1972년 중국 샨동에서 태어난 샤오지엔화는 북경대를 졸업하고 금융업으로 승승장구를 하며 밍티엔그룹을 일구었으나 2017년 홍콩의 한 호텔에서 납치된 후 종적을 감추었다.
샤오지엔화는 1990년대에 북경대 근처에서 IBM과 Dell 컴퓨터 판매로 사업을 시작했다.
수년내에 그의 가치는 1.5억 달러에 달하게 되었다.
그는 은행, 보험, 부동산 개발, 석탄, 시멘트, 희토류 사업 등을 영위하는 밍티엔 그룹(Tomorrow Group)의 오너.
또한 그는 세력가들의 일을 처리해주는 것으로도 알려져있다.
뉴욕타임즈는 그를 "지배 계급을 위한 은행가"라고 묘사.
2016년 그의 가치는 60억 달러에 이른다.
샤오지엔화의 중국 정부 지도자들과의 관계는 그가 시진핑의 누나인 치챠오챠오(Qi Qiaoqiao)가 소유한 CCB International Yuanwei Fund의 지분 50%를 매수한 사실에서 잘 드러난다.
肖建华，六四后起家的亿万富豪 - 纽约时报中文网 (nytimes.com)
肖建华，六四后起家的亿万富豪
25年前那场学生运动让肖建华的许多同学成为通缉对象，却意外成就了这位时任北大学生会主席日后结交官场、叱诧商界的命运。
cn.nytimes.com
BEIJING — A few days after the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests 25 years ago, the Chinese government filled the airwaves with a list of the 21 most wanted student leaders accused of stirring up an antigovernment rebellion. At the top of the list was a 20-year-old student at Peking University named Wang Dan, who set up an unofficial student union to mobilize his classmates to demand democracy.
北京——25年前，中国政府镇压了天安门广场的抗议活动。几天之后，广播里充斥着有21名学生领袖的通缉名单，指控的罪行是煽动反革命暴乱。位列名单之首的是20岁的北京大学学生王丹。他成立了一个非官方的学生联合会，以动员同学提出民主诉求。
There was no public mention then — and there have been very few mentions since — of the head of the official student union of Peking University at that time. His name is Xiao Jianhua. Mr. Xiao never opposed the government, and the events of June 1989 did not make him one of China’s “most wanted.” Instead, they catapulted him into the ranks of its most wealthy.
至于官方的北大学生会当时的主席，并没有被公开提到，在后来的岁月中也鲜有提及。他的名字叫肖建华。他从未与政府对抗，1989年6月的事件也未使其成为中国的“通缉要犯”。实际上，这些事件助推他跻身最富有的人士之列。
After a tepid attempt to represent fellow students to university administrators that volatile spring, Mr. Xiao shifted course, agreeing with administrators that street protests had become out of hand. People who knew him at the time said he even worked with them to try to defuse the protests before Chinese troops descended on Beijing and crushed them with force.
在那个动荡的春天，肖建华曾简单尝试在校方面前代表学生，随后转变立场，同意校方关于街头抗议活动已然失控的看法。当时认识肖建华的人表示，他甚至还与校方合作，试图在军队进入北京，展开武力镇压之前平息抗议活动。
The rewards were immediate. Just after he graduated, Mr. Xiao stepped into the world of business with direct financial support from Peking University, one of China’s most prestigious institutes. In the quarter-century since then, he became the prototype of the politically connected financier. He has assiduously courted the party elite, including the family of its current president, Xi Jinping, becoming something of a banker for the ruling class and a billionaire in his own right.
奖赏很快来临。甫一毕业，肖建华就在北大的直接资助下步入了商界，而这所学校是中国最著名的高等学府之一。在接下来的四分之一个世纪里，他成了第一批与政界关系密切的金融圈高层人士的一员。他不遗余力地趋奉党内权贵，包括现任国家主席习近平的家人，逐渐变得像是统治阶层的银行买办，自己也成了亿万富豪。
Now 42 years old, Mr. Xiao controls a sprawling business empire with interests largely in state-dominated industries, including banking, insurance, coal, cement, property and even rare-earth minerals, and largely managed by his holding company, the Tomorrow Group.
