chairman Zhou - he was a nefarious guy - I liked him, flew to Gansu with my assistant and he sat there for 6 hours straight telling me he would sell me his personal shares, make it go up, but that I needed to give him a cut of my winnings - smart farmer - but I declined and left - scammer - know everyone around him - and his wife and daughter who was in college in the USA last I met with all three of them, she was back to China on break..
he basically did something illegal when he directly transferred the assets to a USA company because "legally" Americans aren't able to "own" Chinese real estate and specifically farmland. its a sovereignty issue. we know real estate and licensing really well - really well - so anyone trying to bamboozle us has been in for a big surprise.
the "win" for the Gansu government was getting their $2B USD of real property back. Literally - legally - it was owned by a "California Corporation" and anyone who knows China knows the Gansu people are some of the most corrupt - they are American Old Western (gunfighters) living in the 20th Century. to them this looks reasonable. that's why they don't care about the empty shell - they already won the game.
put another way - they own all the land and all the assets and pay themselves lavishly directly from the land they own so why the hell would they care about a minority shareholder group when in reality they make all the money they want right now - and oh by the way - if they transfer their "earnings" to America they are stuck paying USA corporate taxes. it's not worth it for a lifelong PLA Army member who works for the government. stay at home and steal the money locally. less complicated.
when they start dealing in stock like the people I am familiar with in Guangzhou - there's big problems when you steal from non-Chinese because they get smart really fast, and our experience with Gansu and Yasheng came in extremely handy when we started asking lots of questions and got the "two hands waving:" from all of the farmers and related local tigers and lawyers. "HERB" / "YHGG:" Yasheng is a real shame - it used to be real - and the others.... nope..... fake and still fake.
