Xi Yuanping's Shocking Secret in C-Biz! Why is Zhang Ziyi Luckier than Zhao Wei & Fan Bingbing?

Fan Bingbing was permanently blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Zhao Wei was erased from the internet overnight. Zheng Shuang was fined nearly 300 million yuan and never managed to make a comeback. But Zhang Zi was different. At one point, she was caught up in three scandals at the same time, condemned nationwide, and dropped by major brands. Her career seemed all but over. Yet just a few years later, she returned to the very top, What made Zhang Zi the only exception? Who was the powerful figure backing her, someone whose identity alone would send shockwaves across the country? Zhang Zi and the scandals that shook the nation. At exactly midnight on December 23, 2009, in Beijing's Guomao CBD, beneath the Park Hyatt residences where Zhang Zi lived, a group of people dressed in black suddenly rushed toward a massive billboard featuring her and splashed it with ink. As they did so, they shouted insults in the lobby, accusing her of being a mistress who deceived men for money. By coincidence, a large number of reporters were already waiting at the scene to cover Maggie Cheung's engagement. Instead, what they ended up documenting was the dramatic attack on Zhang Zi's billboard. The incident soon became a nationwide sensation and was dubbed Ink Splash Gate. Shortly afterward, Zhao Xinyu, who was known as Beijing's number one socialite, held a press conference and publicly revealed what she claimed was the full story behind the incident. According to Zhao, at the 2008 Bazaar charity night, she introduced Zhang Zi to a wealthy Shanghai businessman referred to only as Mr. A. Although he was married, Zhang Zi allegedly developed an intimate relationship with him soon afterward. Mr. A was said to have become completely infatuated with her and showered her with extravagant gifts. These allegedly included a limited edition Tiffany necklace worth tens of millions of yuan, a pair of diamond earrings also worth tens of millions of yuan, a diamond-encrusted Hermes crocodile handbag valued at more than one million yuan, an Audi worth around two million yuan, and two famous paintings valued at 5.6 million dollars. What made the allegations even more controversial was that Zhang Zi was still officially dating Israeli-American billionaire Vivi Nevo at the time. In other words, according to the accusations, she was involved with two men simultaneously. But the most shocking claims were yet to come. An alleged insider later told the media that Mr. A was only one of several wealthy businessmen linked to Zhang Zi. Besides him, she was also rumored to have been involved with a Jiang real estate tycoon surnamed S, a Shaanxi property businessman surnamed J, a Hainan developer surnamed G, and, most notably, a wealthy businessman from Shenzhen with whom she was said to have had an unusually close relationship. Soon after, ink-splash-gate Zhang Zi became embroiled in another controversy known as fake-donation-gate. Some internet users discovered that during the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Zhang Zi had launched a fundraising campaign for victims of the Wenchuan earthquake and claimed to have raised one million dollars. However, the whereabouts of the money were unclear. Eventually, China Central Television publicly criticized the matter. Zhang Zi was forced to admit that the actual amount raised was 160,000 dollars, short of the figure previously announced, and she issued a public apology. Ink-splash-gate, fake-donation-gate, and then pornographic photo-gate followed one after another. Describing Zhang Zi's situation in 2009 as a form of social death would not have been an exaggeration. She lost endorsement deals, was replaced in an upcoming film, and faced an overwhelming wave of criticism online. In a remarkably short period, she fell from the height of fame to the lowest point of her career. In the history of the Chinese entertainment industry, almost any actress caught in scandals of this magnitude would have found it nearly impossible to recover. Take Fan Bingbing, for example. In 2018, television host Kui Yongyuan exposed her use of so-called yin-yang contracts. After the tax authorities confirmed that she had evaded taxes, the total amount of back taxes and penalties came to 883 million yuan. CCTV's flagship evening news program even devoted nearly five minutes to a special report on the case. From that point on, Fan Bingbing's name became almost taboo in China's film and television industry. Even today, she has yet to make an official comeback. Then, in August 2021, all of Zhao Wei's works were removed from every major video platform overnight, from My Fair Princess to Romance in the Rain. Her name was even deleted from cast lists. Her Super Topic page on Weibo was shut down and her Baidu Baike entry was edited. Such a complete erasure from the Internet