Pistons, PX, petroleum, politics: checking in with Chairman Ye Jianming

The commanding gaze and handshake of CEFC / Huaxin Chairman Ye Jianming (source).

Since this blog last checked in with Ye Jianming in 2013, the youthful Chairman and his $40 billion CEFC (Huaxin) oil trading, storage and finance conglomerate have gone from strength to strength. It now ranks as the world’s 229th largest company by revenue.

CEFC originally attracted my attention due to Dai Xu‘s South China Sea warmongering under a “CEFC Strategic Analyst” title between 2011 and 2013. The company hasn’t been associating itself with that kind of militarism of late (at least not publicly), but its mystique has only intensified as various new information has come to light.

Here’s a brief rundown of what’s emerged since 2013:

• Chairman Ye Jianming is not Lt-Gen Ye Xuanning’s son, nor Marshal Ye Jianying’s grandson. Far from being a princeling — my own and others’ best guess as to his background — he was born into a family of boatmen in the Fujian hinterland.
• However, just as a blood relationship was finally disconfirmed, Chairman Ye turns out to be business partners with Ye Xuanning’s daughter in an entity bearing the PLA’s famous Carrie (凯利) brand.
• The company’s oil trading business originates with assets confiscated from Fujian smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing, which it acquired in 2006. Chinese financial media reporting indicates that before becoming an oil baron, Ye made pots of gold by purchasing a state-owned piston factory, and wholesaling the industrial chemical PX.
• Evidence of Chairman Ye’s involvement in the PLA General Political Department Liaison Department’s (GPD-LD) CAIFC system has continued to accumulate. Yet the GPD-LD’s fortunes appear to have been falling almost as fast as Chairman Ye’s have been rising.
• There are signs the rise of Chairman Ye may be related to the rise of Chairman Xi — from Fujian via Shanghai, to Beijing, and out onto the Belt and Road. CEFC/Huaxin laid the groundwork for Xi’s triumphant state visit to the Czech Republic in March 2016, establishing a “key link” in his signature foreign policy initiative.

For those who find this all as irresistably intriguing as i do, these points are detailed below, followed by a selection of aphorisms from the expanding corpus of Ye Jianming’s Thought, and a brief personal disclaimer.

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