So there’s this Chen Jiulin, who is some “Beijing Joseph Investment Director” that made a long opinion piece in the Chinese papers about Singapore.
In the article, he says that Singapore is now going through turbulent times since Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s passing. He also assumes that we have long-standing social problems, an ailing economy, made missteps in foreign policy and suffer leadership succession issues.
I call bullshit on Chen.
For those not familiar with who he is, I’d like to point out that he is the disgraced ex-Chief Executive of Singapore-listed China Aviation Oil Ltd (CAO).
In 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months in jail and fined S$335,000 for his role in China Aviation’s near collapse in 2004. He caused CAO to withhold price-sensitive information and misrepresented the viability of the company when it was in fact insolvent.
He then sought to artificially inflate the earnings of CAO by speculating in oil derivatives. However, CAO’s traders misread the oil market and made substantial losses in 2004. Chen then attempted to hide the losses by issuing misleading financial statements and hid the facts from the Singapore Exchange.
In October 2004, he informed his Beijing bosses of the losses and they sought to sell a 15% stake in CAO to Deutsche Bank to raise funds so that they could cover the losses.
Deutsche Bank was unaware of their activities and the losses, Chen was then charged with conspiring to cheat the German bank and instigating the Beijing parent company to commit insider trading.
Chen had, according to the Judge, “persistently engaged in a series of elaborate and illegal practices” to circumvent Singapore’s corporate laws.
He clearly has an axe to grind against the Republic, against the Rule of Law in particular – for he probably thinks that he did all this for corporate good and perhaps, therefore, normal behaviour.
Even behind bars, he attempted to defame the Singapore Prison Service by alleging mistreatment of inmates. All this was dismissed swiftly, the prisons are always open to scrutiny and due diligence is adhered to.
Mr Chin Harf Tong, a member of the Board of Visiting Justices and the Board of Inspection said: “it was a few years ago that I visited Changi Prison, and I met Chen Jiulin and asked him whether he has any complaints, or any comments or suggestions.” None of the sorts was heard from Chen. “I’m very surprised to hear all this. How is it that when I met him, he had not mentioned this, and a few years later he raised the same issue again?” said Chin.
Chen is clearly unhappy and from his long opinion piece to a Chinese tabloid, he’s still licking his wounds. It isn’t easy to spend 4 years behind bars, not when you’re millionaire chief executive.
So everything he says about how Singapore should align with China (basically telling us to march to their orders), how we’ve lost our economic edge, how our leadership is shaking – all that is utter rubbish, without an ounce of intelligence behind it.
Written by: Kopi Siu Dai
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