Kapok: Turning a blind eye

Come on, we should be gasping for breath with this Ng Lap Seng (吳立勝) story! Keeping abreast of the twists and turns in this unraveling saga of corruption involving no less than a former president of the UN General Assembly and our own high-flying real-estate developer turned power broker should leave us with Rugby World Cup-like sore eyes! Our fingers should be numb with the frenetic flicking of pages of juicy stories! Instead of that: not much, and less in Macao than in Hong Kong.

To be fair, the English and Portuguese press in Macao has been making a real effort regarding coverage, especially since the Investigative Reporting Program of University of California at Berkeley publicly released on September 29 the confidential “Final Report on a Discreet Due Diligence Investigation into Ng Lap Seng in Macau & Hong Kong,” a report that was commissioned by Las Vegas Sands to International Risk Limited back in 2010 and obtained by the program from a Las-Vegas court.
But what about the Chinese press, the one read by 95% of the population? Since Mr Ng was arrested on September 19, the Macau Daily News, the reference daily in Chinese, only published six bland short stories mentioning Mr Ng, the longest one of less than 700 characters (about 400 words)! Only the Shimin Daily (9 stories) and the San Wa Ou Daily (10 stories) seem to have done better, but yet again on the short side and certainly not in line with real reporting. More aggressive and pro-democrat small periodicals like Sonpou or Macau Concealers have provided more in-depth treatment, but mainly derived from the Hong Kong press and with a readership difficult to measure.
The Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily News and The Sun, both characterized as “pro-Beijing leftist” tabloids, published some 14 stories each! Next magazine, the pro-democrat weekly of the Next Media Group, ran its cover story on the case on October 15 and splashed 6 pages exposing possible collusion, conflict of interest and corruption with the previous Chief Executive. Even the Guangdong-based Southern Metropolis Daily published 2,700 characters of investigative reporting on October 9.
Now, what about the issue? Mr Ng, who is of course presumed innocent, is being charged in New York on at least three counts of conspiracy to bribe, bribery and money laundering in direct connection with a USD1.3 million bribery scheme targeted at the United Nations, and this on top of the charges of conspiracy to obstruct and false statements regarding USD4.5 million in cash that Mr Ng had personally funneled to the US since 2013.
And why does it matter? It has been oft repeated that Mr Ng represents Macao at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the highest consultative body of the People’s Republic of China, is (was?) a member of the Economic Development Committee of the Macao SAR, a formal political entity directly under the Chief Executive, and also sits on the 400-member Electoral Committee that designates the Chief Executive. Mr Ng is on top of that a high-profile board member of numerous associations, in real estate, but also in education as well as community-based and patriotic organizations. Moreover, several publicly available records link his business operations to other prominent real-estate developers as well as the former Chief Executive and Stanley Ho. Finally, Mr Ng’s name has surfaced ever since the end of the 1990s in pretty noteworthy cases of traffic of influence and corruption, even though he was never convicted, in the US, but also Taiwan and Macao – including the Ao Man Long fiasco, according to a Next magazine report of August 2014. Unfortunately, the few “persons” who allegedly know this generous “human living Buddha” (sic) appear to be only talking to the foreign press…
On the side of officialdom, with the notable exception of Ho Iat Seng, the president of the Assembly, the response has been muted – what happens outside Macao does not concern Macao. Wasn’t the UN-sponsored South-South Cooperation conference center at the heart of the bribery scheme supposed to be built in Macao?

Published in Macau Daily Times, October 23 2015.

Kapok: They talk, we listen

It was an epiphany of sorts. It was some kind of astonishment mixed with a sudden surge of exasperation: they were talking, we were listening, and everything had to be absorbed to the full. The scene was taking place on the sidelines of a SJM-sponsored dinner, and the comments were made by two of the most senior managers of the company, who were obviously well sought-after by journalists in attendance.
Mr Ambrose So, SJM’s CEO, was asked to comment on the remarks made by Li Gang, the director of the China Liaison Office, which related to the fact that the central authorities would introduce policies to support Macau’s battered economy. Mr So naturally appeared very confident that it would be so—we hope that this is what he is suggesting whenever he attends a meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing—and that more cities in China will open up to individual travel schemes.

Then Mr So added that it was not only a question of “numbers” but one of “quality”, as if he were remembering that a few days back, the Secretary for social affairs and culture, Alexis Tam Chon Weng, had said that “more” was not an option. In the present conditions, we seem to be stuck at 21 million mainland visitors per year. So quality it has to be, not quantity! The question for Mr So is therefore how to, and I quote, “select the quality of visitors… and to attract high-quality and high-spending visitors”. What Mr So actually means by “high-spending” is, I am sure, preferably those who are glued to the gaming table!
And then I wondered: but how could one do that and isn’t this in contradiction with several policies supported by Beijing? The central authorities and the Macau government itself are advocating for the diversification of the economy.  In addition to this, if my memory serves me well, fund transfers to Macao by mainland visitors are strictly limited. And then, if the idea, just like in Bhutan, is to only attract the rich, what do we make of one of the four key components of Xi Jinping’s China Dream which is to “comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society”? Are creativity and culture only stemming from wealth? What has SJM done since it opened the Crazy Paris Show in the early 1980s to generate further interest in Macau in order to attract these premium customers—for more than one day, I mean? When was the last time diversification meant a little bit more for SJM than expanding culinary offerings, especially now that the “fish bowl” has gone? Well, the fact that Mr So defines the new game in town as developing Macao into “a center of amusement and leisure” instead of “tourism and leisure” says it all!