through the force of an industry-wide ban was virtually unprecedented in the history of Chinese entertainment. That same year, it was revealed that Zheng Shuang had earned 2.08 million yuan per day for one acting project. Internet users even joked that China had invented a new unit of currency called One Zheng Shuang. After she was found guilty of tax evasion, she was fined 299 million yuan. Combined with the scandals surrounding surrogacy and the alleged abandonment of her children, the National Radio and Television Administration imposed a total ban, ordering that no program be allowed to invite her as a guest or participant. All of them were caught up in scandals that shook the nation. Yet just over a year later, in 2011, Zhang Zi was cast as the female lead by director Gu Changwei, starring opposite Aaron Kwok. Then in 2013, her performance in Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster earned her a string of Best Actress awards, including honors at the Golden Horse Awards, the Hong Kong Film Awards, and the Asia-Pacific Film Festival. Altogether, she took home 12 Best Actress trophies. This was an actress who had been publicly criticized by CCTV, mocked across the internet, and rumored to have been involved with multiple wealthy businessmen. Yet within just a few years, she managed to reverse her fortunes completely and reach an even greater peak in her career. There seemed to be only one possible explanation. The person standing behind her held a position of power even greater than CCTV. So, who was that person? Tycoons and Celebrities, a Perfectly Engineered Capital Machine In October 2013, an investment fund was quietly established in Qi'anhai, Shenzhen, under the name Hude Qi'anhai Fund. Its principal investor was Funde Sino Life Insurance, which contributed 9 billion yuan, equivalent to 89.5% of the fund's total capital. This was not an ordinary private investment fund. It was an enormous pool of money accumulated from insurance premiums paid by ordinary people. After its establishment, Hude Qi'anhai Fund became the financial backer behind Star VC. But what exactly was Star VC? In July 2014, actors Ren Kuan, Li Bingbing, and Huang Xiaoming jointly invested 80 million yuan to establish Star VC, a celebrity-led venture capital fund. It promoted itself as the coolest investment organization in China. The real source of financial support behind Star VC, however, was Hude Qi'anhai Fund. In October 2015, Zhang Ziyi and Huang Bo announced that they were joining Star VC as new partners. The press release issued at the time laid out the arrangement clearly. Money from Hude Qi'anhai Fund was invested in Star VC. Star VC identified promising projects. Those projects were then transferred to Beijing Culture for listing, allowing the parties involved to profit from the increase in their capital value. It was a complete, fully-functioning capital pipeline. That raises another question. Who controlled Beijing Culture? Beijing Culture was formerly known as Beijing Tourism. Its original business consisted mainly of selling admission tickets to tourist attractions on the outskirts of Beijing, including Lingshan Mountain, Tanzi Temple, and Jiatai Temple. After 10 years in operation, the company had earned relatively little. Then, in 2013, it suddenly announced that it was shifting into the film and television industry. In 2014, the company carried out a private placement worth 3.3 billion yuan to bring in new shareholders. The largest single subscription was worth 1.3 billion yuan, and that money came from Funday Sino Life Insurance. Armed with 3.3 billion yuan in fresh capital, Beijing Culture began acquiring a series of companies. The most significant deal was its takeover of Zhejiang Galaxy, an artist management company founded by Wang Jinghua, widely known as the number one talent manager in mainland China. Her roster included a long list of A-list stars, such as Chen Daoming, Hu Jun, Tony Leung Kefai, Karina Lau, Zhou Dongyu, and dozens of other well-known entertainers. In 2005, Wang left Huayi Brothers and took most of her roster with her, a departure that reportedly brought the company close to collapse. Meanwhile, the person said to exercise ultimate control over Funday Sino Life Insurance was the mysterious Chaoshan businessman Zhang Jun. He was reportedly running nearly 10 shell companies from the fifth floor of the Huaqiangbei Electronics Market in Shenzhen. On the surface, Zhang Ziyi's decision to join Star VC appeared to be nothing more than a movie star becoming an investor. But according to Zhang Feng, she was actually standing on a capital conveyor belt, powered by 600 billion yuan in insurance funds. Yet Zhang Jun was not the final destination of that conveyor belt. He was merely the intermediary. Its true endpoint lay behind the red walls. Who was the ultimate boss? To find out whose white glove Zhang Jun really was, one must first answer a basic