongdoing against him), his sidelining highlights just how drastically China’s landscape has changed in recent years. 

“He was one of the core reformers,” says James McGregor, an author and China-focused business consultant. “He represents what China could have been: a real competitor in the world, open and yet still with its own system and its own integrity. Now China stands in opposition to all the systems and institutions that Wang was tying China together with.” 

For many China watchers, this has been an unwelcome development. Politically, Wang earned a reputation as the best China has to offer: a powerful advocate of market reforms and foreign investment. He rapidly ascended through the ranks of the Chinese bureaucracy — first by managing state-owned banks and then in senior political leadership positions, including mayor of Beijing — and he excelled in crisis management jobs, including handling a financial debacle in Guangdong in the late 1990s and the 2003 SARS epidemic. 

“He was always handed the worst in China and always ended up on top,” says Christopher Johnson, a former senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency who now runs China Strategies Group.

In short, people on the left [in China] support Wang Qishan, people on the right [in China] support Wang Qishan, and people abroad support Wang Qishan.

Feng Shengping, a Chinese political commentator based in the U.S.

Wang is also known for his shrewd navigation of the Communist Party’s internal power struggles. Despite his association with Zhao Ziyang’s pro-reform faction, his career survived the fallout from the Tiananmen Massacre (and Zhao being put under house arrest), and in the 1990s, he managed to become one of premier Zhu Rongji’s top protégés. He later secured a place on the coveted Politburo Standing Committee at the 2012 Party Congress — during a period that was marked by extraordinary political infighting — and followed it up by assuming the most important role of his career: overseeing a sweeping anti-corruption drive, one of Xi Jinping’s top priorities.

“He is the Wayne Gretzky of the Chinese bureaucracy,” says Ryan Hass, a former National Security Council official who now works at the Brookings Institution. “He wasn’t traveling to wear the puck was; he was traveling to where it was going to go.”

But the current perception that Wang has been benched is especially distressing for the American business community. Stemming from his early days in China’s banking sector, where he forged relationships with people like Hank Paulson, who served as CEO of Goldman Sachs and then U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Ray Dalio, the hedge fund billionaire who founded Bridgewater Associates, Wang has maintained a strong connection to an elite group of global executives and served as an interlocutor for those navigating China’s complex market. He even came to be known as “the barbarian handler” for his special ability to befriend foreign business people.¹Inside China, Wang also earned the nickname ‘guiziliu’ (鬼子六) — a title originally given to the late-Qing prince who presided over China’s treaty negotiations with the imperial powers.

“Wang has been the designated barbarian handler for a long time,” says Daniel Russel, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Every billionaire who has been invested in China [and] who harbors a fantasy that they are special meets with him and believes they are his special friend.”

Indeed, with his unflappable demeanor and charisma, Wang has earned a reputation for being universally liked. In interviews with The Wire, dozens of financiers, former officials and academics who have interacted with him over the years describe his success as stemming from a sincere desire to see China succeed. They say his most endearing quality — his tendency to speak from the heart and not merely recite Party talking points — is due to the fact that, for most of his career, he was the one writing the talking points. Feng Shengping, a Chinese political commentator based in the U.S., puts it simply: “In short, people on the left [in China] support Wang Qishan, people on the right [in China] support Wang Qishan, and people abroad support Wang Qishan.”

But what about the one person whose support matters most in today’s China? Wang has been friends with Xi Jinping ever since they met as young men during the Cultural Revolution, when they were both dispatched to Yan’an, a destitute part of northwestern Shaanxi Province. Their relationship was reportedly forged through books: Xi traveled 50 miles between their villages to exchange reading materials with Wang, including a book on economics. When Xi stayed the night, the two shared a quilt, according to accounts by Chinese state media.

Xi now seems to be leaving Wang out in the cold. As a result, the question many are asking is if Wang Qishan is the last of his kind.

‘NEVER MISSED A BEAT’

With his high cheekbones and expressive eyebrows, Wang has the perfect wry grin. He was happy to show it off one June evening in 2008, as he gave the keynote speech at a banquet hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. 

