30 May –Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is allegedly being investigated for a sex scandal linked with China's former Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai. According to various sources that have been rampant on the matter, Zhang has been barred from leaving the country, where she is currently shooting "The Grandmasters", while the investigations are ongoing. This may explain why she has refused to appear at the Cannes Film Festival, where her upcoming movie "Dangerous Liaisons" is contending. She has also refused an invitation to present the Palme d'Or award at the festival. Zhang's involvement in the scandal with Bo, was believed to have been arranged by another government official and an associate of Bo, Xu Ming, the founder and chairman of the Dailian Shide Group. The actress had agreed to sleep with Bo for 10 million Yuan (approximately SG$2 million) and they had at least 10 encounters in between 2004 to 2007, according to the Chinese media. Zhang was also believed to have been introduced to other officials through Xu, and slept with them to rake in about 700 million Yuan (SG$141.7 million) from the transactions that took place between 2004 and 2007. Source: http://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/news/zhang-ziyi-investigated-prostitution-040200059.html
There are women who will always be said that they're well practiced in the compensated art of pleasing men. In imperial times, they're referred to as courtesans, as if what they do is somehow a noble calling. Nowadays, we refer to them as what they really are; prostitutes or just plain old hookers. Zhang Ziyi certainly has given me the impression (based entirely on media accounts of course, what the truth is, we'll probably never know) that she's a self absorbed egocentric overachiever, who would do anything to get ahead and to make money. After the reported skimming and misappropriation of Sichuan earthquake donations, as far as I'm concerned her reputation was already badly tarnished. Sure, she's mega hot and admittedly, I would do her in a minute; but I have zero respect for her. So is she a prostitute; did she sleep with Brother Bo for big bucks? IMHO, she probably did. But more importantly, was it for the money alone? No. One has to realize that Bo Xilai at one point, was quietly rumored to have been on the fast track to be the next head of the evil empire. In other words, if this was a young Mao riding by on a dark horse, and he needed a piece of ass. Zhang Ziyi likely considered this the golden opportunity to be the next Jiang Qing. Failing that, she would at least be considered a favored imperial concubine to this People's Dynasty next reigning ruler. She would then be set to make millions like all the other Chinese who walk in the party's halls of power. But given the fact that Bo Xilai has fallen from grace, all who were associated with his criminal enterprise have now been denied his aegis. Bo can no longer even protect himself. Hence, anyone with an ax to grind against any of those in his entourage now has the perfect opportunity to go and get their licks in. Thus, in a land of Human Flesh Search Engines and "Jet Planing" I suspect that this is just one of those outcomes. Like a palace coup, all of the favored prince's entourage or faction are now being put to the sword by their rivals or by people they had slighted. It has been pretty much alleged that Zhang Ziyi had stepped on many on her way up, and she has a reputation of being really a nasty bitch. Thus, she's probably pissed off a lot of people and now she appears to be out on a limb without her royal patron to protect her. LOL... she's going to have the time of her life and frankly, I don't think it could have happened to a better person. -bowroflarms
Wait, all of these accusations are "alleged" right? Or have they been proven? Anyway, should this be true, she's retarded. For someone with her level of success, she was really that greedy to the point of hooking up for a few more bucks?
well how else did she get up the chain? thats the way with most of the actresses in asia anyway - its normal, just how much u want ot believe stupid but... oh wells =/
That's what I'm saying lol this girl isn't in this for the money... There's no obvious reason as to why she'd do this lmao.
