Chasing dragons: the Chinese army takes up art collecting | 1 November 2008

In 2003, during a long night of swilling fine French wines in Beijing, talk turned to China’s rising economic fortunes. Old China hands at the table reminisced about camel trains clattering through the capital’s dim 1970s streets. Then a mysterious American chipped in with an extraordinary tale. Back in 1983, he said, China’s coffers were so low that starving officers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were reduced to selling off the country’s heirlooms. One chilly winter evening he had backed a truck into the Forbidden City and quietly loaded it with priceless antiques. Ten minutes later he was on Chang’an Avenue, weighed down with art worth more than the average bank bail-out.

Having hawked its heirlooms to the capitalist running dogs, however, a newly enriched and empowered China now wants them back. At the heart of this operation is China Poly Group, an arm of the PLA with annual turnover estimated in the billions of dollars.

Poly is a curious beast. Part munitions manufacturer, part real-estate giant, it also acts as China’s de facto cultural ministry, buying and preserving what remains of the nation’s heritage. It was founded in 1998, when former paramount leader Jiang Zemin successfully spun out the military’s non-commercial operations. Poly moved quickly into new commercial sectors, using the army’s vast tracts of land to build malls, hotel complexes, golf courses and airports. From its new headquarters in Beijing, Poly directs 72 subsidiaries involved in everything from coal mining and munitions to pork pies and hostess bars.

Poly itself is ruled from above by a rogues’ gallery of senior Chinese politburo and military officials. At the top sits Major General He Ping, son-in-law of Jiang Zemin’s predecessor Deng Xiaoping. ‘To understand Poly, you have to understand its extremely close relationship with the PLA,’ says James Mulvenon, deputy director of the Defense Group at the Washington-based Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis.