The proposed 24 hectare park will include a monument to the victims. It will also house new city kindergartens and some 5,000 new apartments for residents whose homes were damaged in the blast.

High traces of cyanide were discovered at the blast site last month, which officials maintain pose no health risk to Tianjin residents.

Twelve suspects have been detained in connection with the explosions, including 11 officials and port executives accused of dereliction of duty and abuse of power. No criminal charges have been laid.

Last month, the Communist Party fired the head of China’s work safety regulator for suspected corruption. Coincidentally, the regulator was the former deputy mayor of Tianjin. Despite firing the official, the Party has not accused him of any direct responsibility for the explosion.

A growing death toll from the Tianjin blasts currently puts the number of fatalities at 160.

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France sits in the number two spot followed by the Maldives, Dubai, and Switzerland to round out the top five.

After occupying second place in 2013 and sixth last year, the USA continues to drop in popularity, coming in at seventh placethe USA continues to drop in popularity, coming in at seventh place. Suffering the greatest drop in popularity is Singapore, which fell out of the top ten after ranking third in 2013.

More than 115 million Chinese flew overseas last year, 60 percent to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The China Tourism Academy expects this number to increase to 135 million this year.

As an earlier report showed, there are now more super-rich in China than ever before. There are 1.04 million high net worth individuals in China, which includes with investable assets over RMB 10 million ($1.6 million).

Related:

• Here’s What Your Car Says About You… According to Chinese Tastes
• 55% of China’s Super Rich Hidden Away in Second and Third Tier Cities
• Many of China’s 14 Million Rich are Pouring Their Money into Hong Kong
• Rich Chinese Applicants Fill US Visa Investment Quota in Only 4 Months

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So far as casual observers can see, China’s leadership has had three reservations about Macau’s post-1999 Mainlander-oriented gambling industry.

First is that access to the casinos facilitates and encourages moral lapses among Chinese officials, by giving corrupt individuals the means to launder dirty cash and by tempting them to acquire illicit funds with which to gamble. (Interesting how Macau gambling and Mainland corruption stimulate each other.)

Second is simply a mercantilist concern about the currency outflow and the feeling that this is money that could stay in the Mainland and benefit local economies. (Hence occasional calls for casinos to be legalized in Hainan and other provinces.)

Third is nationalistic resentment at the way American casino operators scoop up much of the profits. The Hong Kong and other ethnic Chinese gambling/hotel interests have obvious reasons to encourage this sentiment. And bearing that in mind…

A fourth now comes to light: fears that American-owned casinos serve as fronts for US influence in Macau, and host CIA agents who target Mainland officials for blackmail. The Standard has a quick summary here.  The story itself is in the Guardian, which managed to obtain a document submitted as part of an unfair dismissal case in Nevada against casino operator Sands. The document was a report commissioned by Sands to investigate possible political problems the company was facing as it tried to expand in Macau. The Guardian presents the Vickers Report, as it is known, here.

The report dates from 2010, before Xi Jinping’s rise to the top and the launch of the anti-corruption campaign that has hit the Macau gambling sector quite hard. Much of it covers the background of Macau Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai-on (rich family, trusted by Communist Party, etc). But it also suggests that Beijing viewed Sands in particular as pretty much intertwined with US government interests.

The suspicions about the CIA are not very surprising: casinos probably offer spooks excellent ‘asset-recruitment’ opportunities. What is more telling is the apparently instinctive paranoia among Chinese officials about foreigners and their motives. If the report is accurate, they see the US government and US companies as indistinguishable in terms of national security risk. In other words, Sands’ lust for more market share and more profit was interpreted in Beijing as an attempt by Washington to undermine Chinese sovereignty in Macau. This was five years ago under Hu Jintao; it can only be worse now.

Of course, Macau’s local casino owners would have a big interest in encouraging this sort of paranoia among Chinese officials. The report seems to conclude with mention of aging mogul Stanley Ho, but, disappointingly, that last page is blacked out. However, the investigative agency that wrote it, Hong Kong-based Steve Vickers Associates, have recently mentioned that nationalism could affect prospects for foreign-owned casinos in Macau.

The other noteworthy thing about the report is a linguistic quirk. Where most of us would write ‘Bob bent over to tie his shoelaces’, the report says ‘Bob bent over; this to tie his shoelaces’. If it was just once, we wouldn’t notice – but this curious construction appears on nearly every page.

As it happens, Sands boss Sheldon Adelson and President Obama are not best buddies, but that’s probably by the by.

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Ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques (above) said negotiations have been finalized and the deal is expected to be signed within the next few months.

“Canada has had very close collaboration with the Chinese government to address such issues,” said Saint-Jacques. “We have no desire to harbor fugitives, and we don’t want to be known as welcoming fugitives.”

Saint-Jacques said the agreement will allow both China and Canada to share the financial assets that fugitives have brought over to Canada illegally. “It will provide a legal basis for Canada to share the proceeds of forfeited assets with China, once we identify the transferred illegal money belongs to criminals or criminal organizations.”

Ambassador Saint-Jacques told China Daily there has been much judicial cooperation between China and Canada and that the Canadian judicial authorities are helping Chinese police to arrest fugitives and repatriate them.

Saint-Jacques cited government statistics that showed 1,400 Chinese nationals have been sent back to China since 2009. Of this number, 75 were suspected of crimes like drug trafficking, fraud and gambling. The rest of the cases mainly involved illegal immigration.

Canada, the United States, and Australia are popular havens for fugitives escaping from China with their illegally-earned wealth due to a lack of extradition treaties and differences in legal systems.

“Once we have identified that they are fugitives, we will launch an investigation as soon as we have solid evidence. Then we will contact the Canadian Ministry of Justice to start legal proceedings against them and remove them,” Saint-Jacques said.

The Chinese government initiated an international campaign named “Sky Net” to repatriate escaped “economic fugitives” after it became a hotly-contested domestic issue last year when the wide proliferation of “naked officials” was made known.

Canada has been noted for hosting several big-name fugitives including Lai Changxing, who was repatriated to China in 2011 after a drawn-out 14-year legal battle, and Vancouver property developer Michael Ching Mo Yeung, the latest suspect to attract the attention of Chinese authorities.

Related:

• China’s Most Wanted: The Top 100 Fugitives That Have Escaped Abroad
• China’s Government Officials Are Flooding Into America
• 1,000 “Naked Officials” Netted in Guangdong Crackdown
• Hundreds of “Naked Officials” Punished in Guangdong
• Rich Chinese Applicants Fill US Visa Investment Quota in Only 4 Months
• CCTV Accuses Bank of China of Money Laundering, Helping Elite Move Abroad

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The two NGOs, the Chongqing Liangjiang Voluntary Development Service Center and Guangzhou GreenNet Environmental Development Service Center, looked at the websites of 31 provincial environmental protection departments. They found that 14 of these websites disclosed their department’s finances, with just under a third of these records showing signs that the department had been using their power to profit.

In recent years, environmental departments have begun to delegate work to voluntary organizations to help them deal with environmental problems. A large number of these organizations have used this power as a way to make money. Official media even have a name for them: “Red Top Intermediaries”.

These Red Top Intermediaries are all registered as NGOs by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and many of them claim to be non-profit organizations. According to an article in The People’s Daily, Red Top Intermediaries move between the government and the market. On one hand, they make a profit as a player in the free market, while on the other they execute administrative power.On one hand, they make a profit as a player in the free market, while on the other they execute administrative power.

In March the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) reported that it had punished 63 environmental impact assessment agencies and 22 assessment engineers for violating laws and regulations.

In the same month, the MEP announced that it would delegate more environmental impact assessments to lower level organizations.

“Delegating power does not mean shirking responsibilities,” Cheng Lifeng, head of the MEP’s Department of Environmental Impact Assessment, told Xinhua News Agency. Cheng emphasized that the ministry would intensify its supervision of local environmental protection departments and that information about each assessment would be made public.

This article originally appeared on the China Ecology Times website.

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The whirlwind celebrity romance of singer Qu Wanting and Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson continues to draw the public’s attention now that rumors Qu’s mother, Zhang Mingjie, has been arrested on corruption charges

Zhang was taken into custody last November by Harbin authorities, and is still under investigation for corruption. Her arrested had been rumored for months, but was just recently confirmed.

Zhang had been serving as deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission for the city of Harbin, and as director for the city urbanization construction group before being ousted from both positions in September and November of last year.

Since rumors of Zhang’s arrest surfaced last year, Qu has been criticized online for not returning to China to take care of her mother. The current whereabouts of Zhang’s husband Qu Heng, an art designer for the Harbin botanical gardens, is not known. Zhang is currently being held in the Guxiang detention center in Harbin.

For her part, Qu has remained in Canada with her fiancé, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Qu and Zhang have been known to have a strained relationship. Zhang was very domineering during Qu’s childhood, preventing her from dating, competing in musical competitions, and from leaving the country, which Qu eventually did when she was 16. Their relationship deteriorated to the point where the two stopped talking to each other for three years. However, they apparently mended their relationship in 2011.

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China’s Interpol police has published a list of the top 100 fugitives wanted by the Chinese government as part of “Sky Net”, a recent initiative to repatriate Chinese fugitives so they can return to China and face the music. The list is on the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which admits it is only a small sample of the total number on the run. You can use the website to look up names, photographs, and possible locations where they may be living.

For example, one of the many people wanted on the list is Yuan Mei (above), a woman who was working with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Sichuan before she left China in September 2002 for the USA. She’s wanted on corruption charges.

And then there’s Liu Xu, a man who was working with a Beijing insurance agency before escaping to the USA in July 2013 and is also wanted by the Chinese government for corruption.

The US State Department recently announced that it will be holding talks with its Chinese counterpart over the issue of repatriating Chinese fugitives. As well, it has been reported that Chinese police are working undercover in Canada to gather evidence against fugitives who have taken refuge in the Great White North.

The CCDI is signalling that it will act tough on these fugitives, as seen by the title of the top 100 list, “Sky Net Attacks with a Heavy Fist”. There is no word if this crackdown will involve the creation of the Chinese version of America’s Most Wanted, a long-running US television show devoted to catching fugitives and criminals by publicizing and dramatizing their stories on television that has seen many of its related arrests taking place outside US borders.

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While this may seem innocent enough, the ramifications have proven to be quite serious. As embarrassing as it is to lose a car and driver, discovering that you don’t actually know how to drive is an even greater loss of face.

Xinhua reports that a number of officials, now forced to drive for themselves, are exceptionally poor drivers. Required to get a certified driver’s license, it turns out that many officials over the age of 50 have struggled to pass their driving exams.

A 52 year-old official, surnamed Zhang, said she has failed her driving test ten times in a row despite changing instructors three times. Zhang said, “Failing my driving test has made me increasingly irritable.”

The officials complain that requirements for China’s driving tests are too strict, and that the licensing fee is too high. In fairness to the officials, a driving license course in China can take as many as 78 hours to complete and comes with a fee of approximately US $1,500.

Whether Zhang has since passed her exam remains unknown.

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Vancouver city officials and police have declined to comment on “Operation Fox Hunt”, which was originally described by Xinhua as a Chinese crackdown on officials suspected of corruption who have fled overseas. Canada is apparently the top choice for corrupt officials, followed by the USA and Australia. While none have extradition treaties with China, Canada signed a deal last year to share assets and information related to corruption.

The presence of Chinese police officers in Canada comes as details emerge of an enormous amount of money that has been invested into real estate by wayward officials. The Province, a newspaper in Vancouver, said millions of dollars have been siphoned out of China and invested into Vancouver real estate. Local addresses in the city have also been linked to a variety of shell companies associated with mainland China connections.

Canadian real estate agents are also keeping their lips sealed. One person quoted by The Province said, “There is huge money laundering coming into Vancouver, but I don’t know who would tell you on the record, because that would be slitting their own throats.”

David Mulroney, ambassador to China from 2009 to 2012 and a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, argues that Canada should be doing more to combat the problems posed by corrupt officials taking shelter in Canada. “The U.S. and Canada are key targets for (Operation Fox Hunt) investigators. Both places are popular with corrupt officials because both are highly desirable locations in which to house family members and educate children, and neither has an extradition treaty with China,” he has written.

Kirk Kuester, executive managing director of Colliers International Vancouver, said the amount invested into real estate is “staggering.”

“Some of these groups want to buy the biggest sites in the city and do developments that are comparable to projects in China, but would be on the upper end of anything ever done here,” he said.

Colliers’ Spark Report says the global outflow of Chinese capital hit a record of $18 billion in 2014, and the amount flowing to Canada – specifically Vancouver – is rising.

Previous cases of high-profile fugitives caught and returned to China from Canada include Lai Changxing, an alleged smuggling kingpin who was brought back to China in 2011, and Li Dongzhe, who surrendered himself in 2012 after hiding out in North Vancouver for six years.

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Not being CY Leung, Regina Ip, Antony Leung or Arthur Li obviously helps. Specifically, he expressed in his speech some apparently sincere sympathy for the younger generation (the one that rose up against the government so magnificently late last year). And he mentioned the near-fatal knife attack exactly one year ago on his friend Ming Pao editor Kevin Lau – a crime we can reasonably trace ultimately to the Chinese Communist Party. Although Tsang may be inept, he is not mentally deranged, so we can be pretty sure he has no wish to take on the thankless and impossible CE role.Although Tsang may be inept, he is not mentally deranged, so we can be pretty sure he has no wish to take on the thankless and impossible CE role. We can therefore assume that his comments were a way to express remorse and beg forgiveness for being part of a puppet-despotism of an administration blindly following absurd commands from Beijing to eradicate pluralism in this city. In an attempt to disguise these heresies, he also dragged in some stuff about food trucks, which similarly had no place in a Budget speech.

To the holders of real power far away in Beijing, Hong Kong is a minor matter of local regularization and rectification.To the holders of real power far away in Beijing, Hong Kong is a minor matter of local regularization and rectification. General Secretary, Chairman and President Xi Jinping has spent his first few years at the top living dangerously. We have had: rumours of a coup or assassination attempt; a two-week gap in 2012 when he disappeared; the purges of Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang and General Xu Caihou, whose true evils and depravities we will probably never know; and aggressive campaigns to ban all but authorized and ‘correct’ information, messages and ideas in the media and schools. All this while steering a distorted, debt-laden, capital-misallocating economy through reforms, demographic problems and a dysfunctional outside world.

But now – he disappoints. He insists for some reason on emulating his drab, over-cautious and unimaginative predecessors by formulating a fake ‘theory’ that will be tacked on to Marxist-Leninism and Maoism as radiant guiding philosophy. For Xi, it is the Four Comprehensives. The first reads: “Comprehensively develop a moderately prosperous society,” which sounds shocking for its lack of ambition. Surely it should be: “Comprehensively take over the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and half the Pacific, and moderately large bits of Siberia, Burma and Sri Lanka.”

This follows Hu Jintao’s Three Supremes, which somehow enabled the Communist Party, the people’s interests and constitutional law to be simultaneously paramount, and Jiang Zemin’s famous Three Represents, which we all remember for allowing capitalists to join the Communist Party, which by the standards of these theories was clear and logical. Coming one day: the Five In Chinese It Sounds Less Clunkys and maybe in a fit of brutal honesty, the Six We’re Making This Up As We Go Alongs.

At a historic site across the border last weekend, I checked intricate carved frames around an ancient building, only to find they were made of extruded resin. (Real antiquities were destroyed in accordance with Mao’s Four Olds.) The Ferrero Rocher chocolates are counterfeit, along with the milk powder and toothpaste. The aircraft carrier is a leftover Soviet hull with no offensive capability. The generals, mayors and department heads bought their promotions. The audience on the ‘live’ CCTV gala was filmed separately and edited into the final recording, badly. Of course you have fake theories. The whole totalitarian edifice is built on shams and make-believe. If John Tsang is emboldened enough to distance himself from our end of the travesty, maybe there’s hope yet.

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