Every evening, millions of young Chinese tune in to State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) to watch Rui Chenggang.
The 37-year-old anchor of a nightly business news show – always dressed sharply in distinctive pinstripe suits – had over the past decade become, for many in China, the face of a new, confident and rising nation.
At ease interviewing Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair in fluent English, moderating panels with world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and scolding his foreign guests on live television for not giving due respect to China, Mr. Rui quickly rose to the top of CCTV to become one of its most well recognised and widely popular television personalities.
That was until Friday.
Viewers tuned in on July 11 to find that Mr. Rui was missing. The show was presented by his co-anchor. Mr. Rui’s chair was empty, although his microphone was still in place.
It emerged this weekend that Mr. Rui, barely a few hours before going on air, had been dragged away from the offices of CCTV by police and Communist Party anti-corruption investigators.
Last month, top officials of CCTV – China’s State-run and most powerful television network – had been detained in a widening corruption crackdown, first unleashed last year after President Xi Jinping took over. Among those officials was CCTV’s director Guo Zhenxi, who headed the business channel where Mr. Rui worked.
Their arrests followed the sacking of a top Communist Party official, Vice Minister of Public Security Li Dongsheng, in February. Mr. Li, before rising to become a top official in charge of the public security or police authority, was earlier heading CCTV.
On Monday, the top State prosecutor said Mr. Li was being investigated along with two other officials who were senior leaders in the China National Petroleum Corporation. All three officials were known to be associates of the former Politburo member and “security czar” Zhou Yongkang, who was among the most powerful officials under the previous Hu Jintao government before retiring last year. Mr. Zhou has not been seen in public in many months, while many of his associates have been detained in the most extensive corruption crackdown in decades.
While it remains unclear if the CCTV anchor’s detention is connected with these cases, it has, however, lifted the veil on an open secret in China: the rampant corruption in its powerful State media outlets, as competing businessmen and officials offered enormous amounts of money for favourable coverage.
Details emerged on Monday suggesting that Mr. Rui – the most recognisable face of CCTV – may have been at the centre of a lucrative paid news industry operating out of the State broadcaster’s Beijing offices.
Chinese media reported, citing documents presumably leaked by prosecutors, that Mr. Rui had owned shares at a public relations company he had co-founded along with a China-based official of the major global communications firm Edelman.
Even while he anchored shows, Mr. Rui’s PR firm obtained contracts from CCTV, selling slots on his own show to high profile business personalities and international guests.
Edelman did not comment on its ties to Mr. Rui. The global PR company had earlier this year involved Mr. Rui in its programmes at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he was a regular visitor every year this past decade. One Chinese media report said Mr. Rui’s firm had won contracts from CCTV during the 2009 Davos Summit, where Mr. Rui had been chosen by the World Economic Forum to host several events.
"As a host on CCTV's financial news channel, Rui had access to considerable resources and information. Corporate leaders are eager to promote themselves by appearing on his programme. All these resources make Rui susceptible to charges that he abused his power," Ren Jianming, an anti-corruption expert at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Party-run Global Times.
The widening of President Xi’s corruption crackdown to involve CCTV will deal an embarrassing blow to the channel, which has recently been spending billions to spread its reach overseas. Mr. Rui’s business programme was among the network’s most popular.
The fall of its biggest star stunned Chinese social media, dominating discussions over the past few days. Mr. Rui had garnered wide following, especially among young Chinese who admired his fluent English and his often strong nationalistic views.
He first rose to fame for leading a campaign to close down a Starbucks outlet that opened in the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2007, arguing that a foreign firm should not have a presence there.
In 2010, Mr. Rui famously confronted President Barack Obama during a G20 Summit, when the U.S. leader had offered local South Korean journalists the chance to raise a question. Mr. Rui grabbed a microphone and declared that he would do so. “I’m actually Chinese, but I think I get to represent all of Asia,” he said.
His image as a straight-talking and nationalistic anchor did not sit easily with the fame and fortune he acquired rapidly.
Mr. Rui drove a Jaguar into work. Once questioned as to why the patriotic anchor did not drive a China-made car, he replied that because Jaguar had been bought by India’s Tata, he was merely “supporting a developing country”.
