MINNIE.CHAN@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Sunday, 27 March, 2016, 2:23am
Xu Zengping pictured in the 1990s outside his former home on The Peak. File photo: SMP Pictures.
Xu Zengping, the Hong Kong-based tycoon that back in 1997 owned a Palace of Versailles-style home on The Peak, has money troubles.
He is struggling to pay off debts of about US$120 million he incurred because Beijing has not paid him back the funds he spent on buying an aircraft carrier and bringing it back to the country.
Businessman Xu Zengping, pictured earlier this month, says he spent about US$120 million buying the aircraft carrier for China, but still has not been paid. Photo by Simon Song
“I don’t have enough capital to develop my own two military-civilian projects and other property development plans, because the carrier used up not only
almost all my capital, but also plunged me into debt,” he said.
“Over the past two decades, I have had to take out a new loan to cover the existing debts caused by the carrier deal.”
Xu said he was sent by China’s late real admiral He Pengfei, then deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, as a middleman to buy the unfinished Soviet naval hulk Varyag from Ukraine’s Nikolayev South Shipyard on the Black Sea in 1998 for US$20 million.
However, he said the gambit ended up costing him about US$120 million as it took another four years before the ship sailed into the Chinese port of Dalian in Liaoning province.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning cruises back to a port after its first navy sea trial in Dalian in 2012. Photo: AP
“Someone in the army even tried to blacken my name about earning a lot of money from the deal,” Xu said. “If I had been out to profit from this, I would have sold the aircraft carrier once I’d bought it. But I didn’t do that, did I?”
It’s really ridiculous that up until now, neither the central government nor the PLA has reimbursed me a single yuan
XU ZENGPING, PLA VETERAN
“It’s really ridiculous that up until now, neither the central government nor the PLA has reimbursed me a single yuan.
“At least they should give me one official explanation – how come the carrier I bought was passed to the navy? And what was my role in the deal?”
The carrier was renamed Liaoning when it was formally delivered to the PLA in September 2012 and so far has been used only for training.
However, Xu was not even invited to attend the carrier’s official commissioning ceremony.
“I just hope the central government will support patriotic entrepreneurs like me, and let us play a role in China’s military defence industry as soon as possible,” Xu said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1931060/chinese-government-still-owes-me-us120m-buying-it
