As China reins in non-public sector, one other businessman will get 18 years

Written by Paul Mozur
Sun Dawu, a rural tycoon and outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party, was sentenced to 18 years in jail Wednesday, the newest in a string of harsh punishments meted out by China in opposition to enterprise leaders.
The 67-year-old Sun had been detained in November after a land dispute between his firm, Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group, and a neighboring state-owned farm. Prosecuted in a trial closed to the general public alongside 19 members of the family and workers, Sun was convicted of a spread of crimes, together with organizing individuals to assault state companies, obstructing public affairs and frightening quarrels.
Long a thorn within the facet of Beijing, Sun was a frequent and loud critic of Chinese authorities insurance policies, from its early dealing with of COVID-19 to native authorities cover-ups over a 2019 outbreak of African swine fever that killed 1000’s of his pigs. He was additionally a businessman who cultivated a picture of generosity. As his agricultural empire grew he created a city round his holdings and offered companies, like hospital care, to workers.
The harsh sentence comes amid broader efforts by the Chinese chief, Xi Jinping, to muzzle outspoken enterprise leaders and produce the non-public sector to heel. Under Xi, a rising variety of tycoons have been punished and a barrage of recent guidelines have laid low company Goliaths within the know-how and schooling industries. Stocks for a few of China’s best-known corporations, like Tencent and Didi, have sagged, whereas an anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba led to a $2.8 billion high-quality.
A view of a pig farm owned by Sun Dawu, a rural tycoon and outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party, in Bao Ding, China, on April 16, 2019. Sun, who was was detained in November 2020 after a land dispute between his agricultural firm and a neighboring state-owned farm, was sentenced to 18 years in jail Wednesday, July 28, 2021. (The New York Times)
Sun’s 18-year sentence matched these given lately to 2 different businessmen. In 2018, Wu Xiaohui, a Chinese tycoon who rose to prominence after he purchased the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, was sentenced to 18 years in jail for defrauding buyers. Last yr, Ren Zhiqiang, a retired actual property mogul, was given an 18-year jail time period after he known as Xi a clown in an essay.
“If this were wartime, I would have been sacrificed a long time ago,” Sun mentioned in an announcement. “With my character, I can’t give others a flattering smile. I can’t do it. That has doomed my destiny.”
Sun and several other members of his household described brutal police remedy throughout monthslong interrogation that pressured what they mentioned had been false confessions. One son mentioned he had been strapped to a chair for 30 hours till his limbs swelled painfully, whereas Sun’s brother described being left with an untreated hernia.
“My treatment produced misery beyond words, and life was worse than death,” Sun mentioned, describing how he didn’t see the solar for greater than three months through the detention.
Sun additionally requested the courtroom within the rural county of Gaobeidian, southwest of Beijing, to acquit the executives at his firm who stood trial alongside him, saying all faults had been his personal. In its verdict, the courtroom mentioned solely that the staff and his firm can be punished, with out offering particulars.
Sun’s legal professionals mentioned in an announcement that the opposite 19 defendants had acquired sentences starting from one to 12 years in jail. The eagerness and velocity with which the courtroom dealt with the advanced case, usually pushing the trial previous 12 hours a day for 14 consecutive days, “showed this was not a normal trial,” the legal professionals added.
While Sun was finest identified for his unstinting criticisms of China’s authorities, he was additionally famend for his enterprise acumen. A veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, Sun labored at China’s state-owned Agricultural Bank of China earlier than putting out on his personal. Starting with 50 pigs and 1,000 chickens, he and his household constructed a enterprise that got here to make use of 1000’s of individuals.
As his enterprise grew, he constructed a city, Dawu City, that offered companies to his rising variety of workers and finally included a 1,000-bed hospital. In the early 2000s, Sun took his concepts on the street to a few of China’s high universities, talking out on behalf of farmers and entrepreneurs.
The speeches nettled officers and introduced him undesirable consideration. In 2003 he was arrested on accusations of unlawful fundraising. A solid of lecturers, legal professionals and journalists efficiently campaigned for his launch.
That brush with the regulation, which earned him fame, is in sharp distinction to this week’s trial. This time, Sun confronted expenses in a special form of China.
Under Xi, a collection of crackdowns on civil society has thinned out the ranks of liberal-minded legal professionals and unbiased journalists. Xu Zhiyong, one in every of three legal professionals who represented Sun in 2003 and a outstanding activist, was detained final yr after he urged Xi to resign, writing to Xi that “you’re just not smart enough.”
At the time, Sun spoke up for Xu. This time, there have been few left to talk up for Sun, who argued repeatedly of the necessity to push again in opposition to energy grabs and political bullying.
“When confronted with terror, what could ordinary people like us do?” Sun mentioned in a 2015 speech. “Open our eyes in fear and shriek.”
The destiny of Sun’s enterprise stays unclear. His oldest son and firm chairman, Sun Meng, mentioned by his lawyer that the federal government gave the impression to be pushing for a takeover.
“An official came and said that Dawu Group needed someone to operate it and recommended several companies to me to take over the group,” he mentioned. “I said those companies were not even in the same industry; how could they take over Dawu?”
Among Sun’s supporters was Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, a human rights advocate who died in detention in China in 2017. Liu as soon as mentioned Sun posed a “tremendous challenge” to the Chinese system as a result of he possessed each braveness and sources.
“The government,” Liu wrote, “will definitely go after him with murky laws.”
This article initially appeared in The New York Times.