
The Mysterious Disappearance of Fan Bingbing, the World’s Biggest Movie Star - bookofjoe
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/the-untold-story-disappearance-of-fan-bingbing-worlds-biggest-movie-star
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syntaxing
This has been happening for a while now [1]. The Chinese government always
intervenes if someone acts in a way that is threatening to their ideology.
It's interesting to follow because sometimes they will resurface with them
apologizing to the media and how they were missing because they were getting
medical help from the government (which makes little sense). Kind of reminds
me of Lake Laogai from Avatar - The Last Air-bender.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-24/missing-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-24/missing-
bosses-add-to-risks-of-investing-in-china-quicktake-q-a)

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pie_hacker
Dictatorships have always ruled through fear and surveillance, and today's
China is no exception.

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silvester23
> the most famous actress in China, which is to say, the most famous actress
> in the world

That's a non sequitur, isn't it?

~~~
yeahitslikethat
It's math. China also has more English speakers than the USA too.

~~~
silvester23
Yeah, but that still does not mean that most English speakers come from China.
It _might_ be true, but it does not follow directly.

That's like saying the most popular social media site in China also has to be
the most popular social media site in the world.

~~~
yeahitslikethat
It's like saying it except for where you say "has to be."

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xrd
I'm surprised no one has mentioned blockchain here. :)

All jokes aside, isn't this an interesting application of blockchain
technologies?

The title omits the fact that this article is really about taxation.

I had a knee jerk reaction to Bingbing's situation that was "she's right to
hide her earnings from corrupt Chinese politicians!" At the same moment, I
hold in my head the belief that Americans using resources (like roads,
infrastructure, etc.) should pay their "fair" share of taxes, while
simultaneously feel outraged that the lion's share of my tax dollars go to a
military industrial complex which acts contrary to the way I feel my country
should act as a global citizen (that's understating my real feelings...).

Wouldn't a public ledger resolve some of these problems? As the article notes,
people in China were outraged (or is this a manufactured sentiment to bolster
the punishment?) at the amount she earns compared to the average citizen. If
there were a public accounting of her wages and public accounting of her
taxes, wouldn't this transparency make EVERYONE HAPPY. </another-bad-joke>

So glad to have changed the opinion of blockchain for everyone here. You are
welcome!

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bartimus
> In fact, there was a set price for a night with her: 2 million yuan, or
> $300,000. It said so in a booklet that supposedly lists the going rates of
> all other A-list actresses.

Anyone have a link of that booklet?

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GuiA
_> Shares of companies associated with Fan plunged by 10 percent, the maximum
daily limit on the Chinese stock market._

?! How does that even work?

~~~
dangero
US stock markets also have points they will freeze at:
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/content/Funds/FundsToolsCir...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/content/Funds/FundsToolsCircuitBreakersJSP.jsp)

~~~
quink
That’s for the entire S&P 500 index and only applies to a 20% drop. Chinese
regulations apply to individual stocks and kick in at 10%.

That’s a massive difference.

And re the Limit Up-Limit Down rule, that’s a trading halt for five minutes,
not the entire day.

Again, not as much of a, but still a massive difference.

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pjc50
Edit: even less mysterious when she reappeared, although that invalidates most
of what I wrote!

Hardly mysterious: she was "disappeared" by the authorities. Given the total
lack of communication she is probably dead. We are no more likely to find out
what happened than to find what really happened at Tiananmen. Perhaps in half
a lifetime's time one of the survivors of the next revolution will tell us.

~~~
NedIsakoff
She pissed off the government by using 'yin-yang contracts' which is both
illegal and tax evasion. Of course she's not the only one doing it, but she is
the most famous actress in China.

They probably have her in an re-education center. She's also being made an
example off to make the other actors/actresses more honest and take less
salary for social stability.

Basically by law in China, only 40% of a movie's budget can be for
actors/actresses. A max of 70% of the 40% for actors/actresses can be paid to
a single actor/actresses. But you have these huge stars like Fan Bingbing who
wants more, so what do you do? You have two contracts, an official one with
lower salary that is also reported to the government and an unofficial one
that's really how much they are paid.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I think it's kinda weird to just make someone disappear, instead of convict
them in public - make other rich Chinese nationals realize what the
consequences for tax evasion are.

~~~
chii
convicting means pinning an exact crime, with evidence, which implies that as
long as you don't commit _this_ crime you're fine.

Disappearing someone means you dont know why they disappeared. You guess, and
so your own fears will give you the FUD needed to avoid pissing off the
authorities. It's a more efficient and effective tactic.