The fourth round of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) — a brainchild of then-U.S. Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson — had just concluded, and Wang, who spoke for 40 minutes without notes, was playing to the audience masterfully, even as he waded into U.S. politics. At the time, Barack Obama had just defeated Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries — a historic race — and John McCain was the leading Republican candidate. 

“You are having a presidential election now: An old man, a black guy and a woman in the primaries, and now you have narrowed it down to two candidates, the old man and the black guy,” Wang said, pausing to take in the crowd’s surprised laughter. “I know their names, but I think it’s simply more vivid for me to call them an old man and a black guy.”

Wang Qishan gesturing during the banquet hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., June 18, 2008. Credit: C-SPAN

Wang does vivid well. In the U.S., where many people view Chinese officials as cogs in the machine, Wang has stood out for his individuality, magnetism and willingness to go off script. 

“Wang was so distinct because his speaking style made you feel like you were really talking to him, not someone just reading off a speech,” says Taiya Smith, who served as U.S. coordinator for the Strategic Economic Dialogue. 

Wang’s special mix of confidence and charm belies his relatively humble and wonky origins. Although he married into a princeling family — his wife is Yao Mingshan, the daughter of Yao Yilin, a staunchly conservative former Politburo Standing Committee member and vice premier — Wang is the son of an engineer, and a historian by training. He initially made a name for himself in 1980, when he and three other young intellectuals co-wrote a paper suggesting that the weaknesses of the planned economy were inherent to its nature. The paper was well received by the new premier, Zhao Ziyang, who had just been appointed with a mandate to roll out rural reforms across the country, and the “Four Gentlemen,” as the paper’s authors came to be known, were given key roles at new research centers. 

Wang landed at the State Council’s Rural Development Research Center, a leading reform think tank under the direction of Du Runsheng, China’s “father of rural reform,” and a close ally of premier Zhao.

“[Du] seized Wang Qishan and made him his confidant, promoting him up the ranks in order to establish a safe and unimpeded hotline to Yao Yilin — the patriarch of the planned economy and powerful economic figure on the State Council,” wrote He Weiling, a researcher who worked with Wang in the 1980s, in a memoir published in 2016. 

His reputation now well established, Wang left the Rural Development Research Center in 1988, when the World Bank started looking for reform-minded institutions in China it could channel funding into. Wang established the China Agricultural Development Trust and Investment Co (CADTIC)²The organization was also referred to as CATIC. and promptly received a $300 million loan to invest in the country’s rural development. 

Early World Bank evaluations of CADTIC’s performance emphasized the political connections of its leaders as one reason for its success. “In the first six months of its existence, [CADTIC] has indeed made remarkable progress in building a core organization to handle its diverse activities,” read one report. “Much credit goes to [CADTIC’s] dynamic management allowing, of course, for the success that goes with high level contacts which CADTIC enjoys in the government and political circles.”

Although CADTIC was mostly focused on rural investment, Wang also used the company to stay connected to the country’s fast-moving financial developments. When a group of young, western-educated businessmen set out to create China’s first stock market in 1989, for example, Wang pitched in CADTIC’s money and support and brought in other state investors. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, made a “small donation” to the group, and many of the individuals involved would go on to influential positions in business and politics, including Zhou Xiaochuan, who went on to be governor of China’s central bank, and Wang Boming, who ran the organization, the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC), and later became the publisher of Caijing Magazine. 

But CADTIC’s early success was short-lived. After troops opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, the World Bank’s shareholders imposed restrictions on the types of loans that could be extended in China.³CADTIC was merged with another state-owned firm in 1989 and continued to receive some World Bank funding. But in 1996, mismanagement and debt problems, including an embezzlement probe, forced CADTIC into bankruptcy. CCB swept in to absorb its debt. Wang reportedly personally oversaw its cleanup.

Wang left to become vice governor of China Construction Bank (CCB), a leading state-owned commercial bank. At CCB, Wang once again had a platform to experiment with new financial services and to develop his connections with overseas dealmakers. In 1992, he started facilitating negotiations with Morgan Stanley over the creation of the China International Capital Corporation (CICC), a first-of-its-kind joint venture investment bank with CCB and the Wall Street bank as the leading partners. 