question. Where did his money come from? Zhang Jun's real name was Zhang Zhongjun, and he was originally from Puning, Guangdong. In 1985, he moved to Shenzhen alone to build a career. At first, he worked for a collectively-owned enterprise in Bao'an County that manufactured electronic products. He later spent three years studying in the United States before returning to Shenzhen to continue developing his business interests. By 1996, he had entered the real estate industry. Beginning in 2006, however, he repeatedly poured tens of billions of yuan into an insurance company. A journalist from New Fortune magazine once made a detailed calculation. Even when combining the total revenue from all of Zhang Jun's real estate projects with the rental income generated by the Huaxiangbei electronics market, his accumulated assets could hardly have exceeded 4 billion yuan. Yet the amount he invested in the insurance company alone surpassed 11 billion yuan. Even more strikingly, Zhang Jun not only had enough money to invest, but also gradually acquired as much as 80% of the shares from the company's founding shareholders. He successively pushed Xu Ming of Dalian Sheed and the family of Hong Kong tycoon Chen Yuteng out of the company. How could he possibly have accomplished this? There appeared to be only one explanation. The person standing behind Zhang Jun held a position of power greater than all of those figures. According to political commentator Jiang Feng, Shenzhen has long been closely associated with the Xi family. Xi Jinping's father, Xi Zhengxin, was one of the leading figures behind Guangdong's reform and opening up policies. The Xi family's network of connections in Shenzhen was therefore extremely deep and complex. On February 5, 2016, shortly before the Lunar New Year, Shenzhen authorities took Zhang Jun away to assist with an investigation related to a corruption case. On the morning of Zhang Jun's detention, Xi Yuanping had reportedly just left his home. This suggested that right up until the final moments before his detention, Zhang Jun's relationship with the Xi family remained close and appeared to be part of their ordinary routine. Many people believe that Xi Yuanping's connections with the entertainment industry only became known in recent years. But a closer look at the timeline suggests that the groundwork may have been laid much earlier. In 2008, Xi Yuanping married John Lanlan, a singer from the military performing arts system who had once been described by the media as China's Marilyn Monroe and the most beautiful woman in the military. The military performing arts system had long served as a point of intersection between the arts, the entertainment industry, and the political elite. Many companions of senior military officers, as well as daughters-in-law of prominent revolutionary families, reportedly came from this system. For that reason, Xi Yuanping's marriage to John Lanlan was presented as evidence that he had already developed deep ties with artistic and entertainment networks before 2008. At the time, Xi Jinping was still serving as vice president and had only recently been identified as the country's future leader. Xi Yuanping had already begun preparing a network of capital that would operate after his elder brother came to power. In 2014, Xi Yuanping published an article of approximately 7,000 Chinese characters in the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily commemorating his father, Xi Zhongshun. The article publicly revealed a wedding photograph of Xi Yuanping and John Lanlan for the first time. According to records cited by China Digital Times, the Cyberspace Administration of China later ordered the article and photograph to be removed from the entire Chinese Internet. Even central state media organizations were reportedly required to delete them. The stated interpretation was that the article and photograph revealed too much information, including the fact that the supreme leader's younger brother had married someone from the military arts and entertainment system. Among Beijing's wealthy elite, Xi Yuanping was reportedly nicknamed Prince Yuan, a relative of the emperor who handled affairs on the emperor's behalf. Beijing is China's political and cultural center, while the entertainment industry represents an enormous source of wealth. According to this narrative, the Xi family entrusted the management of that sector to Xi Yuanping. The structure therefore appeared as follows. Beneath Xi Yuanping stood Zhang Jun, acting as his white glove. Zhang Jun controlled Funde Sino Life Insurance, a group managing approximately 600 billion yuan in insurance funds. Funde Sino Life Insurance invested 9 billion yuan in the Huda Qianhai Fund. That fund then invested in Star VC. Zhang Zi, Li Bingbing, Wang Xiaoming, and Huang Bo all became partners in Star VC. By now, do you understand why Zhang Zi was able to recover so quickly after the scandals?