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Chinese Families Are Being Ripped Apart for Protesting About Losing Their Life Savings

In China, hundreds of thousands of people's lives have been wrecked by what they thought was a safe, government-backed investment — and some have been jailed for protesting about it.
Protesters demonstrate in Beijing over collapse of Fanya Metal Exchange, September 2015. Photo by Rolex Dela Pena/EPA

Zhou Wei's wife Yang Meilin is currently a 35-minute train ride away from him, but he hasn't spoken to her in four months.

"I feel lonely sometimes and I can't sleep or eat well," Zhou told VICE News, sitting in his high-rise apartment living room in the city of Tianjin, northeast China. "The first month was the most difficult. My weight went down by about seven and a half kilograms."

There are echoes of vibrant family life all around Zhou: colorful picture frames showing off photos of his smiling wife; tubes of chocolate presumably for the couple's 17-year-old son; cartoony panda bear knick-knacks on the coffee table. But Zhou, stiff and smart in a blue shirt and black trousers, is knotted up: arms folded, eyes glazed.

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Last October, Yang, 41, was arrested and charged with "disturbing public order" ahead of a planned protest in Beijing over the collapse of the Fanya Metal Exchange company. She was taken to a detention centre in Beijing, where she continues to await a trial date being set.

Yang was one of around 240,000 people who invested in Fanya. Most believed that their investment was endorsed by the government, only for the company to become embroiled in a dramatic corruption case, sparking outrage and demonstrations.

Around $6 billion had been ploughed into Fanya by investors before the funds were frozen last April. Company head Shan Jiuliang was arrested in January, months after a dramatic "citizens' arrest" attempt by angry investors in Shanghai, and charged with "illegally absorbing public savings" alongside other Fanya officials.

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With the Chinese government engaged in a far-reaching anti-corruption drive, long jail sentences seem inevitable for Shan and other company bosses, who are all charged with serious fraud.

But thousands of investors continue to demand redress, after their investments in the company were lost when Fanya announced it would suspend all its business last August.

Despite working in finance, Zhou says he left most of his family's investments to his wife. He estimates the Fanya collapse leaves them facing a loss of around 1 million yuan ($154,000). "It's like losing all the money you've ever saved," he said.

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Like thousands of other Fanya investors, Zhou's family are comfortably middle class and saw the company as a smart, solid investment guaranteed by the government. In recent years, Beijing has encouraged the affluent middle classes to invest in Chinese company stocks, in an effort to help stimulate the country's floundering stock exchange.

To many, investing in Fanya seemed like a no-brainer, with the company promising 10 to 13 percent returns. The firm declared that it was affiliated with state-owned banks such as ICBC and Bank of China. Investment in the company was regularly featured on state television news and investors have said that bank employees sold Fanya products inside branches.

However, a police document issued in December declared that Fanya had defrauded 238,600 investors. It said that orders had been faked by the company to control prices of metal it dealt in, while its "entrusting sales" program — allowing retail investors to lend money to end users to buy metals — had not been approved by China's central bank.

Investor outrage was vitriolic when the company collapsed and protests were planned. Although there has been a recent rise in the amount of worker protests in China, such action among white collar professionals is extremely rare. The country has become increasingly authoritarian since President Xi Jinping came into power in 2012, with little tolerance for any kind of dissent or public disorder shown.

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Hundreds of investors risked the wrath of authorities by protesting at Fanya's company building in Kunming, in the southern Yunnan province, last July. Then last October protests were held in Shanghai, where Shan was residing, with investors swarming his hotel and forcing him into the hands of police.

By December authorities had had enough, arresting a few dozen investors ahead of a planned protest in Beijing. The government has remained silent on the subject of any kind of compensation package.

Among those taken ahead of the Beijing protest was Yang, who is one of seven protestors known to still be in custody in the capital. While other Fanya investors continue to demand answers, no trial date has been set for those in detention, who authorities appear to be making an example of to deter others from taking them to task.

"The protest was in no way violent, they were just printing leaflets and making clothes and banners," said Zhou. "The lawyer told me that she said too much to the police. She probably thought that the more details she talked about, the less punishment she would get. But that's not true. The more you say, the more charges there will be against you.

"It's so unfair, but everything is controlled by the government. The government wants to postpone dealing with it for as long as possible. They want to punish them as a warning to others."

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Yang's detention is symptomatic of a ruthless assault on dissent across China in recent years. Lawyers and human rights activists have been jailed in increasing numbers, while Xi seems to even have exerted influence abroad, with British police accused of doing the Chinese Communist Party's bidding by targeting those who protested his visit to London last October.

Zhou, meanwhile, can only communicate with his wife through a lawyer, and the closest he gets to being with her is his regular trips to deposit money for her to spend on essentials in the detention centre.

"My lawyer has told me that she is okay, but I guess that's just to comfort me," he said. "Other people who got released said conditions were okay apart from the food. One man who came out was reduced to 60 kg (132 lbs) from 90 kg.

"I asked my lawyer to pay more attention to her mental status and I've heard she's doing fine with regards to that. At the beginning she couldn't accept the fact [that she'd been detained] but now she is doing better because there is no other choice."

Zhou has not been able to pluck up the courage to tell his son, nor the family's elder relatives, the truth about his wife's predicament. He has told them that she had to suddenly travel abroad for work, and has since deflected further enquiries. He says this became particularly difficult last month, during China's Spring Festival celebrations, when families traditionally gather together.

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"My parents have suspicions and have asked me several times [where Yang is]," said Zhou. "My son has also asked but if I don't say anything more, they can't force me to. I don't want my family to worry about it too much. My parents are not in good health."

It's not going to get easier for Zhou to continue his deception. He has been told that his wife may be detained for a year before her fate is known. "The lawyer won't be much help," he said. "This is not a simple criminal case, it's political."

Zhou is resigned to losing most of his investment. Having previously planned to use the money to fund an education abroad for his son, he says he'll have to sell the family's apartment to afford it. "I can accept not getting the money back," he added. "My wife is the most important."

Follow Jamie Fullerton on Twitter: @Jamiefullerton1

The names of some people mentioned in this in this article have been changed.