Such a grand experiment needed political cover, but by then, Wang had become an acolyte of Zhu Rongji, then vice-premier of the State Council.⁴Du Rensheng, Wang’s previous patron, was sidelined by Party hardliners following the June 4th massacre. But Wang appeared to remain loyal to Du, participating in a high profile event organized by his former protégés on his 99th birthday in 2012. Zhu was key to making CICC a reality: he approved the joint venture, pushed its approval through the State Council, and once it was established in 1995, put Wang in charge of managing the partnership.⁵Zhu Rongji’s son, Levin Zhu, later joined the bank and became its CEO.

Morgan Stanley executives remember Wang being an extremely effective advocate for China’s own interests in the project. 

“Qishan, he just never missed a beat,” Jack Wadsworth, then chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, said in a 2019 oral history. While Morgan Stanley had negotiated the right to appoint the CEO, Wang was the chairman. “In the first board meeting Qishan reminded us that under Chinese law the chairman is the CEO. I should have looked that up before, but it’s true. So from then on it became clear that on issues that he cared about he was in charge.” 

He had an EQ that was through the roof. He would put away his notes and start telling jokes and ingratiating the foreigners. He knew how to push those buttons, and get the warm feeling that he needed.

William Zarit, a former Commerce Department official

The following year, Wang reminded Morgan Stanley once again who was running the show. Amid persistent infighting at CICC between the Chinese and Western partners, Wang personally asked Morgan Stanley’s arch-rival, Goldman Sachs, to lead the blockbuster IPO of China Telecom. In his memoir, Goldman’s then-CEO, Hank Paulson, called the 1997 listing a “true landmark,” which “signaled the international markets’ approval of the country’s economic direction.” 

Wang had a penchant for getting deals done. With his help, for instance, Goldman Sachs later set up a joint venture brokerage firm in Beijing led by Wang’s close friend, the investment banker Fang Fenglei, who was soon joined at the firm by Wang’s relative Hong Ning.⁶Hong Ning left Goldman Gaohua Securities in 2021.

In 1997, Wang was promoted to vice-governor of Guangdong Province, the economic powerhouse in China’s south. And starting there, Wang embarked on a series of crisis management positions that earned him the nicknames “Fire Brigade Chief” and “Mr. Fix It.”

First, he successfully managed the bankruptcy and restructuring of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corp (GITIC) and Guangdong Enterprises. GITIC had grown into the second largest trust company in China, but was saddled with debt from an unwieldy mish-mash of businesses. After Zhu Rongji declined to bail it out in 1998, resulting in the first formal bankruptcy of a major financial entity in China’s history, Wang was tasked with managing the fallout. 

His transparency with the company’s creditors formed the playbook for his later crisis management roles, including in Hainan in 2002, where he was sent after the collapse of the island’s real estate market, and in Beijing in 2003, where he was posted as mayor to deal with the SARS epidemic and coordinate the complex preparations for the 2008 Olympics.

“Speaking to the public audience is central to Wang’s understanding of how you manage things,” says Deborah Seligsohn, who worked in the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou during the GITIC crisis, and later at the U.S. embassy in Beijing during SARS. “People had confidence that he was someone who knew what he was doing and could get the job done.” 

The mayoral post in Beijing, which he held from 2004 to 2007, also allowed Wang plenty of opportunities to interact with foreign business people looking to gain access to the capital. He created an ‘advisory board’ to the mayor’s office and invited prominent people — like Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of AIG — to participate. Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management also put together an advisory board, with Wang as an honorary member, and stacked it with U.S. CEOs eager to get to know him. 

“He had an EQ that was through the roof,” says William Zarit, who worked at the U.S. embassy in Beijing and was a Commerce Department official before joining the Cohen Group, a consultancy. “He would put away his notes and start telling jokes and ingratiating the foreigners. He knew how to push those buttons, and get the warm feeling that he needed.” 

But when Xi Jinping swept into power in 2013, Wang’s time as the back-slapping operator was over. It was his turn to play the bad cop.

THE LOYAL SERVANT?

Xi was determined to clean up the corruption plaguing the top levels of Chinese politics, which he saw as an existential risk to the Communist Party. It was a risky gambit, and he needed a trusted ally to take it on. Wang was an obvious choice. 

