In recent years, the Beijing authorities have been conducting a cleanup of the Hong Kong and Macao systems. Most recently, the chairman of Nan Yue Group, the only provincial-level enterprise headquartered in Macau, Guangdong Province, has been placed under investigation.
According to a report on June 11th from the website of the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, Zhou Xingting, the Party Secretary and Chairman of Guangdong Nan Yue Group Co., Ltd., is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and is currently under investigation.
Public records show that the 59-year-old Zhou Xingting holds a medical doctorate from Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, a post-doctorate in economics from Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, and is a professor at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, enjoying a special subsidy from the State Council of the PRC.
Zhou Xingting has a background in the medical field, having held positions such as General Manager of Guangdong Lanbao Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., General Manager of Guangdong Xinbei Jiang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and Chairman of Qingyuan City Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd.
Subsequently, he served as an executive in Guangdong Hengjian Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., a government investment and financing platform in Guangdong Province, General Aviation Corporation of China, Guangdong Guanghong Asset Management Co., Ltd., and Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Since October 2016, Zhou Xingting has been the Chairman of Guangdong Nan Yue Group until he was investigated recently.
According to the official website of Nan Yue Group, Guangdong Nan Yue Group Co., Ltd. is the only provincial-level enterprise headquartered in Macau in Guangdong Province directly managed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Guangdong Province, with 90% of shares held by the Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and 10% held by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance. The group was once the largest Chinese-funded enterprise in Macau.
Nan Yue Group’s three core business sectors are comprehensive operation services for Guangdong-Macau cooperation cities, cross-border financial services, and traditional Chinese medicine industry parks. A notice issued by the Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission last year revealed that Nan Yue Group operates 7 second-tier enterprises, 1 Hong Kong-listed company, and 56 third-tier enterprises.
Zhou Xingting was last seen in public on June 6th when officials from the Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission visited Nan Yue Group for an inspection, during which Zhou Xingting, as the Chairman of Nan Yue Group, reported on the situation to the inspection team. Just five days later, he was placed under investigation.
Zhou Xingting’s predecessor as Chairman, Cao Dahua, was arrested in 2021 and indicted on charges of bribery in February 2022. Cao Dahua had served as Chairman of Nan Yue Group from 2009 to 2016 and held the position of Deputy Secretary-General of the Guangdong Provincial Government when he was arrested. Despite having left Nan Yue Group years ago, he still faced consequences.
Since the transfer of sovereignty in Macau in 1999, the region has seen three Chief Executives. The first two, Ho Hau Wah and Chui Sai On, were appointed during the era of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin and stayed in office until 2019.
During Jiang Zemin’s tenure, nearly all levels of the Hong Kong and Macau system, from the Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs to the Liaison Office, and even the Chief Executives and high-ranking officials, were controlled by Jiang’s close associate Zeng Qinghong. The Jiang faction is a major political adversary to Xi Jinping’s faction.
Around 2016, Xi Jinping began to tighten control over the Hong Kong and Macao systems. The Beijing-controlled Hong Kong newspaper, Wen Wei Po, repeatedly published articles criticizing officials with ties to the Jiang faction. On January 4, 2017, Wen Wei Po published a front-page commentary stating that the Central Committee of the CCP had deployed a comprehensive adjustment of the functions of the Liaison Office, insisting that “policies come from Beijing,” gradually changing personnel, leadership, and direction in the Hong Kong and Macau systems.
Amidst this sweeping purge, Li Gang, the former Director of the Liaison Office in Macau, was removed from his position as Deputy Director of the State Council’s Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs in August 2017 and subsequently placed on one year of probation within the CCP. Li Gang’s successor, Zheng Xiaosong, Director of the Liaison Office in Macau, died from a fall in October 2018, with an official report attributing the incident to depression-induced suicide.
The Director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Zhang Xiaoming, suffered consecutive demotions. In February 2020, Zhang Xiaoming was reassigned from Director to Vice Director in charge of daily operations at the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. In June 2022, before turning 60, he was further transferred to the position of “inactive” Vice Secretary-General of the CPPCC. In March of this year, Zhang Xiaoming was dismissed from his position as Vice Secretary-General of the CPPCC. On June 6, the National Committee of the CPPCC announced that it had accepted Zhang Xiaoming’s decision to resign as a Standing Committee member and member of the CPPCC. As a result, he went from a full-ranking official to holding no official position.
Zhang Xiaoming served at the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office from 1986 to 2022, a total of 34 years. He had previously been the Director of the Hong Kong Liaison Office and was a secretary under the former Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Liao Hui, who served as a subordinate to Jiang Zemin’s right-hand man Zeng Qinghong, leading to Zhang Xiaoming being considered part of the Jiang faction.
Additionally, Stanley Ho, the tycoon known as the “King of Gambling” in Macau and founder of the Sun City Group, was arrested in November 2021 on charges including triad-related activities, illegal gambling operations, and fraud, leading to an 18-year prison sentence.
Stanley Ho had served as a member of the Guangdong Provincial CPPCC and a member of the Macau Government’s Cultural Industries Committee.