COMRADE OR EMBEZZLER?
The Asian financial stage has been littered with corpses over the past 12 months. The courts are full of whodunits: Taipei's Cathay empire, Singapore's Pan-Electric Industries, Hong Kong's OTB (Overseas Trust Bank). Now it emerges that some of the most flagrant frauds took place inside the banking system of puritanical China.
Signs that something was seriously wrong with the banks of the People's Republic came early in 1985, when Jin Deqin, president of the Bank of China, was summarily removed from office. Beijing officials let it be known that he had lost his job for allowing his staff to award themselves such perks as western-style suits. Unofficially, Chinese Communist Party members interpreted his removal as a warning that the whole banking industry was under scrutiny.
A series of frauds and malpractices then came to light in every branch of the system.
Pride of place went to the staff of the Agricultural Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank - both state institutions - on Hainan Island. From January 1984 to March 1985, according to the official account, this isolated, primitive island, with a population of 5 million, imported 89,000 motor vehicles, 122,000 motor cycles, 252,000 video recorders and 2,860,000 television sets.