No obvious reason? LOL... Seriously, I beg to differ. IMHO, it can't get any more obvious. Nay, this wasn't about the money; it was a Wendy Murdoch move. It was for the access to power and influence. For the same reason Bloomberg wanted to be mayor of New York for a salary of $1 a year (he's entitled to $225000); to be situated in the seat of power. In other words, Zhang Ziyi was doing this to get herself connected to someone of power and influence. Spoiler: From the New York Times May 17, 2012 ‘Princelings’ in China Use Family Ties to Gain Riches By DAVID BARBOZA and SHARON LaFRANIERE SHANGHAI — The Hollywood studio DreamWorks Animation recently announced a bold move to crack China’s tightly protected film industry: a $330 million deal to create a Shanghai animation studio that might one day rival the California shops that turn out hits like “Kung Fu Panda” and “The Incredibles.” What DreamWorks did not showcase, however, was one of its newest — and most important — Chinese partners: Jiang Mianheng, the 61-year-old son of Jiang Zemin, the former Communist Party leader and the most powerful political kingmaker of China’s last two decades. The younger Mr. Jiang’s coups have included ventures with Microsoft and Nokia and oversight of a clutch of state-backed investment vehicles that have major interests in telecommunications, semiconductors and construction projects. That a dealmaker like Mr. Jiang would be included in an undertaking like that of DreamWorks is almost a given in today’s China. Analysts say this is how the Communist Party shares the spoils, allowing the relatives of senior leaders to cash in on one of the biggest economic booms in history. As the scandal over Bo Xilai continues to reverberate, the authorities here are eager to paint Mr. Bo, a fallen leader who was one of 25 members of China’s ruling Politburo, as a rogue operator who abused his power, even as his family members accumulated a substantial fortune. But evidence is mounting that the relatives of other current and former senior officials have also amassed vast wealth, often playing central roles in businesses closely entwined with the state, including those involved in finance, energy, domestic security, telecommunications and entertainment. Many of these so-called princelings also serve as middlemen to a host of global companies and wealthy tycoons eager to do business in China. “Whenever there is something profitable that emerges in the economy, they’ll be at the front of the queue,” said Minxin Pei, an expert on China’s leadership and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. “They’ve gotten into private equity, state-owned enterprises, natural resources — you name it.” For example, Wen Yunsong, the son of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, heads a state-owned company that boasts that it will soon be Asia’s largest satellite communications operator. President Hu Jintao’s son, Hu Haifeng, once managed a state-controlled firm that held a monopoly on security scanners used in China’s airports, shipping ports and subway stations. And in 2006, Feng Shaodong, the son-in-law of Wu Bangguo, the party’s second-ranking official, helped Merrill Lynch win a deal to arrange the $22 billion public listing of the giant state-run bank I.C.B.C., in what became the world’s largest initial public stock offering. Much of the income earned by families of senior leaders may be entirely legal. But it is all but impossible to distinguish between legitimate and ill-gotten gains because there is no public disclosure of the wealth of officials and their relatives. Conflict-of-interest laws are weak or nonexistent. And the business dealings of the political elite are heavily censored in the state-controlled news media. The spoils system, for all the efforts to keep a lid on it, poses a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of the Communist Party. As the state’s business has become increasingly intertwined with a class of families sometimes called the Red Nobility, analysts say the potential exists for a backlash against an increasingly entrenched elite. They also point to the risk that national policies may be subverted by leaders and former leaders, many of whom exert influence long after their retirement, acting to protect their own interests. Chinese officials and their relatives rarely discuss such a delicate issue publicly. The New York Times made repeated attempts to reach public officials and their relatives for this article, often through their companies. None of those reached agreed to comment on the record. DreamWorks and Microsoft declined to comment about their relationship with Mr. Jiang. A secret United States State Department cable from 2009, released two years ago by the WikiLeaks project, cited reports that China’s ruling elite had carved up the country’s economic pie. At the same time, many companies openly boast that their ties to the political elite give them a competitive advantage in China’s highly regulated marketplace. A Chinese sportswear company called Xidelong, for example, proudly informed some potential investors that one of its shareholders was the son of Wen Jiabao, according to one of the investors. (A private equity firm, New Horizon, that the son, Wen Yunsong helped found invested in the company in 2009, according to Xidelong’s Web site.) “There are so many ways to partner with the families of those in power,” said one finance executive who has worked with the relatives of senior leaders. “Just make them part of your deal; it’s perfectly