肖建华现年42岁，控制着一座庞大的商业帝国，其利益主要涉及国家占据主导地位的行业，比如银行、保险、燃煤、水泥、地产，乃至稀土矿。这些业务大部分由他的控股公司明天集团打理。
Through a series of other investment vehicles, he owns a piece of Ping An, one of China’s largest insurers, as well as portions of Harbin Bank, Huaxia Bank and Industrial Bank. And he has acquired stakes in at least 30 other Chinese financial institutions.
通过一系列其他的投资工具，他持有中国最大的保险集团之一平安保险的股份，以及哈尔滨银行、华夏银行和兴业银行的股份。此外，他还收购了至少其他30家中国金融机构的股份。
Corporate records reviewed by The New York Times show that a company he co-founded also paid $2.4 million last year to buy shares in an investment firm held by the sister and brother-in-law of Mr. Xi. In 2009, another company he helped control financed a deal that aided a company run by the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, then a member of China’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
《纽约时报》浏览的企业记录显示，去年，肖建华联合创立的一家企业出资1500万元人民币，收购了习近平的姐姐和姐夫持有的一家投资公司的股份。2009年，他为实际控制人的另一家公司为一桩交易出资，而这桩交易帮助了贾庆林的女婿经营的一家企业。贾庆林当时是中国最具权势的机构政治局常委会的一员。
Nothing about those deals has been publicly disclosed, and much about Mr. Xiao himself remains mysterious. He declined to be interviewed for this article and, while often talked about in financial circles, he has kept a low public profile inside China. But he is also one of the most active players in the frenzied deal-making of the last 10 years, and the Hurun Report’s China Rich List estimates his personal fortune at $2 billion.
这些交易的情况丝毫没有对外公布，肖建华本人的许多事情也一直笼罩在神秘之中。他已拒绝就本文接受采访；尽管在金融圈内常被提及，但他在中国的公众形象始终颇为低调。然而，他是过去10年间异常活跃的交易场上最为积极的参与者之一，而且根据胡润百富榜的估算，他的个人财富达120亿元人民币。
It is a career made possible, in good part, by the 1989 unrest — or, more precisely, by China’s reaction against it. Rather than experiment with greater political openness, as many Chinese intellectuals had hoped in the 1980s, the paramount leader of the time, Deng Xiaoping, pushed faster economic development while tightening the control of the Communist Party.
这样的职业生涯之所以成为可能，有很大一部分是因为1989年的动荡，或者更为确切的说，是因为中国对此的应对。与许多知识分子在80年代的希望背道而驰的是，当时的最高领导人邓小平并未尝试扩大政治开放，而是在推进经济发展的同时加强了共产党的控制。
The formula ultimately produced one of the most astounding economic expansions in history. But it also made those with good political connections the indispensable middlemen of high finance and convinced many ordinary Chinese that the game was rigged.
这种方式最终催生了史上最令人震撼的经济增长之一。不过，这也让政治关系灵通的那群人成为巨额融资中必不可少的中间人，还让许多普通民众相信，这一切都受到了不正当手段的操纵。
Corruption, or the appearance of it, was already one of the main concerns of students protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But the scale of collusion between business and political elites has increased markedly since that time, with even the party now acknowledging that insider deal-making has itself become a threat to the legitimacy of the Communist Party.
腐败，或者说是腐败的表象，已然是1989年天安门抗议学生关切的主要话题之一。然而，自那以后，政商勾结的程度大为加深，就连党如今也承认，内幕交易本身已成为关涉共产党合法性的一大威胁。
“There’s now this self-destructive tendency within the party,” Minxin Pei, who teaches at Claremont McKenna College in California, said in an interview. “Many officials regard China’s growing wealth as fair game. And as a result, corruption has morphed into large-scale looting.”
