Douglas Todd: Billionaire British Columbia mall owner bares his soul about China and his ‘horrible’ upbringing

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Dubbed “Vancouver’s richest woman,” Weihong Liu has for years not spoken to mainstream media about what she has in store for her three new shopping centers in British Columbia, including Tsawwassen Mills.

However, Liu’s business ideas, plus much more political intrigue, are revealed in a tearful and feisty Chinese interview he gave to a YouTube channel, in a program that now includes English subtitles and transcripts.

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In addition to explaining her vision of having traditional First Nations performances at Tsawwassen Mills, Liu graphically talks about growing up in China “full of horror” over an abusive father, her fantasy of becoming prime minister of Canada, and her affection for her. her adopted country, where she says she has never been discriminated against.

In the rambling, four-part 2.5 hour YouTube programLiu denies rumors in the Chinese community that her Canadian businesses are a front for the Chinese Communist Party elite, that she was once the lover of a high-level Communist official or that she is the niece of notorious People’s Liberation Party Admiral Huaqing Liu. . Army Navy.

Instead, he harshly criticizes China and some of its officials, including for overseeing a stagnant economy and for lacking “self-criticism.” She says she “risks arrest” in the authoritarian country she left a decade ago. “All the rich people who can flee have already left.”

The extraordinary show was put together last year by 56 Below TV, a small YouTube operation run by Dong Nan. In it, Liu, who often repeats that he has no spouse, begins by showing off his magnificent new gated property, spanning 10,000 square feet. mansion, on the endowment lands of the University of BC.

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While giving a tour of her luxurious indoor pools and wine rooms during the program, she shows off the replica of “the Queen of England” chair that she had built and says that it is “exciting to feel the wealth and power” when she sits down. in her. .

“I have a Rolls Royce. I have a Lamborghini. And a Mercedes-Benz,” he adds. When people claim that she is the richest woman in Vancouver, she acknowledges that she is “sorry.” She also doesn’t contradict when others are said to call her “Vancouver’s richest Chinese billionaire.”

Liu readily acknowledges that in China he was a leading member of many business organizations created by the Communist Party to promote the government’s plans at home and abroad.

For example, Liu says she felt “triumphant” at being named to the powerful Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; Otherwise, her rivals would have ensured that she was “crushed to death.”

When the interviewer asks about suggestions that its shopping malls and Vancouver Island golf course, called Arbutus Ridge, are a “white glove” for China’s wealthy residents who want to get their money, Liu denies it.

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The Chinese term “white glove” refers to middlemen who launder illicit money through seemingly legitimate business fronts.

While Liu shows respect for Chinese President Xi Jinping and his challenges, he expressed distaste for many Communist Party officials and other billionaires. She describes attempts by some to destroy her as a businesswoman in China, where she primarily ran shopping malls.

His cruel actions against her, she says, led her to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and become suicidal. “That’s why I hate the bad guys in the Communist Party.”

She also claims that Chinese billionaires tried to undermine her through a Chinese reporter in 2012, whom she ended up punching in the chest at a press conference. She caused a sensation.

“Attacking a journalist is a big problem. That was a turning point in my life,” Liu says. A couple of years later, she left China for British Columbia. “Can you imagine how scary China can be? “People have been left speechless.”

Liu breaks down in tears as she describes her treatment by other billionaires, one of several times she cries on screen. The other occasions are when she graphically describes her father’s abuse of her toward her mother, both dead, and toward herself.

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One of Liu’s assistants says in the video that Liu, whose umbrella company is called Central Walk, has not given another interview in Canada for more than three years. Postmedia has not been able to locate it.

The show makes clear that it was Liu who approached 56 Below TV to visit his property, as well as the golf course and shopping centers he purchased for nearly $1 billion over the past four years, which include the Mayfair Center in Victoria and the Woodgrove Center in Nanaimo. .

He did it, he says, as a way to reach the “Chinese diaspora” through 56 Below TV and its interviewer Dong Nan, who is becoming known for his Chinese-language YouTube series titled The Lives of the Richest Chinese! in Canada!

The show includes Liu driving a golf cart through the Tsawwassen Mills shopping center, visiting with workers and the food court, where he says, “I don’t really like the food here.”

Since her mall is on land owned by the Tsawwassen First Nation, she is shown describing a “cololosal” staging area in the mall where people would perform “in their indigenous clothes like the old days.”

She believes customers will post First Nations performances on social media and promote the mall. To counter how shopping malls have become a “declining industry,” he also envisions adorning Tsawwassen Mills with a 200-meter Chinatown section “that will become famous everywhere,” as well as an area called I Love You Street .

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Liu says she wishes she had been born in Canada, where she sleeps better and her daughter suffers less pollution.

I also wish I could speak English. If that were the case, she says several times enthusiastically, she would have allowed her to “run for mayor, prime minister or even prime minister.”

After being filmed on a BC Ferries trip to tour the Woodgate Shopping Center in Nanaimo, Liu says residents consider her “talented” and “amazing” for improving it.

In return, he loves all the people of British Columbia. “Society is really open,” she says. “They like Chinese.”

At one point, Liu quotes a Chinese proverb that says: “In times of political darkness… the wise must hide.” She says she couldn’t do it in troubled China.

Then he came to Canada, where he appeared for everyone to see.

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