legal.” Worried about the appearance of impropriety and growing public disgust with official corruption, the Communist Party has repeatedly revised its ethics codes and tightened financial disclosure rules. In its latest iteration, the party in 2010 required all officials to report the jobs, whereabouts and investments of their spouses and children, as well as their own incomes. But the disclosure reports remain secret; proposals to make them public have been shelved repeatedly by the party-controlled legislature. The party is unlikely to move more aggressively because families of high-ranking past and current officials are now deeply embedded in the economic fabric of the nation. Over the past two decades, business and politics have become so tightly intertwined, they say, that the Communist Party has effectively institutionalized an entire ecosystem of crony capitalism. “They don’t want to bring this into the open,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, a China specialist at Harvard University. “It would be a tsunami.” Critics charge that powerful vested interests are now strong enough to block reforms that could benefit the larger populace. Changes in banking and financial services, for instance, could affect the interests of the family of Zhu Rongji, China’s prime minister from 1998 to 2003 and one of the architects of China’s economic system. His son, Levin Zhu, joined China International Capital Corporation, one of the country’s biggest investment banks, in 1998 and has served as its chief executive for the past decade. Efforts to open the power sector to competition, for example, could affect the interests of relatives of Li Peng, a former prime minister. Li Xiaolin, his daughter, is the chairwoman and chief executive of China Power International, the flagship of one of the big five power generating companies in China. Her brother, Li Xiaopeng, was formerly the head of another big power company and is now a public official. “This is one of the most difficult challenges China faces,” said Mr. Pei, an authority on China’s leadership. “Whenever they want to implement reform, their children might say, ‘Dad, what about my business?’ ” There are also growing concerns that a culture of nepotism and privilege nurtured at the top of the system has flowed downward, permeating bureaucracies at every level of government in China. “After a while you realize, wow, there are actually a lot of princelings out there,” said Victor Shih, a China scholar at Northwestern University near Chicago, using the label commonly slapped on descendants of party leaders. “You’ve got the children of current officials, the children of previous officials, the children of local officials, central officials, military officers, police officials.We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people out there — all trying to use their connections to make money.” To shore up confidence in the government’s ability to tackle the problem, high-ranking leaders regularly inveigh against greedy officials caught with their hand in the till. In 2008, for instance, a former Shanghai Party secretary, Chen Liangyu, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for bribery and abuse of power. One of his crimes was pressing businessmen to funnel benefits to his close relatives, including a land deal that netted his brother, Chen Liangjun, a $20 million profit. But exposés in the foreign press — like the report in 2010 that Zeng Wei, the son of China’s former vice president Zeng Qinghong, bought a $32 million mansion in Sydney, Australia — are ignored by the Chinese-language news media and blocked by Internet censors. Allegations of bribery and corruption against the nation’s top leaders typically follow — rather than precede — a fall from political grace. Mr. Bo’s downfall this spring, for instance, came after his former police chief in Chongqing told American diplomats that Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, had ordered the murder of Neil Heywood, a British businessman, in a dispute over the family’s business interests. Evidence has surfaced of at least $160 million in assets held by close relatives of Bo Xilai, and the authorities are investigating whether other assets held by the family may have been secretly and illegally moved offshore. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, responded by demanding a more forceful crackdown on corruption. Without naming Mr. Bo by name, People’s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, denounced fortune seekers who stain the party’s purity by smuggling ill-gotten gains out of the country. Some scholars argue that the party is now hostage to its own unholy alliances. Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics with the Brookings Institution in Washington, said it would be difficult for the Chinese government to push through major political reforms aimed at extricating powerful political families from business without giving immunity to those now in power. And with no independent judiciary in China, he said, party leaders would essentially be charged with investigating themselves. “The party has said anticorruption efforts are a life-and-death issue,” Mr. Li said. “But if they want to clean house, it may be fatal.” Chinese tycoons have also been quietly welcomed into the families of senior leaders, often through secret partnerships in which the sons, daughters, spouses and close relatives act as middlemen or co-investors in real estate projects or other deals that need government approval or