Part 4/16:
In that meeting, she pointed out a stretch of pristine coastline—Taiping Cape—an area protected by law from development. The man inside, Duchen, was no ordinary guest; he held the titles of both mayor of Chinda and vice governor of Shandong province. Recognizing her influence, he nodded affirmatively, despite the official restrictions.
Days later, the land rights were transferred to her company, and she flipped the property—selling the development rights to major state-linked developers—netting over 80 million yuan. Duchen himself received merely 1.7 million in cash. This extractive transaction wasn’t an anomaly but a window into how power and economic interests intertwined in China’s corrupt system.