Chinese Whispers: tycoon Desmond Shum on corruption, power and his wife’s disappearance

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In the early 2000s, Desmond Shum and his wife, Whitney Duan, were among the richest people in China, with fingers in various real estate, infrastructure and hospitality projects. They also had some of China’s most powerful people on speed dial – including the family of then-premier Wen Jiabao. But that all changed in 2017 when Whitney was disappeared by the Chinese state. Desmond now lives in the UK where he published a memoir in 2021, Red Roulette, and is now an analyst and commentator on Chinese politics.
On this interview, Cindy Yu and Desmond Shum discuss why he thinks Whitney was the victim of a power struggle involving Xi Jinping, the reality of politics and corruption in the China of the 2000s, and how Xi has destroyed the economic trajectory of the once-booming People’s Republic.