“党内现在有一种自毁倾向，”在美国加州克莱蒙特麦肯纳学院(Claremont McKenna College)任教的裴敏欣接受采访称。“很多官员觉得，对中国日益增长的财富的追逐并无不妥。结果，腐败演变为大规模的劫掠行为。”
Mr. Xi is now overseeing one of the boldest anticorruption drives in decades. During the last two years, scores of businessmen and high-ranking officials have been detained or stripped of their powers, including a former Politburo member, Zhou Yongkang, whose relatives are suspected of illegally profiting from his oversight of the state oil sector.
目前，习近平亲自坐镇，掀起了几十年来最凌厉的反腐运动。过去两年里，许多商人与高级官员纷纷遭拘捕或落马，包括前政治局常委周永康，其家属涉嫌从他原来负责的国有石油部门非法获利。
The crackdown is putting pressure on businessmen like Mr. Xiao, who know that if they fall out of favor with the top echelon of the party, their business empires could come crashing down.
严打活动让肖建华这样的商人承受了压力。他们心知肚明，一旦在党内最高层眼中失宠，旗下的商业帝国就可能分崩离析。
But his associates insist that his investments are “market-oriented” and that he has engaged in no wrongdoing.
不过，肖建华的熟人坚称，他的投资属“市场行为”，没有牵涉任何不当作为。
There are signs, though, that he is not taking any chances with the changing political winds in China. Some years ago, after Chinese news reports suggested that some of his companies were involved in privatizing state assets at below-market prices, Mr. Xiao set up a residence in Canada, where he had obtained citizenship. He now spends much of his time working in Hong Kong, which is governed independently.
然而，有迹象显示，他没有在中国政治风向的变化上冒任何风险。数年前，有中国媒体的报道指出，他名下的一些企业涉及以低于市场价的代价私有化国有资产。那以后，他在自己已取得公民身份的加拿大购置了一处房产。现如今，他很多时间是在香港工作，那里有着自己独立的政府制度。
And when Mr. Xi’s sister and brother-in-law sold their stake last year in a joint venture with a major Chinese bank, the buyer was a Chinese company co-founded by Mr. Xiao. The deal was completed after a June 2012 Bloomberg News article about the family fortune of Mr. Xi’s relatives.
当习近平的姐姐与姐夫去年出售他们与中国一家大型银行的合资企业中的股份时，买家是肖建华联合创建的一家中国企业。这笔交易完成的时间，晚于2012年6月彭博新闻社(Bloomberg News)发表的那篇关于习近平亲属的家族财富的文章。
A Boy With Big Dreams
心怀远大梦想的男孩
Xiao Jianhua spends much of his time these days at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong, surrounded by aides who arrange his meetings with bankers and Asian tycoons and female bodyguards who even wipe the sweat from his brow. He owns a private jet and has bought multimillion-dollar properties in the United States and Canada. And yet such trappings belie his humble beginnings.
这些日子里，肖建华大部分时间都待在香港的四季酒店里，身边环绕着助手和女保镖，前者负责帮他安排和银行人士及亚洲大亨的会晤，后者甚至会帮他擦去额头的汗水。他拥有一架私人飞机，在美国和加拿大买下了价值成百上千万美元的房产。然而，虽然有着这样的排场，他却出身卑微。
He grew up in Feicheng, a poor farming village in a mountainous region of the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, one of six children born to a middle school teacher and his wife. At a young age, he was, by most accounts, a voracious reader of history and literature.
他在肥城长大，该地位于山东省的山区里，属于贫困农村，他的父亲是中学教师，家中共有六个孩子。根据很多人的描述，年少时，他如饥似渴地阅读历史和文学书籍。
“Every morning, he’d get up at 5 a.m. and jog into the hills to study,” recalled Guo Qingtao, a childhood friend from the village and later a Peking University classmate. “He could recite every text from memory. He even read the teacher’s manuals.”
