Posted on 08/22/2015 7:23:34 AM PDT by wtd
Connection showcases the complexity of China’s political system
SHANGHAI — The principal owner of the warehouses at the centre of the deadly blasts in Tianjin Port is also on the board of a state-owned company controlled by the State Council, the central authority investigating the explosions last week that killed at least 116 people and displaced thousands, based on an Associated Press report yesterday.
Corporate paperwork shows that Yu Xuewei, the silent majority shareholder of Ruihai International Logistics, sits on the board of directors of a subsidiary of China Sinochem, one of the country’s most influentialconglomerates.
Like other large state companies, Sinochem is also controlled by the State Council.
Mr Yu’s connections hint at the extent of his political network and showcase the complexity of China’s political system, in which the entity running an investigation can be linked to the company it is investigating.
Current corporate records show that Mr Yu was a director at Tianjin Port Sinochem even after he founded Ruihai. Those records, filed with the Administration for Industry and Commerce in Tianjin, were last updated in February and no subsequent changes to the board have been recorded.
Mr Yu admitted to using his political influence to get around safety norms in an interview published on Wednesday by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, which was granted exclusive access to him in detention. Mr Yu had been detained by police in connection with the blasts.
He said he had masked his affiliation with Ruihai by registering his 55 per cent stake under the name of his wife’s cousin.
In the aftermath of the disaster, the political response has spiralled to the top levels of power. The State Council, China’s Cabinet, has set up a panel to investigate the accident, which has sparked public outrage over regulatory and safety lapses, and gross chemical contamination in one of China’s largest cities.
President Xi Jinping and other top leaders of the ruling Communist Party had also put out a statement calling the blasts “a profound lesson paid with blood” and vowed to punish those responsible, the People’s Daily reported yesterday.
Meanwhile, as workers in protective suits started clearing wreckage, such as charred car bodies and crumpled shipping containers, from the site of a chemical warehouse that exploded, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday that four fires had broken out.
Xinhua said one of the “combustion points” was in a logistics site for automobiles near last week’s blasts, while the other three were within the central blast area. No explanation of the cause of the fires were given.
On Thursday, Reuters showed pictures of workers scooping thousands of dead fish out of the Haihe river near Tianjin, a day after authorities had declared the city’s drinking waterwas safe.
Tianjin officials said the dead fish were caused by regular seasonal low oxygen levels in the water and were not related to the blasts.
However, state media has reported that technicians have detected levels of cyanide as much as 356 times the safe level within the evacuated zone, although no abnormal contamination had been found outside the zone.
Sounds a little like that Obama/Kerry Iran nuclear deal, doesn’t it?
That’s what I was thinking too. It’s like the fox investigating a murder in the hen house.
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