The Princeling of Nanjing

by Ian Hamilton

They walked through the living room and into the kitchen. The white-tiled floor was stained and chipped, and a folding table — the kind brought out for a game of mah-jong — had been set up in the corner with two folding chairs. The appliances looked as if they were twenty years old. On the stovetop was a pot of what Ava assumed was congee. On the counter sat a hot-water Thermos and a rice cooker.

  Ava and Xu sat across from each other.

  “Ava, do you want tea?” Auntie Grace said.

  “Please.”

  The old woman took a teapot from the cupboard and filled it with leaves and hot water from the Thermos. She placed the pot with a cup in front of Ava. She then went to another cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky and a glass. She put those in front of Xu.

  “Are you ready to eat?” she said to him.

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me know when you are. I won’t sleep,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  Auntie Grace turned to Ava. “I spoke with my niece Fan tonight. She was very excited about her day.”

  “She seems to be a very intelligent young woman.”

  “She was my only sister’s only child, and she is my only immediate family.”

  “I understand,” Ava said softly.

  Auntie Grace stared at Xu and then walked out of the kitchen.

  He filled his glass half-full with whisky. “Here’s to family,” he said.

  “That sounds sarcastic.”

  “A day with Tsai will do that to you.”

  Ava sipped her tea while he took a gulp of the alcohol. “So, what the hell happened?” she asked.

  “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “Is it that complicated?”

  “It’s a fucking mess.” Xu ran his fingers through his hair, pressing down on his scalp. “They’re going to destroy me. They’re going to destroy everything I’ve built and everything I want to build. What’s making me crazy is that I don’t think it’s even deliberate. They just think they can do whatever they want and get away with it. I’m the one who sees the danger. But Tsai won’t listen because his father doesn’t listen and because his grandfather never had to listen. I’m dealing with three generations of people who have no idea what it’s like to be denied anything.”

  Ava leaned across the table and touched the back of Xu’s hand. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the grandfather,” she said.

  ( 6 )

  Xu was sipping the eighteen-year-old Macallan whisky with something close to respect.

  “Tsai Da-Xia marched with Mao,” he began.

  “The Long March?”

  “‘The Long March of the Red Army’ is how the Party people refer to it,” Xu said. “Do you know much about it?”

  “A little, but go on.”

  “In 1934 the Red Army was losing to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang in the struggle for control of China. The army was in Jiangxi Province and wasn’t strong enough to take on the nationalists. So the soldiers withdrew. They retreated for more than a year, marching 9,000 kilometres. When they finally confronted Chiang, they had grown large enough and strong enough to beat him. The men who were on that march became legends. It vaulted Mao into his position. And the other senior officers all became office holders of the highest rank. Tsai Da-Xia was one of those men. He was eventually appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee.”

  “Standing committee? That doesn’t sound like much of an appointment.”

  “It was the second most powerful group in the country. Only the chairman was superior to them. In fact, since Chairman Deng Xiaoping died in l997, the committee has been the main seat of power. There have been no more chairmen since then.”

  “So Tsai survived the Cultural Revolution, he survived Mao’s lunacies?”

  “Yeah. The Tsais know how to keep their heads down.”

  “How long did Tsai Da-Xia serve?”

  “He died in 1984, when he was seventy-nine. He was a member of the PSC until his last breath. He was one of eight men on the committee, and five of them were associated with the Long March. Tsai was ranked third. He had responsibility for government administration and the economy.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “My father and Uncle made it a point to know. We were already holding hands with some government officials and they wanted to know who we were doing business with and how they were connected further up the line. And, as they told me time and time again, there’s always someone further up the line.”

  Ava poured more tea and then heard the gentle slap of slippers on tile. Auntie Grace appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “I think I’ll start your noodles,” she said. “They’ll help reduce the effect of the alcohol.”

  Xu stared at her. “Do what you want. You will anyway,” he said, and looked back at Ava. “Let’s sit in the living room until the noodles are ready.”

  He picked up the bottle and glass. Ava took her cup but left the pot on the table. As Xu walked past Auntie Grace, he stopped and bent down to kiss her on the forehead.

  “Get going,” she said, smiling.

  The living room was furnished with carved wooden benches and chairs with thin, flat seat cushions. An old tea chest doubled as a coffee table, and two corners of the room were guarded by stone lions. The walls were decorated with traditional paintings of rushing waterfalls, rice paddies, and dragons. Xu sat on one of the benches. Ava took the chair across from him and put her cup on the glass top of the tea chest.

  “You said to me yesterday that Tsai Men’s father was the governor of Jiangsu,” Ava said. “Can I assume that Tsai Da-Xia had something to do with making that happen?”

  “Something?” Xu said. “He had everything to do with it.”

  “What’s the governor’s name?”