他儿时的朋友郭庆涛回忆说，“每天清晨，他都会在5点起床，跑步到山上去读书学习。他能背诵每篇课文，并且将老师备课用的材料都自学了。”郭庆涛后来成了肖建华的北大校友。
At 14, Mr. Xiao passed the highly competitive national college entrance exam and won admission to Peking University. He arrived in Beijing, friends say, with tattered clothes but ambitions to be a political leader.
14岁时，肖建华通过了竞争激烈的全国大学入学考试，被北大录取。朋友们说，他衣衫褴褛地来到北京，却怀揣着成为政治领导人的抱负。
“He loved politics,” said Zhou Chunsheng, his college math tutor and now a professor at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. “He wanted to be a high official, and he was reading everything — social sciences books, Marxism, the collected works of Mao.”
他系里当时的数学老师周春生说，“他热爱政治。他想成为高官，他什么都读——不管是讲社会学的书、马克思主义著作，还是毛泽东文集。”周春生现在是北京长江商学院的教授。
Mr. Xiao’s path to power was interrupted, though, by the most momentous student protests since 1919. At Peking University, the students were not just swept up in the protests, they were among the leaders of it — the ones who led a march into Tiananmen Square, the city’s axis of political power, to press for political reforms.
然而，肖建华的权力之路被1919年以后最重大的学生抗议事件给干扰了。在北大，学生们不仅废寝忘食地投入抗议，而且成为了抗议的领导者——为了迫使当局进行政治改革，他们带头发起了向天安门广场进发的游行，而那里正是北京城的政治权力中心。
At the time, Mr. Xiao was president of the university’s official student union. The position was largely social, organizing lectures and dances, but the post was coveted because of its ties to the Communist Youth League, a launching pad for future careers in the party.
那个时候，肖建华是官方的北大学生会的主席。这个职位的主要任务是社交工作，比如组织演讲和舞会。不过，该职位因为和共青团的关联而显得诱人，因为后者是日后体制内事业的跳板。
But in the spring of 1989, students at the university began to march on Tiananmen Square with a list of demands both for university leaders and for the Communist Party at large. Mr. Xiao, as the titular representative of his fellow students, was caught in the middle.
然而，在1989年的春季，北大学生开始揣着一份单子，在天安门广场游行。单子上既列出了对校领导的要求，也列出了对共产党的整体要求。肖建华作为学生们的名义代表，被夹在中间，左右为难。
“Xiao tried to tell the government what the students demanded, but some of the activists didn’t like his conservative approach, so they set up their own organization,” says Mr. Guo, his former classmate. “At the time, he was only 17 years old and was put under a lot of pressure. Feeling powerless, he went to the library and buried himself in books.”
他的老同学郭庆涛说，肖建华试图向政府转达学生的诉求，但是一些比较激进的人认为他的方式太过保守。于是那些人成立了高自联。“那时候，他只有17岁，承受了很大压力。感到无助的他去了图书馆，埋头读书。”
The responsibility of pressing the student cause fell to a history major named Wang Dan, who helped set up an alternative student association at the university and organized boycotts, sit-ins and hunger strikes. Mr. Xiao took a new direction.
把学生事业进行到底的重任落在了历史系学生王丹的身上，他帮着在校内组建了另一个学生组织，并组织了抵制运动、静坐和绝食抗议。肖建华则选择了一个新方向。
The First Pot of Gold
第一桶金
Exactly what turned Mr. Xiao toward a career in business is unclear. But his good standing at Peking University, especially at a time when administrators were actively persecuting students involved in the unrest, was a clear benefit from the start.
目前依然不清楚，究竟是什么原因让肖建华选择进军商界。不过，他与北大的良好关系，尤其是在当时那段时间，在一开始就让他获得了明显的益处。那时，校方正在积极追究参加学运的学生的责任。
His first venture, in the early 1990s, was as a computer reseller, marketing Dell, IBM and other personal computer brands near the Peking University campus. He also set up a series of technology companies that were partly funded by the university, which is run by the state, and sought to encourage business ventures by its graduates.
