Robbed in China: Part I

PURSUING JUSTICE: Michael Hull, a former Chase Manhattan banker, holds a stack of documents on his case on June 6, after being illegally detained and and robbed while doing business with China. (Joshua Philipp/The Epoch Times)

[ Video Courtesy of NTDTV ]

NEW YORK—Michael Hull, a former Chase Manhattan banker who embarked on a joint venture with a state-owned company in China, has spent the past 10 years of his life in anguish.

“I’m very tired,” said Hull, grasping a folder of documents and news clippings—evidence for his case, which has been ignored by the central authorities in China.

He is one of the voiceless with nowhere to turn, having been robbed and left with nothing. “During the last 10 years I spent all my time and energy,” he says, eyes tired and worn. A Chinese-American, the last time Hull went to China a few months back, he was stalked by secret police, illegally detained, and deported.

Just over a decade ago, when he became president of American Trade Group, the construction company had $10 million invested in it. Now, “not even $60 is left,” said Hull. Corruption in China, and a legal system powerless to control the corruption, forced him to close the company.

The process began when Hull, a New Jersey resident who grew up in Manhattan Chinatown, embarked on a joint venture in China in 1996.

Hull hoped to break into a new market, which promised growth and a seemingly endless frontier for development. After investing, “we found the Chinese enterprise [was] owned by the government. We never found their investment there; we never found their money there. Everything was false.”

Despite there not being any funds, the Chinese regime still came to own 45 percent of his company.

Four years later, he found that the more than $1 million investment was gone—transferred to the China-owned corporation. Also, all the money that was supposed to come to the company account was missing.

The man who stole the investment fund had been sent by the local government to take on the position of company general manager. After the money went missing, Hull and his company filed a report with the police department. “The police department said this is a very serious matter. We have to take care of that,” Hull said.

Two months passed, and they heard nothing, and some of Hull’s employees called the police to find out what was going on. “The police said we cannot investigate this case because the manager, Mr. Wu, is a member of the communists. So we have no right to investigate a member of the communists. We have no right, so you should go to the court,” said Hull.

After taking the case to the court, he was told to go to the police, who then told him to go to the court. Things went back and forth like this for years before they finally told Hull, “There is nothing we can do.”

“The whole case is a scandal—is a corruption scandal,” Hull said. “The whole case is protected by the local authority government officials.”

The Petition Office

Hull and his coworkers tried speaking with local officials in China and then with the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. It was later recommended he petition central state officials in Beijing.

The first time Hull went was in November 2009. After arriving, he quickly realized there was more to the process than he first realized. “Now normal times, you cannot go there, because there are thousands and thousands of people in line,” Hull said. “Even if you stay there a week you cannot get a ticket to get in.”

He said only those who know the area well can make a petition. After returning to his home in New Jersey, Hull found a group online who had been similarly cheated through joint ventures and who had experience in filing petitions, after doing so for years.

On April 26 this year, Hull took a flight to Hong Kong to meet with 10 others who would all go together to Beijing to petition. “Those people are very poor, and those people used to be a billionaire, or a millionaire,” said Hull. One of the older men lost more than $1 billion, and an older woman from Australia lost $30 million.

According to Hull, many of the individuals were tired, worn out after years of petitioning, and trying to get their cases heard. “Some people have been beaten up by the local authorities before,” said Hull.

The group of them went to Beijing from Hong Kong, the same day. One of the women had a contact with a security officer, who would be able to get them into the petition office. They were told they would have to wait a day, but were greeted with an odd scene at the train station.

“We saw so many security police around the train station. As far as I knew I’d been blacklisted,” said Hull.

A line of plainclothes police stared at them as they walked through the station. Hull said he wasn’t concerned at the time, as he hadn’t violated any laws. “I said OK, because it doesn’t matter to me.”

The group took a cab to a guest house where they had arranged to stay. Once they arrived, the owner told them that police had come and installed surveillance cameras in the house, the bedrooms, and around the property. Also, according to Hull, “the secret police were all around the house. But for me, I didn’t pay any attention. ... It was my right to make a petition, so there is no violation of Chinese law.”

The next day, a van came to pick them up and take them to the petition office. Outside, there was a sea of people, some crying and screaming. After a relatively short four-hour wait, they were brought in through a contact; they scanned a summary of their cases into a computer, and they were told they could leave.

“They didn’t ask me anything. They take your paper, they put it in a computer. That’s it. Then they say, OK, it’s done,” said Hull.

Hull said he has yet to receive a response. The others who had accompanied him had been filing petitions for years without receiving a response. “As far as I know, they don’t care,” Hull said. “They’re making the world believe they have an organization, are accommodating the people who are complaining, and taking their petition.”

In Part II read how Michael Hull was detained and then summarily deported upon returning to China.