Tycoon Gu Chujun’s case review provides latest test of China’s treatment of private sector
As crackdowns on tycoons continue, Gu tries to clear name after 10-year sentence in 2005 on charges he said were trumped up by corrupt officials
Gu Chujun, a former appliance tycoon who was jailed on what he calls falsified charges, is having his case reviewed in southern China on Wednesday, in a quest for exoneration that marks another test of the legal treatment of private entrepreneurs in the communist nation.
The case of the 59-year-old engineer-turned-entrepreneur, who made his fortune by making white goods as well as a series of aggressive mergers and acquisitions, is the second high-profile appeal case involving a private businessman that the Supreme People’s Court vowed to revisit in December, as the Communist Party strives to allay private sector concerns over its increasingly heavy hand.
Last month, Zhang Wenzhong, the former chairman of one of China’s biggest retail chains, Wumart Stores, was exonerated of charges of bribery and fraud that had landed him in jail.
Gu, the former chairman of Guangdong Kelon Electrical Holding – then one of China’s biggest makers of white goods and appliances – was once riding high in the private sector, held up by Chinese media as a role model for entrepreneurs, and a turnaround specialist.