上世纪90年代初，他收获了第一笔财富。当时他是一名电脑分销商，在北大校园附近兜售戴尔(Dell)和IBM等品牌的个人电脑。他还成立了一系列的科技公司，这些公司部分得到了校方的资助。作为官办学校，北大试图鼓励自己的毕业生创业。
None of the ventures grew particularly large, though there were partnerships with American companies like Microsoft. But last year, in a rare interview with the Chinese news media, Mr. Xiao said that these computer undertakings were how he made his first pot of gold, $150 million.
这其中，没有哪家企业的规模变得特别大，尽管有一些企业和微软(Microsoft)等美国公司建立了合作关系。不过去年，肖建华罕见地接受了中国新闻媒体的采访，他说自己就是靠着这些电脑公司，才挖到了第一桶金，盈利超过十几亿元人民币。
In the late 1990s, he transitioned to something even more lucrative: the stock market. Using the Tomorrow Group and other investment firms, he speculated in stocks and began to acquire large stakes in public companies.
上世纪90年代末，他转而过渡到了更赚钱的行业，那就是股市。他利用明天集团和其他投资公司在股市进行炒作，开始大笔吃进上市公司的股票。
Former colleagues say he succeeded, in part, by cultivating his relationships with government officials and then using those connections to set up or move companies to more fertile ground, such as his native Shandong Province and the area near Baotou, Inner Mongolia, where his wife was raised.
他的前同事说，他之所以能够成功，部分是靠培植和政府官员的关系，然后利用这些关系，把现有公司转移到更好挣钱的地区，或在这些地区成立新公司，比如他的家乡山东省和内蒙古包头附近的地区，他的妻子就在内蒙古长大。
“At that time, the capital markets were just starting,” said Mr. Zhou, his former tutor and onetime business partner. “He had political connections and knew a lot, and went to local governments and told them he could help them set up listed companies.”
他昔日的老师和商业伙伴周春生说，“那个时候，资本市场才刚起步。他既有政治人脉，懂的也多，他找到地方政府，对他们说，他能帮他们组建上市公司。”
Over the next decade, he helped set up dozens of investment firms, and often his partners were government agencies, such as the Baotou State-Owned Assets and Supervision Commission.
在接下来的十年里，他协助组建了数十家投资公司。他的合作伙伴往往是政府机构，比如包头市国有资产监督管理委员会。
Some of his most successful deals involved buying stakes in midsize financial institutions in smaller Chinese cities, often through a complex web of shell or dummy corporations. When Citigroup and other investors agreed to buy a big stake in the Guangdong Development Bank, for instance, one of Mr. Xiao’s investment vehicles — Puhua Investment — took an 8 percent interest, and then just weeks later transferred it to another state financial institution. Few analysts or journalists knew he was involved.
他最成功的一些交易，涉及在较小的中国城市购买中型金融机构的股份，这种交易往往是通过壳公司或皮包公司构成的复杂网络来操作的。例如，当花旗集团(Citigroup)和其他投资人同意认购广东发展银行的一大笔股份时，肖建华旗下的投资公司之一普华投资就购下了8%的股份，仅仅几周之后，他就把这些股份转给了另一家国有金融机构。了解他在此事中的角色的分析人士和记者屈指可数。
While shell companies are widely used in China as investment vehicles, securities experts say they can also be employed to hide the ownership stakes of public officials, providing cover for favors distributed by businessmen. Their frequent use by Mr. Xiao has fanned speculation that he gets privileged access to deals involving state assets and that he shares the benefits with the families of the ruling elite.
