Hu Haifeng, in his Academic Capacity

Chinese party and state chairman Hu Jintao‘s (胡锦涛) son Hu Haifeng (胡海峰) is reportedly scheduled to visit Taiwan to attend an academic conference, Radio Australia and other media report. According to Taiwan’s Next Magazine (壹周刊), Hu Haifeng will attend a conference held by a Taiwanese foundation, Asia-Pacific Peace Studies (台湾亚太和平研究基金会, APS), in his capacity as the the head of the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of China’s Tsinghua University.

Until 2008, Hu Haifeng was president of Nuctech, a Tsinghua Holdings-associated company whose (current or former) representative Yang Fan (杨帆) is currently on trial in Namibia for allegedly siphoning or incorrectly transferring money which was officially intended to be used to pay for Nuctech products to a local Namibian company.

Also in 2009, Nuctech was accused of plying customers with soft loans from the Chinese government to pay for its machines. Both Namibian and European authorities are reportedly investigating the loan practices.

The EU probe could be extended to April 23 of 2011 under special circumstances, [correction, Mar 11, 2010: Xinhua refers to a MOC probe concerning scanners exported by exporters from the European Union] Xinhua reported on
October 24, 2009.

In addition to his function at Tsinghua University’s Yangtze Delta Region Institute, Hu Haifeng is also the university’s deputy secretary-general, writes Taiwan News.

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Update/Related
Hu Haifeng’s visit to Taiwan: Top-secret and postponed, China Post, July 29, 2010

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