Enigma of China(12)
“Then why was Zhou chosen as a target for a crowd-sourced search?”
“The picture of the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty showed up after he spoke at an important meeting. Do you know what the speech he made that day was about?” She went on without waiting for an answer. “It was about the absolute necessity of keeping the housing market stable. What does that mean? It means prices cannot be allowed to fall. At present, a square meter at Lujiazui costs a 130,000 yuan. I would have to work for four or five years to earn enough to buy one square meter. Now, for our family, the present situation is not too bad. We have one and half rooms in an okay location assigned to us through the state housing quota, thanks to your help. But what happens to Qinqin after he graduates college? He will need an apartment for himself. How can people like us possibly afford a place to live if housing costs don’t come down? It’s more than probable that he will have to live like we did before we moved here. Remember, we lived with Old Hunter for years, with three generations squeezed together in one wing unit.”
“Don’t worry about the distant future, Peiqin,” Yu said, with a lame smile.
“You think only about your cases, but I have to think about our son. In today’s Shanghai, a young man with no apartment means no possibility of dating a young woman, let alone marrying her. People are all so realistic in this materialistic age,” she said, frowning, and turning back to Chen. “Back to your question, do you know why the housing prices keep rising?”
“Because of greedy developers.”
“No. Because of the even more greedy Party officials. The land belongs to the government. Under their control, it is sold off through a so-called auction system where the rights go to whichever developer has the highest bid. Rising revenue from the sale of the land keeps pushing up the city’s GDP, which the city officials point to as proof of their hard work—without mentioning that a substantial amount goes into their own pockets. Who gets the land, how, and at what price—it is all the result of shady dealings. Not too long ago, the premier made a statement about cooling down the overheated real estate market. Some developers, nervous about a possible downturn in the market, offered to bring prices down a little. Zhou, worrying about a snowball effect, highlighted the importance of keeping the market stable in his speech that day. He said that if some companies reduced prices irresponsibly, the government would punish them for causing economic trouble. Not only was this reported in several newspapers, they also ran a picture of him tapping a pack of cigarettes. That was the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty.
“That speech was like kicking a hornet’s nest. Zhou was supporting the interests of the city government, or the Party officials, but not those of the ordinary people. That picture of the 95 Supreme Majesty pack, once it was posted online, provided a perfect excuse for people to vent their anger and frustration.”
“Well done, Peiqin,” Chen said, raising the cup of Qingdao beer, “I’ll drink to that. Please go on.”
“Now, according to the official propaganda, a Party cadre is the ‘people’s servant’ and earns about the same as an ordinary worker. For one in Zhou’s position, the monthly salary would be about two or three thousand yuan. But a carton of 95 Supreme Majesty costs more than that. A photoshopped version of the picture showed up on the Internet with the retail price of a pack written underneath. It was posted as the evidence of an official living extravagantly beyond his means. It was both a legitimate criticism and an implied question: How could Zhou, if he wasn’t corrupt, afford that pack?
“The original post drew a flood of responses in no time. As if responding to a call to arms, the offers to help with a crowd-sourced search swamped the Internet. If Zhou could afford the cigarettes, what else?
“It seemed justifiable for people to approach the search from this angle. Before Zhou could come up with an explanation for the cigarettes, another picture popped up. This time he was wearing a Cartier watch. Then, in breathtaking succession, more and more pictures were posted online as irrefutable evidence of Zhou’s decadent lifestyle. Those were shots of the three luxury cars registered in his name—two Mercedes and one BMW—and of his son studying at Eton, a private school in London, and driving an Audi there. There were also more than five properties in the city under his name. Some capable hackers even managed to get hold of copies of the title deeds to his properties. Soon it was impossible for Zhou to defend the wealth he had amassed in the last five or six years.”
“I’m beginning to understand, Peiqin. It was a master stroke, that crowd-sourced search.”