虽然壳公司在中国被广泛用作投资工具，但证券专家表示，它们也可以用于掩盖公务人员拥有股份一事，为商人送上的好处提供幌子。肖建华频繁利用这些工具，从而引发了一些猜测——他拥有特权，能够参与涉及国有资产的交易，并与统治阶层的家人共同获益。
He has had some brushes with controversy. In 2006, a huge state-run power company called Luneng was taken over by a group of obscure investment firms. After the Chinese business magazine Caijing published an article about the privatization effort, the authorities ordered officials in Shandong Province to repurchase the shares. Records reviewed by The Times show that several firms involved in the privatization were affiliated with Mr. Xiao.
他曾数次陷入争议。2006年，大型国有能源企业鲁能被一组鲜为人知的投资公司收购。在中国商业杂志《财经》发表了有关这一私有化事件的文章后，当局命令山东省的官员回购股份。《纽约时报》查看的记录显示，几家涉及这项私有化交易的公司均属肖建华名下。
Mr. Xiao was involved as a behind-the-scenes investor again in 2007, when a small brokerage firm called Pacific Securities completed a so-called backdoor listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, even though the company had not, as required by regulators, reported profits for three consecutive years.
2007年，肖建华再次涉及幕后投资。当时，小型券商太平洋证券在上海证券交易所完成所谓借壳上市，但该公司并不符合监管机构提出的连续三年盈利的要求。
Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Xiao said the deals were “legal and valid.” He also defended his use of investment vehicles, saying his name is often omitted because he is the “chief strategist,” and not working on the technical details of the deals.
肖建华通过一名女发言人表示，这些交易均“合法有效”。发言人还为他使用投资工具的行为进行了辩护，称他的名字之所以通常未被公布，是因为他是“主策划师”，没有插手相关交易的技术细节。
After the Luneng debacle, he began traveling more frequently to the United States and Canada, for extended periods, according to his associates.
据熟悉肖建华的人士透露，收购鲁能失败之后，他开始更加频繁地前往美国和加拿大，并逗留很长时间。
“He got disappointed in what was happening in China,” his spokeswoman, Yu Lan, said. “The environment wasn’t good. So he went overseas.”
“他对中国的情况感到失望，”肖建华的发言人余兰说。“环境不好。所以他去了国外。”
Relatives at the Table
交易桌上的领导人亲属
Mr. Xiao has acknowledged, through his associates, that he is acquainted with many of the children of China’s ruling elite and that he has invested with them. Usually, he says, it is by coincidence. They just happen to be in the same deal.
通过身边的人，肖建华承认，他结识了不少中国高层领导的子女，并曾与他们一起投资。他表示，通常都是碰巧，恰好和他们做同一笔买卖。
But a review of corporate registration records by The Times has found that on at least three occasions during the last five years, companies affiliated with Mr. Xiao have struck deals that appear to have benefited the relatives of China’s highest-ranking leaders.
但《纽约时报》查看公司登记记录发现，肖建华旗下的企业达成的交易似乎使中国高层领导人的亲属获益，而在过去五年中，这种情况至少出现了三次。
In January 2009, for instance, Baotou Tomorrow Technology, a public company that Mr. Xiao has held a big stake in, announced that it would pay about $50 million to acquire a property company in southwest China’s historic city of Lijiang from Zhaode Property in Beijing. The head of Zhaode, Li Botan, is the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, who until 2012 was the fourth-ranking member of the Communist Party, with a seat on the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
例如，2009年1月，上市企业包头明天科技股份有限公司宣布，将出资3.5亿元人民币，从北京昭德置业有限公司手中收购位于古城丽江的一家房地产公司。肖建华在明天科技持有大量股份，而昭德置业的董事长李伯潭是贾庆林的女婿。贾庆林曾为共产党的第四号人物，是权力极大的政治局常委会的一员，直到2012年。
More recently, a company Mr. Xiao co-founded struck a deal with the relatives of the Chinese president, Mr. Xi. In January 2013, a Beijing-based company called Qinchuan Dadi Investment Company sold its 50 percent stake in an investment firm to a company founded by Mr. Xiao for at least $2.4 million, the same value the Xi relatives bought it at, according to a person familiar with the deal.
