AP Interview: Chinese man behind Nicaragua canal plan coy on his past, confident on canal

BEIJING ? The baby-faced Chinese businessman behind plans to slash a canal through Nicaragua has invested millions in telecommunications and mines. But he won't say how he made his fortune. Wang Jing says he once studied traditional Chinese medicine. At which school? He won't say. Nor can he put a dollar figure on his current business interests.

Wang was obscure even in China until he shot to fame in June after securing rights from the Nicaraguan government to build and operate a $40 billion shipping channel through the country to rival the Panama Canal.

Skepticism and outright disbelief have poured in about the mysterious 40-year-old chief of telecoms company Xinwei.

He acknowledges having no particular expertise in telecommunications before buying Xinwei in 2010 and remains untested when it comes to an infrastructure project as enormous as the one dangled before Nicaragua. The sluggish recovery in global trade from the 2009 recession has also raised doubts about the economic viability of a second central American canal.

Ever upbeat, Wang is promising to break ground on the waterway in 2014. Yet he is coy about his history and his money, and seems to revel in his previous obscurity, adding to the incredulity that surrounds an undertaking with a price tag about four times the size of Nicaragua's economy.

"I can pound my chest and guarantee it will succeed," he said, using a Chinese expression for full confidence.

Wang spoke to The Associated Press last weekend at the Xinwei Telecom Enterprise Group office in Beijing. He granted the interview in part to respond to an AP story that showed that Xinwei has yet to deliver on its promises to build telecom networks in 20 countries.

In 12 of the countries where Wang's Xinwei Telecom Enterprise Group and associated companies say they've done business, the AP found no evidence of a successful, large-scale project up and running. In the other eight, either analysts or major telecom firms said they had not heard of the company, or Xinwei did not provide enough details about its partners or projects to allow its record to be examined.

Wang said some of the projects were started before he took over the company. A Xinwei spokesman said it was unfair to judge the company's success when work is still underway.

"I trust my logic and my judgment," said Wang, seated on a wide sofa over which is the room's centerpiece: a full-wall painting of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, surrounded by Communist Party comrades and Red Army soldiers, in a victorious celebration.

Source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/222049821.html

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