~~~
A2017U1
> convicting means pinning an exact crime

The prosecution rate is over 99% in China. That's hardly a challenge.

~~~
TheGrumpyBrit
But then everybody knows the exact crime to avoid. This way, you don't know
what happened, you know something bad happened, but you don't know what, so
you avoid breaking _any_ laws to be on the safe side.

~~~
cr0sh
> but you don't know what, so you avoid breaking any laws to be on the safe
> side.

If you don't know, then how can you know when you aren't breaking any laws?

I mean - you could be doing everything "by the book" \- but then they "make a
law" that makes it illegal to do something which you were doing fine the day
before, but they don't tell you about that law- then they haul you in...

And seriously, nobody can really keep ahead of every law - even in western
countries - it's all a sham, really; not even judges nor prosecutors are aware
of all the laws. I don't even think legislators know them all. There's just
way too many; at any point all of us are breaking some kind of law at some
level. When nobody can honestly know the law, not even those who are supposed
to interpret it, or create it, or prosecute it, it's lost its original
purpose, and has become nothing more than a means of control thru fear.

I guess in this way, the "west" isn't that much different than China, we just
each pretend about different things.

~~~
chii
> how can you know when you aren't breaking any laws?

you don't. You constantly appease the party, constantly on the look out for
things that could go wrong, and constantly do proactive things to make
yourself useful to the party, and don't even associate with individuals who
even slightly hints at critisizing the party.

------
rurban
Similar things happened to the three biggest Chinese table tennis stars and
their trainers. Table tennis is more important than movies in China, they
dominate this sport worldwide since the 90ies. Loosing the Olympic matches in
Tokyo to foreigners or esp. Japanese players would be a national tragedy,
similar to the US Basketball team loosing the Olympic finals, the Russian Ice
hockey team or the Austrian downhill ski team. In China its worse, they never
loose, and usually take all the first places.

So what happened was that national trainers were extremely successful, having
studied Swedish and German tricks in the 80ies when they started losing to
them (due to new materials also). Esp. Cai (head), LGL (men coach) and Kong
(women coach). All ex-top players, and now the best trainers by far. Cai
started applying what he learned from table tennis training to other sports
for Peking olympics and he became something like the president of the national
soccer training effort. Being head of table tennis already gives you immense
power, but then also soccer was too much for some politicians who feared their
wading influence. The specific problem was one of Kong's relatives having a
large gambling depth in a Macao casino, and Cai had asked LGL for some support
with the soccer efforts. LGL was polite to say yes. This didn't go well with
the vice mayor of Peking, a career politician who unfortunately has interest
in sports to advance his career. Table tennis being the top sport. He has no
idea about Table tennis of course.

So what happened was that LGL and Kong were fired effective immediately, while
they world championship games were going on in Germany. The three top players
voiced their support for their trainers, knowing the circumstances and knowing
that the upcoming Olympics will be very tough to play against the Japanese and
Germans who had again a slight advantage with new plastic balls coming up,
which changed the game a lot. They were afraid to loose Tokyo 2020. It needs
at least two years to adjust to the new game style, more backhand, a new
stroke called banana flick, and pips out.

So the best players and their trainers suddenly disappeared during the world
championships, and were not seen much since. Officially the party line was,
Kong was fired for his involvement of the debt (which he declined), LGL was
promoted elsewhere with no influence and Cai, the only real danger to this
guy, was also sidelined. The players were called injured, their Instagram
posts immediately deleted, and the very best top player didn't play the next
two years. He married, and apparently really had a knee injury. The 2nd guy
was also not seen in big tournaments, only the third, the youngest played and
got nr. 1. big problem was the Japanese team beating the chinese players right
and left. all the men lost to a 12 old boy (an ex-chinese who moved to Japan),
the women lost to pips players, it was a desaster. like in the 80ies, when
they started loosing to Koreans, Germans, Swedes and an Austrian. The new
head, the stalinist politician, called it a national reform effort, which lead
to a drastic drama, they had one young guy who played similar to the Japanese,
and even started winning some tournaments against them. He was pushed by the
media, the "dark knight". but realistically he had no chance to win the next
championships reliably. he is about world no 3, but probably not 1 or 2. he
was good at the most important Chinese internal national tournament, the
world's strongest tournament, but this year he was a desaster. So the "reform"
backfired, and LGL appeared again as head of the Olympics mens team, and also
the top 1 player suddenly reappeared and started winning international
tournaments as if nothing happened in between. They beat the Japanese left and
right. True story.

