With austere appearance, Zhang Gaoli was one of the most discreet leaders of the Chinese communist regime. But at 75, the former deputy prime minister finds himself at the heart of a sex scandal with worldwide repercussions.
The deputy prime minister between 2013 and 2018 was accused in early November by tennis champion Peng Shuai of having forced her into a sexual relationship three years ago in a message quickly censored by Chinese social networks.
The tennis world worried about the fate of the tennis player, invisible for three weeks, but Zhang Gaoli has shown no signs of life, not even to deny the allegations.
Born in November 1946 in Jinjiang, eastern Fujian province, He was a member of the elite of the Chinese regime for five years: the standing committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, which has seven members, including President Xi Jinping.
In photos and on state television, he was rarely seen with any expression, and he always sported flawless jet-black hair slicked back, a hairstyle traditionally favored by high-ranking Chinese officials.
Last in the hierarchy of this body, where he was in charge of supervising large infrastructures, he was considered the seventh in the command line of the country.
According to a 2013 state media profile, Zhang enjoyed tennis, reading, and playing Chinese chess in his spare time.
“There was nothing outstanding about him. He is a standard technocrat trained and cultivated by the Chinese Communist Party system.“said Deng Yuwen, a former editor of an official party magazine who now lives in the United States. “He has not had notable achievements, nor has he been involved in particular scandals: he has been an anodyne figure without any controversy.”
Even after he officially became one of the seven most powerful men in China, Zhang rarely stood out among his colleagues on the ruling Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee.
“For five years Zhang Gaoli was very gray,” says political scientist Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “He did not distinguish himself in any way and his name was not associated with any particular achievement,” he insists.
But his discreet personality concealed enormous power. As deputy prime minister, he was in charge of aspects of the Chinese economy, its energy sector and the Xi Belt and Road initiative, the new “Silk Road” being promoted by the Chinese regime.
And before leaving power in 2018, He led a working group on the preparation of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will begin in February. In this role, in June 2016 he received in Beijing the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomoas Bach, the same one who spoke by videoconference on Sunday with Peng Shuai, who told him that everything was going well.
A powerful godfather
Unlike Xi, who was born a “prince” – the son of communist revolutionary heroes – which gave him inherent status and prestige within the party, Zhang came from a modest background.
Born in 1946 to a farming family in a small coastal town in the southeastern province of Fujian, Zhang grew up in poverty. As detailed CNN, his father died before he was 3 years old, and from a young age he helped his mother with farming and fishing, according to state media.
Zhang was admitted to the economics department of Xiamen University, a prestigious institution in his province. When he graduated, China was in the midst of the ravages caused by the Cultural Revolution, a decade of political and social upheaval unleashed by the late Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966.
Zhang was assigned a humble job at a state oil company in neighboring Guangdong province, transporting sacks of cement from the warehouse. According to the Chinese state media cited by the North American network, it was while working there that he met Kang Jie, a colleague who would become his wife.
Zhang eventually rose to become the party boss of the oil company, and from there began his political career.
In the next three decades, Zhang continued his ascent. In the 1990s, he was commissioned with economic planning for Guangdong, a pioneer of economic reforms in China. In Guangdong, he also had a brief stint as party chief in Shenzhen, home to a special economic zone created by the late Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping and one of the fastest growing cities in China at the time.
After the turn of the century, Zhang was transferred to Shandong, China’s third provincial economy, before becoming party chief in Tianjin, a major port city near Beijing, in 2007.
Zhang Gaoli is considered close to Prime Minister Li Keqiang and, above all, to former President Jiang Zemin (1993-2003) who, despite his 95 years, retains influence in the spheres of power as the leader of the well-known faction of the Shanghai Group.
“He was able to climb the hierarchy thanks to the support of powerful leaders,” Lam tells AFP.
The outbreak of this scandal days before the opening of an important meeting of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has led some to suppose that Zhang was the collateral victim of a dispute between Xi and his predecessor Jiang Zemin.
At the meeting, Xi Jinping passed a resolution on the party’s 100-year history that spoke highly of his tenure and downplayed Jiang Zemin’s contributions.
It is “possible” that Xi Jinping “sought to issue a warning to the Shanghai Group” by attacking one of its members just before the meeting, says Willy Lam.
Although their successes are discreet, Zhang Gaoli has so far not been involved in financial affairs like many other Chinese officials linked to large companies.
The abuse and disturbing role of his wife
The 35-year-old athlete, a double champion at Roland Garros in 2014, published a long message on the Chinese social network Weibo in early November about her complaint against former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, 40 years her senior.
In this text – in the form of an open letter – Peng Shuai reveals that Zhang Gaoli, 40 years older, He would have forced her to sleep with him at his home after a tennis match in Tianjin, around 2011.
The tennis player assures that Zhang’s wife was aware and “was standing guard outside.”
In his message, Peng Shuai evoked feelings for Zhang Gaoli, with “personalities that fit well”, and reproached him for having dragged him into a clandestine and toxic love affair, imposing on him an uncomfortable coexistence with his wife.
“I know that to someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you said you were not afraid. But even if it is me, like an egg that crashes against stone, a moth that flies into flames, courting self-destruction, I would tell the truth about us ”, wrote.
According to this message, the retired politician and the player remained lovers until a few days before the scandal broke out.
Many world tennis stars, from Chris Evert to Novak Djokovic and several Western countries, including France and the United States, have asked Beijing to clarify the whereabouts of Peng Shuai.
The European Union asked the Chinese authorities for “verifiable evidence” of the tennis player’s freedom of movement and a “transparent” investigation of her allegations about the sexual abuse of which she claims to have been a victim, a spokeswoman in Brussels said on Wednesday.
“We have seen the statements attributed to Peng Shuai and the images of his public appearance. However, the information about the abuse allegations and the fact that she has not been seen for two weeks is still very worrying, “wrote Nabila Massrali, spokesperson for EU diplomacy, in a message to AFP.
“We are not in a position to comment on the allegations themselves, but we ask for a full and transparent investigation,” he added. “Requests for reliable information are legitimate,” insisted Massrali in response to the Chinese authorities’ call not to “politicize” or “expose” the case. “We continue to ask the Chinese government to provide independent and verifiable evidence of the tennis player’s well-being and whereabouts. We hope that soon he will be able to resume his sporting and non-sporting activities ”, he concluded.
During all this time, Zhang has remained completely out of the public eye, and has not issued any response to the accusation. Since his retirement, Zhang has kept a low profile and faded from public life, and there is no published information on his current whereabouts.
With information from AFP, Reuters and EFE
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Source-www.infobae.com