  “Tsai Lian, and he’s what’s called a ‘princeling,’ or, as my father used to call them, ‘the entitled ones.’”

  “Neither term sounds particularly positive.”

  Xu shrugged. “They are the sons of the legends, and in this society, where for decades we tried to restrict the size of families, those sons were the most precious things imaginable. So they were pampered as children, given the best education possible as teenagers and young adults, and then immediately put into government positions. All the while, they were being guided by fathers who had the power to make sure they succeeded. Tsai Lian wasn’t unique. I know of at least seven other sons of men who were on the PSC who today are running various parts of China. They’re the closest thing we have to royalty. They certainly feel and act like they’re part of a dynasty.”

  “How did he become governor?”

  “He was appointed, like every governor in China, except he was given one of the largest and wealthiest provinces. There are eighty million people living in Jiangsu, and it has one of the highest per capita incomes among all of the provinces in the country.”

  “His father appointed him?”

  “No, he was appointed by a committee in Beijing, but every member of the committee knew who his father was. And every member knew that sooner or later he might need Tsai Da-Xia’s influence.”

  “Guanxi.”

  “Now and forever. The Communists have turned it into an art form.”

  “How old was he when he was appointed?”

  “Forty.”

  “And he’s been in that position ever since?”

  “He has, and so has the Communist Party secretary for the province. That’s where Da-Xia was smarter than some of his colleagues.”

  “Why?”

  “The secretary has, in theory, as much if not more power than the governor. Da-Xia arranged to have a nephew appointed. The nephew isn’t an idiot, but he isn’t nearly as smart or as tough as Tsai Lian, and Da-Xia let Tsai Lian call the shots. It’s been that way for what seems like an eternity.
Other governors and party secretaries come and go, but in Jiangsu the Tsai family rules the province.”

  “So why has it become so difficult all of a sudden?” Ava said. “From what I’m hearing, your father must have made some kind of arrangement with them.”

  “He did, and it lasted for years, but Tsai Men has decided he’s going to change the way things are done, and his father is either letting it happen or is directing it. I’m not sure which. And it doesn’t matter — the end result is the same.”

  “Do they really have that much power?”

  “Yes,” Xu said, reaching for his bottle of whisky.

  Ava had emptied her teacup. Now she held it towards him. He half filled her cup and raised his glass. “To the Tsais.”

  “It sounds like you’ve given in to them.”

  “I haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  “So what do they want?”

  “Let’s back up for a moment,” Xu said. “I want you to understand how this has played out.”

  Ava nodded.

  “When all my father ran were illegal activities — the underground gambling and prostitution and drug-dealing businesses — he didn’t have to bother that much with the provincial government. Although he obviously knew who the Tsais were, it was enough that he paid off the Shanghai police and the mayor and his family. But when he started to move into production of knock-off designer clothes and the like, he had to move outside Shanghai to find land where he could build a factory. Jiangsu is Shanghai’s immediate neighbour, and going there made sense. But the moment he did that, he ran into the Tsai family. He discovered that he wasn’t going to get any land unless they approved the sale and transfer, and he wasn’t going to build a factory unless they gave him the permit.

  “The government in Beijing may control the military and foreign affairs and set the macroeconomic policies for the country, but it’s the provinces that manage things like education, health, social security, and welfare. Those all require money, of course, and the provinces have the right to generate their own tax and revenue streams. They can also pass their own laws and regulations as long as they don’t conflict with national laws. Since Beijing doesn’t care about things like land rights, building permits, and tenders, those are left to the provinces as well. A lot of it is small stuff, but it all adds up.”

  “And the Tsais had their fingers in everything?”

  “Of course. At first we paid for actual services rendered, like getting the rights to a piece of land and a building permit. Then they decided they wanted regular cash flow and demanded monthly payments from ongoing operations. My father gave ground grudgingly, but when all was said and done, he eventually didn’t have any choice except to concede.”

  “How were they paid?”

  “For years the money went through underground remittance shops in Hong Kong, and then they started using VIP junket operators in Macau to clean money. They finally opened some offshore accounts, but when two senior officials in other provinces were discovered to have bank accounts in Europe that had hundreds of millions of dollars in them, all hell broke loose. They were arrested, tried, and executed within a month. I don’t know what the Tsais did with their offshore accounts, but we were told to stop sending money to them. Instead we found ourselves paying management and consultant fees to various companies.”

  “Did those companies do anything to earn the money?”

  “No.”

  “How many are directly owned by the family?”

  “The Governor owns nothing that we know of and has no formal association with any of them. Tsai Men is the managing director of one firm. We also send money to a company operated by a woman who is Men’s sister. Then from time to time we’re asked to pay a consulting fee to a third firm, run by a Hu Chi, who I was told is the sister’s husband. So any way you look at it, all the money flows to someone who is a Tsai or related to the family. And you can be sure, one hundred percent sure, that the old man knows and ultimately controls everything.”

