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Authorities in China are moving to seize more than 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) in assets belonging to a former high-ranking official from the northeastern province of Heilongjiang who has fled to the United States, claiming to be a persecuted critic of the government.
According to the Mudanjiang Intermediate People's Court, former Jixi vice mayor Li Chuanliang stands accused of holding illegal assets including real estate, companies and engineering equipment worth 3.1 billion yuan, according to details it published in the Oct. 11 edition of the People's Court Daily, a specialist legal newspaper.
Li, 61, who has served as vice mayor of both Jixi and Hegang cities, stands accused of embezzling public assets, accepting bribes and appropriating public funds by awarding contracts to companies he secretly owned, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.
Li fled China in 2018, two years before China issued an international "red notice" arrest warrant for him via Interpol.
But unlike many former officials targeted by ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, Li has fought back, lawyered up, had the red notice canceled, and claims he is being persecuted because he witnessed widespread official corruption during his time in office.
Now, the authorities are moving to confiscate what they say are his "illegal gains," something that usually takes place only after a person has been convicted of corruption by a court.
"Since the investigation began in 2020, authorities have frozen over 1.4 billion yuan (US$197 million) of his funds and seized 1,021 properties, 27 parcels of land, eight forest plots, 38 vehicles and 10 sets of mechanical equipment," the China Daily reported.
The confiscation of the assets will go ahead if Li fails to present himself for trial within the next six months.
‘Let the bullets fly’
But Li told Radio Free Asia that he hasn't received any legal papers regarding the alleged case against him.
"They haven't actually taken any action against me," he said in an interview on Tuesday.
"The point of weaving this yarn about these assets and these apartments is firstly revenge, secondly, robbery, thirdly, to intimidate and fourthly, to send out a warning," Li said. "Let the bullets fly -- I'm a free agent now and have the opportunity to clarify and explain."
"I think the whole system is rotten to the core, and that these officials are lawless," he said. "I definitely want more democracy, more freedom, more transparency, more openness, and more justice in China."
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While the investigation began in 2020, Li hasn't even been able to hire a lawyer in China to represent him.
"They would need to formally prosecute me and notify me before I can hire a lawyer," Li said. "But they never have."
Since Li fled the country, the authorities have prosecuted dozens of Li's relatives and former associates instead, according to a lawyer representing one of them, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
The lawyer said that the authorities are acting illegally, and that many of the accused had done nothing wrong.
"You say this person has committed a crime, so you need to convict him first," a lawyer representing the family who asked not to be identified told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. "Only then can you start the process for confiscating his assets, according to the Criminal Procedure Law."
"Right now, they're trying to confiscate his assets before the trial has even been held, which is totally illegal," the lawyer said, adding that they are worried the authorities could try him in absentia.
Online searches by RFA Mandarin turned up no cases against Li filed by the Heilongjiang provincial state prosecutor's office, which approved his formal arrest in absentia in September 2020.
Guilty by association
The sheer scale of the allegations has sparked a storm of outrage on Chinese social media platforms, but Li claimed many of the properties listed were legitimately owned and operated by him and his relatives.
"A lot of those funds and assets were run in total compliance with the law and regulations by either myself, my relatives or my friends," Li told Radio Free Asia. But he said he had never heard of many of the assets listed by the Mudanjiang court.
"I don't know anything about a lot of them, but they may belong to my partners or their affiliated companies," he said. "All of the assets I know about are unproblematic."
The lawyer said some of the properties listed were part of a residential complex developed by Li but still unsold, but that the authorities had listed each apartment separately, giving the impression of a much longer list.
He said the government appears to be considering the assets of anyone connected to Li as fair game, as if they were guilty by association.
"How come everyone else's money is all included in there?" he said.
Xia Ming, politics professor at New York's City University, said Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive typically targets Xi's political rivals, rather than seeking to root out rampant graft throughout the system.
"Xi Jinping wants to enhance his personal reputation and build his legitimacy by playing the anti-corruption card, but I don't think it's working," Xia said, adding that public anger is simmering over the current economic downturn.
"This decline has done damage to everyone, and people are disgusted," he said. "They link the current failure of Xi's anti-corruption campaign to the incompetence and hypocrisy throughout the Communist Party system."
Criticizing the Chinese government
In a 2022 statement, Li's U.S. lawyer Michelle Estlund said he was being targeted for giving media interviews criticizing the Chinese government after he arrived in the United States.
Li fled to the United States in 2020 with the assistance of the U.S.-based Chinese Democratic Party, Estlund's law firm said in a news release at the time.
"Upon his arrival to the United States, Mr. Li spoke out against the Chinese government and its corruption," the statement said. "He gave multiple interviews, criticizing both the CCP and the Chinese government’s corruption and its attempts to cover up certain aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak."
The authorities filed the first charges against Li "a few weeks" after his first media interview, it said.
In 2020, Li gave an interview (in Chinese) to RFA Cantonese, in which he spoke about rampant official corruption during his tenure, with officials snapping up confiscated private-sector assets like coal mines after targeting the owners with allegations of corruption or other wrong-doing.
"The local leaders have the final say in who gets investigated; they are selectively anti-corruption," he said. "Take a look at some of these departments and check out their families' assets; take a look at what they're wearing, what kind of car they drive, where they live and what kind of food they eat."
Li is now challenging the Chinese authorities to take him to court in the United States, and make all of the evidence against him public.
"I just want everything to be made public, for an open trial, and for the chance to defend myself in public," he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes.