Chinese Court Sentences Former SOE Executive Bai Tianhui to Death for Bribery

The Huarong Asset Management building is seen in the financial district in Beijing on Nov. 18, 2021. (Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)

On May 28, a court in China sentenced Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of Huarong International Holdings Limited, to death. Mr. Bai had close ties with Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of the board of the company, who was sentenced to death in January 2021 and executed only 24 days after the verdict.

Huarong International is a subsidiary of China Huarong Asset Management Co., Ltd., a state-owned enterprise (SOE) in China.

Mr. Bai was tried and sentenced at the No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin for bribery, and all his personal property was to be turned over to China’s state treasury, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.

He was convicted of using his positions at Huarong International from 2014 to 2018 to illegally accept bribes totaling more than 1.10 billion yuan ($156 million). Despite his cooperation with the Chinese authorities in solving other financial crimes, the court determined that Mr. Bai’s crimes were so severe that they warranted the death penalty without leniency.

Bai’s Relationship With Former Boss 

Mr. Bai had a close relationship with the company’s former chairman, Mr. Lai. Chinese authorities described Mr. Bai as a crucial accomplice in Mr. Lai’s numerous illegal activities.

Mr. Lai was under investigation in April 2018, and Mr. Bai’s probe followed shortly on June 5 that year. Public records show that Mr. Bai, born in 1979, had over 15 years of experience in finance and securities at the time of his investigation. Before this, he held various senior positions in Huarong International’s subsidiaries.

On Jan. 5, 2021, Mr. Lai was sentenced to death for bribery, having illegally received and demanded properties worth a total of 1.79 billion yuan ($276 million), a record for financial corruption in China. His death sentence was upheld on Jan. 21, and he was executed eight days later, just 24 days after the initial verdict.

In Jan. 2021, Mr. Bai appeared in the Chinese Communist Party’s so-called anti-corruption documentary “National Supervision,” revealing Mr. Lai’s orders and operations. He claimed many projects were directly assigned by Mr. Lai, involving his friends and often bypassing proper market evaluations.

Chinese media Caixin reported that Huarong International in Hong Kong had been heavily involved in speculating on “penny stocks” under Mr. Bai’s leadership, leading to significant personal gains through these transactions.

In May 2017, China International Capital Corporation (CICC) listed suspicious stocks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which included many associated with Huarong International. These stocks were characterized by frequent capital operations, low stock prices, high volatility, and poor fundamentals, often involving high-level sell-offs and low-level fundraising that diluted shares.

Lai’s Business and Political Ties

Cai Shenkun, a China current affairs commentator who now resides in the United States, claimed on social media platform X that the family of former CCP Politburo Standing Committee member Zeng Qinghong backed Mr. Lai and that Mr. Zeng’s niece, Zeng Baobao, profited significantly from Huarong International’s deals. Mr. Bai’s charges included transferring high-quality assets from the company to Ms. Zeng Baobao’s property group, Fantasia Holdings, at low prices.

After Mr. Lai’s downfall, the Chinese state media questioned who protected him. In 2018, official state reports indicated that the investigation into Mr. Lai centered on two companies with close ties to Huarong International, Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group and China HKBridge Financial Holdings Limited. Liu Tingan, a high-level executive at both companies and a fellow schoolmate of Mr. Lai, was also detained after Mr. Lai’s arrest.

China HKBridge Financial Holdings Limited is a Hong Kong-listed company that transitioned from hard disk manufacturing to financial investment and was rebranded. The company’s largest client was Zhizhuo Feigao, a subsidiary of Fantasia Holdings. In late 2016, Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group became a shareholder of China HKBridge.

In August 2018, after Mr. Lai’s arrest, Fantasia Holdings transferred its stake in Zhizhuo Feigao to a little-known company that had been established only two months earlier.

Xi’s Direct Intervention

Despite Mr. Lai’s cooperation with the Chinese authorities, he was swiftly executed. Chinese state media confirmed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered Mr. Lai’s immediate execution to mitigate financial risks.

Mr. Lai was executed on Jan. 29, 2021. On the same day, the CCP’s propaganda mouthpiece, Xinhua News Agency, published an editorial framing Mr. Lai’s execution within the broader context of preventing and mitigating significant financial risks, a priority for Xi’s regime. The article emphasized the unprecedented scale of Mr. Lai’s bribery case and the inherent dangers of corruption in the financial sector.

Lai’s Refusal to Implicate Xi’s Adversaries

During Mr. Lai’s first trial, the Chinese court acknowledged his significant contributions in providing evidence against subordinates but noted he did not implicate any higher-ups in the regime.

In China, the judicial system does not function independently from the CCP.

Li Yanming, a China expert and current affairs commentator based in the United States, told The Epoch Times that Mr. Lai provided major crime leads about his subordinates but not high-ranking officials like former CCP leader Jiang Zemin or Vice President Zeng Qinghong. He believes Mr. Lai’s refusal to implicate top figures, despite his other contributions, could not save him.

Xin Ning contributed to this report.