A Book Review of Desmond Shum's book: Red Roulette: An Insider's story of Wealth, Power, corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
The Rise and Flame-out of two Chinese Business superstars
Desmond Shum and Whitney Duan met when the Chinese economy was in the count-down to take-off into its version of a capitalist economic Sputnik. The pair had surely gotten in on the ground floor.
Shum and Duan not only were both Chinese but also of similar backgrounds. Too, they shared goals about how together they might take Chinese business by storm. They moved in together, and with Whitney's connections and Desmond's computer skills, became a formidable super-charged, rapidly-climbing duo.
In the process of wheeling and dealing, Chinese capitalist style: buying lots of real estate, building docks and airports, Desmond and Whitney got to rub shoulders with, and made investment deals on behalf of, very high members of the CCP.
In this rarified social/political stratosphere, it would have been unusual and unnatural for them not to have used their connections (guanxi, bending all the rules) to get filthy rich. Which is exactly what they proceeded to do. China became their oyster.
Then they got married, had a son, and slowly began competing against each other. First it was subtle and annoying. But in due course, it became outright internecine war. Whitney made sure Desmond always knew she had the upper hand.
While they were busily engaged in intermarriage warfare, the political ground under them began to slowly change. The results of which, would eventually get them into deep trouble. By the time they began to pay attention again, the clock had run out, and now it was payback time: time to pay the Piper, Chinese capitalist style, too.
Desmond felt the political trembles under his feet early on, and made his move: He got out while the getting out was still good. At the time he was jumping ship, he invited Whitney to join him and their son in a flight to England. But Whitney, still pouting, and continuing to take the moral high ground, declined. Doubling-down on the warfare. Changing safe combinations. Hiding money and jewelry, and serving divorce papers.
Desmond fought back as best he could at a stand-off distance in the UK. But ended up losing his half of the community property, worth billions. However, he did manage to get out with his freedom, an untold amount of the millions/billions he had earned himself, and, de facto, with custody of their son.
Whitney did not fair so well. The same connections that made her a business tycoon, Chinese superstar and a multi-billionaire, now judged her insider knowledge to be a serious security threat. Whitney discovered too late that closeness to power in China protects you " until it doesn't.
As a result, she was disappeared.
Four years passed before anyone heard a word from Whitney. Then, on the eve of Demond's book release, Whitney mysteriously reappeared via a "CCP-coached long-distance telephone call." The message her minders wanted to convey to her ex-husband was put in the form of a dark unsubtle question: How would you feel if after your book goes forward, our son loses a parent?
Desmond ignored the threat.
After the book was released, Whitney was allowed to speak weekly to her son. To date, no one knows how long, or where, she is being detained. Three stars