As a grand finale, Mr So was asked about the recent scandals and complaints revolving around certain junket operations. For him, junkets are of a different nature at SJM and function strictly within the law. In the words of Mr So, “I checked, they do not follow that same model”. He even went as far as embracing “a more regulated market”. Again, wasn’t it Stanley Ho himself who invented the VIP junket model in the early 1980s? Isn’t this model precisely the one that allows for legally registered stakeholders to avoid responsibility and scrutiny regarding credit extension and debt collection? I guess Mr So will not be proven wrong as long as the only solution championed by the DICJ is to create a code of ethics for junkets…

Finally, Mrs Angela Leong, SJM’s managing director, rejoiced at the temporary extension of her concession to Macao’s canidrome, announcing that SJM would engage into an ambitious renovation plan “to allow for cultural developments, and to allow young people to develop their business.” There is no doubt that Mrs Leong is listening more effectively during the meetings of the government’s Cultural Industries Committee than the ones of the Legislative Assembly. In any case however, i s whistling the tune of the hour enough? The last time SJM’s parent company invested money into these dilapidated and shameful facilities was in 1998… slightly better than the 1980s!

Published in Macau Daily Times, October 9th 2015

Ng Lap Seng: a tale of two cities

Reading the press in English over my Timorese coffee this morning (and later on the Portuguese press… note the distinction), I really ravelled at the latest twist and turn of the Ng Lap Seng story, this pure Macao tycoon, also a member of the CPPCC and of the Economic Development Committee, who got arrested in the US two weeks ago for not properly declaring some US$4.5 million that were supposed to be used to buy arts and flats... Well, now we learn that he stands accused of bribing no less than the former president of the UN General Assembly (John Ashe) in order to have his own UN Macau Conference Center! What is really fascinating is the deafening silence of the press in Chinese in Macao... I guess years and years of ads placed by Windsor Arch, Sun Kian Ip (新建業集團) and South Bay Development Co. are ultimately bound to pay off.

Macau Daily News is clearly the worst (nothing related to Mr Ng since September 23!), but even Va Kio, San Wa Ou or Tai Chung Pou only publish very brief mentions of the big article from the Wall Street Journal that everybody is using this morning. A quick check using Mr Ng's Chinese name (吳立勝) over the past few weeks returns this:

The only things decent in Chinese come from the liberal press in Hong Kong (Ming Pao and Commercial Times).

If one searches 吳立勝 on Google or Baidu however, the search can return pretty interesting results. I had already mentioned two weeks ago that Sun Kian Ip had been ditched by another UN sponsored outlet called the Global Compact (the letter of commitment addressed to Ban Ki-moon himself and signed by Mr Ng is truly fascinating: "I am pleased to confirm that Sun Kian Ip Group supports the ten principles of the Global Compact with respect to human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption"). But there is more: fascinating pics of Mr Ng and all his acquaintances in Macao can be found here and here. There is also an interesting article on Yiernews pointing to Mr Ng's buddies for the South Bay Development Co.

One of my personal favorites is this one (authorised by Chinanews; I hesitated a long time with the one of the Charity dinner given by Sun Kian Ip in 2012... but it was not Chinanews sponsored):

Clearly, Ho Iat Seng, the president of the Legislative Assembly in Macao and also the Standing Committee member of the National People's Congress, is arguing for a proper mechanism within the CPPCC to expel Mr Ng, if 市民日報 is to be trusted.

Who you gonna call?

Here we go, demonstrations in front of the China Liaison Office will be staged today…again! It makes the headlines even of the slightly pro-establishment Portuguese newspaper Jornal Tribuna de Macao. Good old journalism is badly needed there, but the only place where a great background analysis can be found is with Macau Gaming Watch.

I especially like the following image:

So, basic principles for investigative journalism should be: follow the money and who is the boss?

The fact that spoiled "investors" or "depositors" (whatever you want to call them) keep coming back to the CLO should arouse the interest of some...

The only time I have seen the name published (despite earlier demos) is when the International Union of Operating Engineers sent a letter (also to the press) asking the very able DICJ to look into that Charles Heung guy... On September 28th! Nothing before that (or so little, published in Macau Post Daily on September 17th under the generic term "Dore depositors petition Liaison Office over funds")! Nobody can read Chinese or what?

If people stopped wondering too much about the ulterior motives of the International Union of Operating Engineers, I guess some pressure might be exerted on the regulator to finally do its job. If the DICJ was doing its job, then the Union would become irrelevant, right?