Right from the start, it was clear that Wang approached his new assignment with zeal. One of his first major acts as head of the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection (CCDI) was to investigate Zhou Yongkang, the powerful former head of China’s security apparatus, a move which sent shockwaves through China’s political landscape. No current or former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Party’s highest decision-making body, had ever been investigated for graft — going after Zhou showed that nobody was safe. Wang was also in charge of the prosecution of Bo Xilai, the former Party Secretary for Chongqing who was viewed as the main political rival to Xi Jinping.

“Wang was really tough in that role,” says Johnson, the former CIA analyst. “He went after it with glee.”

During Wang’s five-year tenure at CCDI, he investigated 35 members of the Central Committee, which comprises the top decision makers in China. And true to his operating style, he did not hold back from talking about the work, which continued at an unrelenting pace through Xi’s first term. In a 2016 speech, Wang said that “systematic corruption” continued to grip some government agencies, and he denounced disloyal Party members, including cadres that “don’t believe in Marxism-Leninism but believe in ghosts and gods.” 

It’s interesting to think, why did Wang Qishan go the route he did [by sticking with Xi]? But at that moment, at the age he was, what’s his choice?

Desmond Shum

As the public face of the anti-corruption campaign, “Wang Qishan took a lot of bullets for Xi,” says Feng, the Chinese political commentator based in the United States. Although he was formally ranked sixth on the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, Wang’s closeness to Xi made political observers start to see him as ranked second only to Xi.

“By the end of the first five years, instead of the Xi-Li administration [referring to Li Keqiang, the premier], it was de-facto the Xi-Wang administration,” says Feng.

But as the anti-corruption campaign dragged on in both duration and intensity, it became clear that Xi was using it to brutally take down political rivals. Since 2013, over 4 million Party members have been investigated in China. Given Wang’s reformer pedigree, many wondered if cracks were emerging in his loyalty to Xi. 

“It was always clear that he was disgusted by misbehavior and corruption in the Party,” says Anthony Saich, a China expert at Harvard University who met Wang on a number of occasions. “I heard him talking about that — that Communist Party members should not be in it for themselves. But I don’t think he was in it for eliminating rivals.” 

Desmond Shum, a businessman who made deals with the country’s political elite before leaving China and publishing a tell-all, Red Roulette, notes that many Americans have too rosy a view of Wang. Anyone who reaches that level of Chinese politics, he says, is a “power animal” not an idealist. 

“In the West, a lot of people project a lot of things on him,” Shum explains. “It’s interesting to think, why did Wang Qishan go the route he did [by sticking with Xi]? But at that moment, at the age he was, what’s his choice? If you want to do anything significant, you have to ride with Xi. And that’s what he decided to do.” 

Russel, from the Asia Society, notes that it’s not surprising that many in the West have a more charitable reading of Wang. “He is very likable; he does not come across as an ideologue. Americans are predisposed to intuit that he couldn’t possibly believe [in Xi’s power grab],” he says. “The question is, is there any evidence for that? Under Wang Qishan, CCDI systematically purged Xi’s enemies and went after people with other factions.” 

Many experts note that although Wang may not agree with everything Xi does, he has always been a loyal servant. But that might not be enough.

“If there’s somebody who would present a legitimate challenge to the Xi dictatorship, it would be Wang Qishan,” says Shum. “Nobody else has the standing. Wang Qishan has standing. He became a target because of who he is.”

BLACK STAINS

When Wang walked to the stage at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in 2018, his characteristic confidence and humor were notably missing.

Michael Bloomberg had just introduced Wang as the “most influential political figure in China,” and several people told The Wire that this description was begging for trouble with his boss back in China. Wang spent several minutes awkwardly trying to correct the record.

“Before delivering my address, I would like to say that when Mr. Bloomberg introduced me, he flattered me,” said Wang. “As I have gotten older and more mature, I have learned it is important to remain sober minded in the face of flattery, and thick skinned in the face of criticism… Famous people, wealthy people, handsome men and pretty women are flattered and criticized. It is very important to remain sober minded and not get carried away.”

That year, Wang moved into the vice president position, which in China is largely a ceremonial role, after retiring from the Politburo Standing Committee and CCDI. 

If there is a black stain on Wang Qishan, it was always his connection to HNA Group.