backing, according to investors who have been involved in such transactions. Moreover, China’s leading political families, often through intermediaries, hold secret shares in dozens of companies, including many that are publicly listed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and elsewhere, according to interviews with bankers and investment advisers. Lately, the progeny of the political elite have retooled the spoils system for a new era, moving into high-finance ventures like private equity funds, where the potential returns dwarf the benefits from serving as a middleman to government contracts or holding an executive post at a state monopoly. Jeffrey Zeng, the son of the former Politburo member Zeng Peiyan, is a managing partner at Kaixin Investments, a venture-capital firm set up with two state-owned entities, China Development Bank and Citic Capital. Liu Lefei, the son of another Politburo member, Liu Yunshan, helps operate the $4.8 billion Citic Private Equity Fund, one of the biggest state-managed funds. Last year, Alvin Jiang, the grandson of former president Jiang Zemin, the former Communist Party leader and president, helped establish Boyu Capital, a private equity firm that is on its way to raising at least $1 billion. Most recently, with the Communist Party promising to overhaul the nation’s media and cultural industries, the relatives of China’s political elite are at the head of the crowd scrambling for footholds in a new frontier. The February announcement of the deal between DreamWorks and three Chinese partners, including Shanghai Alliance Investment, was timed to coincide with the high-profile visit to the United States of Xi Jinping, China’s vice president and presumptive next president. The news release did not mention that Shanghai Alliance is partly controlled by Jiang Zemin’s son Jiang Mianheng. A person who answered the telephone at the Shanghai Alliance office here declined to comment. Zeng Qinghuai, the brother of Zeng Qinghong, China’s former vice president, is also in the film business. He served as a consultant for the patriotic epic “Beginning of the Great Revival.” The film exemplified the hand-in-glove relationship between business and politics. It was shown on nearly 90,000 movie screens across the country. Government offices and schools were ordered to buy tickets in bulk. The media was banned from criticizing it. It became one of last year’s top-grossing films. Scholars describe the film industry as the new playground for princelings. Zhang Xiaojin, director of the Center of Political Development at Tsinghua University, said, “There are cases where propaganda department officials specifically ask their children to make films which they then approve.” Zhao Xiao, an economist at the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, said, “They are everywhere, as long as the industry is profitable.” Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/w...ches.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all Or... to put it this way, she wasn't f.ucking the man for his money (though that probably didn't hurt); she thought that she was hopefully sleeping with the next emperor and as such, be included within his inner circle of untouchable confidantes (once he rose to take power). In other words, she could then not only make tons of money (LOL, the 10 Million Yuan talked about above is chump change), but literally do anything she wanted and get away with it. This is how China works. Further, even though Bo may have been married, and she couldn't be officially the First Lady of China, she would nonetheless, be first pussy which IMHO carries a hell of a lot more weight. She arguably would have become the most powerful woman in China. No obvious reason? No offense, but damn, this is almost as simple as a TVB script. Except Bo is history now, and thus, so is she, LOL...
Lol. I figured a post like this would be coming. Let me clarify as to my choice of the word "obvious". My assumption is that with the level of success like Zhang Ziyi's, who is arguably one of the most successful females out of China, one would be able gain this power and influence, albeit not as easily, but possible. So my choice of the word "obvious" alludes to the assumption that she doesn't need to do what she did to gain what she seeks. Also, as you said, Bo is history, so why would she sleep with an outdated man? And so I maintain the claim that her reason for doing so is not obvious.
Well, we have to look upon this relative to the time that it allegedly happened (2004-2007), namely, when Zhang was in her early 20's and Bo at that time was still a hotly rising political star. He didn't run into misfortune until only recently. I'm sure that her having liaisons with him was likely common knowledge to both his and her retinues, with silence being ensured simply by fear of Bo's reach. However, since Bo is now, for all intents, politically dead; all sorts of things will begin to come out. IMHO, this was probably one of many things. With Bo nuetered, anyone with a beef against either him or her can likely divulge secrets even if these events were (as in this case) already years old. As for being rich in China Zhang Ziyi may be one of the most successful persons ever to come from China, but then again, so too are many others. She has money but still doesn't command the sort of fear and respect that egotistical people like her crave. Again, IMHO she (at the time) hitched her pony to his parade because she wanted to have the imprimatur of Ruling Class on her resume.