  “They aren’t concerned about receiving money from your organization?”

  “The payments come from our factories. They actually invoice them.”

  “Does Tsai Men have an official government position?”

  “No, he’s just an ordinary businessman whose father happens to be governor and whose cousin is party secretary for the province.”

  “How much have you been paying these companies?”

  “When the monthly payments started, it was about half a million renminbi — about one hundred thousand U.S. dollars. It just keeps growing, and it seems like every month there’s a new fee for something or other. And then those fees are always increased whenever we open a plant.”

  “And of course they would know when you expand.”

  “They issue the permits and the licences, so they sure as hell do know. Tsai says he likes to think of us as partners.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “They’re leeches.”

  “How much do you pay them every month now?”

  “In total, about five hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”

  “Is that the problem?”

  “The monthly amount isn’t the issue. As long as they provide us with services, protection, and a stable environment in which we can grow our business, they’re worth the money.”

  “So what’s changed?”

  Xu reached for the whisky bottle and this time filled his glass. He took several sips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “They want us to build a new factory,” he said.

  “Is that what was being discussed in Nanjing?”

  “Yes. They started talking to us about a month ago. They approached Feng first. He’s my administrator. Their proposal worried him. He didn’t like the idea that they were telling us what businesses we should be in. He said if we gave in to that, then next they’d be telling us how to run them. He sees it as a matter of principle.”

  “He has a point.”

  “Yeah, except arguing principles with the Tsais is a total waste of breath,” Xu said. “When Feng came to me with their proposal, I met with Tsai Men. I told him right away and as bluntly as I could that I wasn’t interested. He insisted. We reached an impasse. His trip to Shanghai was another attempt to resolve the matter, and we couldn’t. That’s why I went to Nanjing today. I met with him and his father. It’s only the second time in the past ten years that I’ve seen or spoken to the Governor. The other time was at my father’s funeral.”

  “He stays that much in the background?”

  “He acts like he’s invisible.”

  “But he met with you yesterday?”

  “Yes, at the home of an elderly relative of his. They took me in through the back door.”

  “I can understand why he thinks he has to be discreet,” Ava said. “What was important enough for him to meet with you?”

  “He wanted to tell me how pleased he was about the number of jobs we’d created in Jiangsu, and he hoped that I would continue to work with Men to bring more jobs and prosperity to the province. Then he spent ten minutes drinking tea with me and reminiscing about my father.”

  “That was all?”

  “That was enough. What he had to say didn’t matter. The message was in the fact that he had bothered to meet with me at all. After he left, Men told me that I was being stubborn and stupid by refusing to build the plant. He told me that I had insulted his father and that the decision was no longer mine to make. They had selected the land and lined up the people we needed to operate the plant, and he was going to have a permit issued to one of my companies. Because I was being difficult, they’d also decided to partner with me. It would be a fifty-fifty arrangement. They’d be silent partners, of course. He said I should be pleased with the security that their involvement guaranteed. He gave me three months to get started.”


  “And if you don’t meet that deadline?”

  “He didn’t say. He knew he didn’t have to.”

  “What kind of plant is it?”

  Xu took another sip of whisky, his eyes wandering away from Ava. She turned and saw Auntie Grace.

  “Your noodles are ready,” she said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Xu replied.

  “What kind of plant?” Ava asked again as they got up from their seats.

  “The Tsais are determined to get me back into the drug business.”

  ( 7 )

  “Are you sure you don’t want any noodles?” Auntie Grace asked Ava in the kitchen.

  “No, thanks,” Ava said.

  “There’s a small plate on the table, just in case.”

  Xu sat at his place, and Auntie Grace filled his plate with fried noodles with thin slices of beef and chicken, slivers of green onion, and mushrooms.

  “I’m going to bed now,” Auntie Grace said. “If either of you need anything, let me know.”

  “We will,” Xu said.

  The older woman hovered for a few seconds as if there was something she wanted to say, but then she shrugged and left.

  Xu dug into the noodles with his head down. Ava waited until he’d eaten about half, and then she couldn’t wait anymore.

  “What kind of drugs?” she said.

  He sat back and picked up his glass of whisky. “They told me it was only synthetic drugs and that I shouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Ecstasy?”

  “And ketamine and methamphetamine.”

  “Meth is as addictive as heroin.”

  “I know. They said it was flooding into the province from places like Guangdong and they knew the profits were enormous. They said we should have control of our home market and not allow outsiders free rein. I said, ‘What market? We’re not in that business.’ They reminded us that we had been, not so many years ago. I tried to explain why we got out of it, but their response was that we hadn’t been so strongly connected to the Tsai family then, and if we had been, we’d still be in it.”

  “Is there any truth in that?”