Fraser Howie, author

Some observers think that Wang’s trouble started because of accusations made by Guo Wengui, the controversial billionaire-turned-dissident. After Guo left China in 2014, he claimed he had inside information about the Chinese political elite, including about Wang’s philandering and his family’s hidden stake in HNA Group, once one of the country’s largest conglomerates. Though Guo provided no proof of those allegations, they were widely disseminated through social media. 

“If there is a black stain on Wang Qishan, it was always his connection to HNA Group,” says Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise. 

Wang’s connection to HNA stems back to his time leading CADTIC in the late 1980s. When the World Bank loans dried up and Wang left for CCB, several of his deputies went on to form a new company in Hainan that, according to a memoir by Huang Xiaohe, a former CADTIC employee, provided the venture capital for Hainan Airlines, which eventually became HNA.

One of the deputies was Chen Feng, HNA’s founder and chairman, and according to Huang, Wang and Chen remained friends.

In the 2010s, HNA emerged seemingly out of nowhere to go on a massive overseas spending spree. It amassed $145 billion in assets, including stakes in Hilton Hotels and Deutsche Bank. But as its debts mounted — and amid unanswered questions about its opaque corporate structure — banks stopped doing business with the conglomerate in 2017. And in January 2021, the company declared bankruptcy. 

Eight months later, police in Hainan Province announced they had arrested Chen Feng and chief executive Adam Tan (Tan Xiangdong) for unspecified “suspected crimes.” 

Wang’s nephew-in-law, Yao Qing, was detained for several months in 2022 partly due to his connection to HNA, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. And last year, two veteran bankers who had worked under Wang Qishan at China Construction Bank were also arrested. CCB was one of the banks that helped to finance HNA Group’s overseas investment spree.

Wang doesn’t have children of his own, but others in his personal circle have been targeted in recent years. In 2016, Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken property tycoon and friend of Wang’s, criticized Xi’s announcement that Chinese media organizations must pledge “absolute loyalty” to the Party. He had his CCP membership suspended for a year. Then in 2020, after he criticized Beijing’s handling of the pandemic and called Xi a “clown,” he was arrested and sentenced to 18 years in prison for graft, taking bribes and misusing public funds.

The most pointed arrest, however, was Dong Hong, who began working for Wang in the 1990s and went on to become his deputy at CCDI. In 2021, Hong was convicted of taking $71 million in bribes, and the official announcement of his sentence included a long list of his roles under Wang — including stints at GITIC, in Hainan, and at CCDI — which some political experts saw as an explicit threat to Wang. 

“You go after someone’s secretary as a warning,” says the Asia Society’s Russel. “But it is more than a warning, because the secretary has all sorts of stuff about the principal. This is the guy who has the combination lock to the safe in your wife’s bathroom. If someone’s aide gets rolled up, it means [the principal] doesn’t have the power to protect them.”

Also in 2021, anti-corruption investigators began a series of probes into at least 25 financial institutions, where many of Wang’s former associates held key economic positions. The move could be interpreted as an assault on Wang’s power base. 

“What is clear is that if Xi wanted to protect Wang’s faction he could have,” says Victor Shih, associate professor of political economy at the University of California, San Diego and an expert on elite Chinese politics. “That’s not being done right now.” 

What’s also clear is that Wang’s de facto absence has been widely felt. From Covid restrictions to Beijing’s series of crackdowns on private industry, many foreigners have felt confused and discouraged by the current climate in China.

“Companies are trying to figure out, ‘what are we going to do here [in China] now,’” says Zarit, at the Cohen Group. “They need a good Wang Qishan to talk to. ”

“[Wang] has the ability to talk with foreigners in a way that is understandable, and the ability to work in his system,” says John Holden, who now leads the China practice at McLarty Associates and previously served as the president of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. “Now, one looks, perhaps in vain, to find people like him in the system.” 

This, Howie notes, is the most troubling aspect of the current situation. While those who know him worry for Wang’s future and speculate about his downfall, his absence has highlighted what China writ-large is missing. 

“Here we are a generation or more later,” Howie says. “Why is China not overrun with competent people taking Wang’s role? Who is being called in as the trouble shooter, as the straight talker? Maybe they are there. But if they are, I don’t see them.” 

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