据一名知情人士透露，后来，也就是2013年1月，肖建华共同创建的一家公司与国家主席习近平的亲属达成交易：北京的秦川大地投资公司以至少1500万元人民币的价格将其在另一家投资公司的50%股份出售给肖建华创立的这家企业，与习近平亲属当初的收购价持平。
At the time, Qinchuan was owned, through several other firms, by the Chinese president’s sister, Qi Qiaoqiao, and her husband, Deng Jiagui, according to corporate records. The deal was announced six months after Bloomberg News reported that Mr. Xi’s relatives held assets worth more than $300 million.
公司记录显示，当时，习近平的姐姐齐桥桥及姐夫邓家贵通过其他几家企业拥有秦川大地投资公司。这笔交易宣布的时间，是在彭博社有关习近平亲属资产的报道问世六个月后。彭博称，这一资产价值超过3亿美元（约合18.7亿元人民币）。
And in 2012, when Digital Domain, the Hollywood visual effects studio co-founded by the film director James Cameron, was sold for $30 million to a Chinese film company, the financing came from Mr. Xiao and a Hong Kong company controlled by Che Feng, the son-in-law of China’s former central bank chief, Dai Xianglong, according to people involved in the deal.
2012年，一家中国影视公司以3000万美元的出价收购了由电影导演詹姆斯·卡梅隆(James Cameron)参与创建的好莱坞特效公司数字领域(Digital Domain)。据知情人士透露，收购资金来自肖建华，以及一家由车峰控制的香港公司。车峰是中国人民银行前行长戴相龙的女婿。
Through his spokeswoman, Mr. Xiao acknowledged that companies he had invested in or partly controlled were involved in the deals but said that he was not the decision-maker and only became aware of the deals after they were completed.
通过发言人，肖建华承认，他投资或部分控制的公司参与了这些交易，但也表示，他并不是决策者，而是在交易完成后才得知此事。
While those three deals have never been publicly disclosed, Mr. Xiao did gain some notoriety in China. The magazine Caixin, for instance, reported in late 2012 that Mr. Xiao was working behind the scenes with a Thai conglomerate, the Charoen Pokphand Group, to acquire a $9 billion stake in the Chinese insurer Ping An with financing from several state banks in the north, in possible violation of rules that bar the use of bank loans in acquiring a stake in a Chinese insurance firm.
虽然这三笔交易从未被公开披露，但肖建华在中国的确有点名声不佳。例如，财新《新世纪》周刊在2012年底报道，肖建华在幕后与泰国正大集团（在中国以外称为卜蜂集团[Charoen Pokphand Group]）合作，试图购买中国平安保险公司价值90亿美元的股份，而收购资金由几家北方的国有银行提供。这可能违反了相关规定——银行贷款不得用于收购中国保险公司的股份。
A spokeswoman said Mr. Xiao eventually decided not to participate in the Ping An deal and expressed frustration that he was portrayed in the news media as a secretive, predatory deal-maker. (Through an affiliate, Mr. Xiao had earlier acquired a stake in Ping An.)
发言人表示，肖建华最终决定不参与收购平安股份的交易，并对新闻媒体将他描绘成神秘而贪婪的生意人表示不满。（之前，肖建华曾通过旗下的一家公司收购了平安的部分股份。）
Now, Mr. Xiao, eager to improve his image, has quietly made public his intention to give much of his wealth away.
现在，急于改善自身形象的肖建华，在低调地表明想要捐出大部分财产的意愿。
He has donated more than $50 million to China’s two leading universities, Peking University and Tsinghua University. And recently, he pledged to donate $10 million to Harvard. That is where Wang Dan, who was exiled to the United States after serving a prison term in China, earned his Ph.D.
肖建华已经向中国两大高校——北京大学和清华大学——共捐赠了3亿元人民币。最近，他还承诺向哈佛大学(Harvard University)捐赠1000万美元。这所大学，正好就是王丹在中国服刑后，流亡美国期间获得博士学位的地方。