Chen Shaojie is latest Chinese CEO to go missing. Here’s what we know

Another bigwig in China has gone missing. Chen Shaojie, the CEO of the livestreaming service DouYu, has not been seen in weeks. DouYu is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent and is US-listed with a market capitalisation of $268 million. The disappearance of the 39-year-old is just the latest example of a high-profile businessman going missing in China as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on power. Let’s take a closer look at what we know: First, let’s take a brief look at Chen and DouYu. Chen founded DouYu in 2014, as per Financial Times. The platform is a behemoth in China – garnering around 50 million users to it every month.

As per DNA, DouYu means “fighting fish” in Chinese.

It is often compared with the Amazon livestreaming service Twitch. As per The Financial Times, the company in 2019 went public with a $4 billion valuation after raising $775 million from investors. However, the company’s value has since shrunk to under $ 300 million. Tencent owns 38 per cent of DouYu. DouYu is available on both PC and mobile, as per SCMP. It gives its users a chance to play interactive games like Tencent’s Honour of Kings as well as joining community events and discussions. Tencent was looking to merge DouYu with domestic rival Huya but that fell through after antitrust authorities in China nixed the deal in 2021. As per The Times UK, Chen was last publicly seen when DouYo gave its quarterly results in August. As per CNN, Chen spoke with financial analysts on the call. The story of Chen’s disappearance was first broken by state-owned Cover News, according to Financial Times. The newspaper quoted sources as saying that Chen has been detained with regard to an inquiry into porn and gambling on DouYu. Both activities are barred in China under the law. “We have been unable to contact him since October,” a person close to Chen told the newspaper. “He was taken away by the public security department for investigation related to the pornographic and gambling content on the site.” A representative did not provide details when asked by about Chen’s whereabouts.

“DouYu’s business operations remain normal,” they said.

CNN quoted the company as saying that it would announce “any significant news or material activities” in a “timely manner.” The Chengdu-based Cover News also reported that Chen’s colleagues were not aware of his whereabouts and were unable to get in contact with him. The Paper, a government-run outlet based in Shanghai, on Monday reported that industry insiders believe it is related to suspected gambling during a livestream on the platform, Asia Financial quoted reports as saying that China’s internet watchdog sent a team to DouYu’s office for “rectification” and supervision after pornographic content was found on the platform. There has been no official confirmation of Chen’s detention but lengthy disappearances by senior executives in China are often followed by announcements they are under investigation. High-profile businessmen detained CNN has counted at least a dozen investigations of senior executives at China’s highest-profile financial institutions this year. As per SCMP, whenever a CEO goes missing it usually means they have been detained by authorities or “to assist in an investigation”.

This is exactly what has happened in the case of Zhao Bingxian – known as China’s Warren Buffet.

More from Explainers

Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar Giorgio Armani will: Who will get the inheritance? What happens to his fashion empire?

Bingxian’s company Wohua Pharmaceutical told BBC he is assisting authorities in an investigation. As per CNN, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog on Saturday announced it is Zhang Hongli. Hongli is an ex-senior executive at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) – one of China’s “Big Four” lenders. Zhang was “suspected of seriously violating rules and laws,” the watchdog said. That is a codeword used to refer to corruption. Bao Fan, the billionaire chairman and executive director of investment bank China Renaissance, went missing this year and was later revealed to be “cooperating” in an official investigation. Livestreaming is a multi-million-dollar phenomenon in China, generating huge profits for e-commerce giants and popular influencers alike. But Beijing has sought to crack down on perceived immoral content on the booming industry, launching probes into several top social media platforms and targeting prominent influencers. Authorities conducted a sweeping investigation into DouYu in May over concerns about pornography and other “vulgar” content. As per SCMP, Wang Xin, one of innovators of video-streaming in China, in 2017 was given a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence and fined 1 million yuan for “distributing obscene materials for personal gain". Xin was released in 2018. Several of China’s leading financiers and businesspeople have fallen from grace in recent years, with an intense crackdown on alleged corruption pushed by President Xi Jinping showing no sign of abating. The former boss of China’s state-owned banking giant Everbright Group, Li Xiaopeng, was arrested last month on charges of taking bribes. And in September, the former chairman and Chinese Communist Party chief of China Life Insurance, Wang Bin, was sentenced to life in prison for corruption. In September, authorities also took Xu Jiayin of Evergrande, formerly one of the richest man in China, into custody. With inputs from agencies