Did the Straits Times just paint a bullseye on Wang Quancheng?

Can you smell it in the air? This year in Singapore, the Hungry Ghost month begins on 4 August. For a entire lunar month, practitioners of Chinese folk religion or Shenism will burn gigantic sticks of incense, joss paper, and offerings to the dead, sparking the perenial complaints of air pollution by the public and admonitions for multiculturalist tolerance by political leaders. As for more pleasant sights and sounds, visitors to Singapore can look forward to pentatonic Chinese wayangs and racuous charity auctions in the heartlands, organised by temples, clan associations, and neighbourhood business associations.

No wonder then that the Qixi festival has been recently revived by state fiat? And hence, the Straits Times report on Singapore's revival of the Qixi festival, with the newspaper's usual nation-building focus. But wait, there's something wrong in the ST story: a lengthly digression featuring a president of a Chinese association that isn't even an organiser or partner of this year's festival, but is a mere participant, among a field of scores of clan associations? It's as if the Straits Times is dog whistling to readers who have been trained over decades to read between the lines of SPH journalese: Pay attention to Wang Quancheng of the Hua Yuan Association! Don't you want to find out more about him?

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What does the Straits Times tell us about Wang Quancheng?

Tellingly, the Straits Times has been buiding up a trail of clues, if not a veritable dossier on Wang Quancheng, which it hopes its readers will find.

First, there is an article on Singapore's attempts to reopen trade links with China in the days after authorities in Peking bowed down to humiliating public pressure and ended its draconian lockdown. Wang here is introduced as a plucky businessman who helps new PRC migrants to Singapore "integrate". 

Businessman Wang Quancheng has visited China almost every month since December when he also attended Xiamen’s Two Sessions parliamentary meetings.

Somehow good guy Wang "also attended Xiamen's Two Sessions parliamentary meetings", which ST claims is "less political" than the "Two Sessions parliamentary meetings" that a certain Mr Philip Chan attended in March 2023, as an "overseas representative". What the difference is between Wang and Chan or the Two Sessions meetings they attended, or the actual status of Wang when he attended his meeting, no one knows because ST reporters are in the habit of making assertions without explanations.

Then, the Straits Times expects its readers to suddenly remember that it also reported Philip Chan was very recently proscribed as a possible foreign agent in February - officially, a "politically significant person" under Singapore's newly minted foreign interference law.

Mr Chan was invited to attend China’s Two Sessions parliamentary meetings in March 2023 – the country’s most important political event of the year – as an “overseas Chinese representative”. He was one of 30 such representatives from around the world invited by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

The writeup lists several of his worrying traits, which readers are meant to realise Wang shares in toto: he's a Singaporean who attended China's parliamentary meetings as an overseas representative (i.e., who is he really loyal to?), he is the president of an association helping to integrate new immigrants from the PRC in Singapore, he leads efforts to nurture business links between young Singaporean businespeople and China.

Perhaps Straits Times readers are also expected to ask if Wang shares other traits with Chan that aren't confirmed by its reports so far, such as influential positions in the People's Association's Citizen's Consultative Committees, Community Clubs, and other charitable organisations?

Maybe getting Wang Quancheng should be a team event instead?

As it turns out the National Archives did an oral history interviews with Wang on 31 December 2015 in Mandarin Chinese. Reading the summaries, it is possible to infer that there is cause to suspect Wang's true loyalties, and whether he is another agent of China's influence in the same mould as Philip Chan.

Wang received his Singaporean citizenship in 2009 (which means he also shares the Natuaralised Singaporean creature type with Chan).

He was born in Malaysia and half his family was deported by the authorities, who had cause to believe they were involved in communist activities.

Just like Chan, he started out in the building and construction industry. But quite inexplicably, he rose from a manual worker to a serial owner of construction and manufacturing companies.

Even more inexplicably, he manages to become a citizen 2 years after starting his own buisiness, which he admits had cashflow problems.

And somehow, barely 4 years after his naturalisation, Wang decides to set up his own organisation for PRC immigrants to Singapore - but only because he didn't or couldn't work with the countless clan associations here. And that's despite the fact that he has no other ties to the PRC. And by 2015, his assocation has close ties with the People's Association.

Perhaps we should really ask if Wang has positions in a CCC or a CC by now?

But perhaps what can seal the deal is Wang's CV at the American Centre for Education, which should not be mistaken for a degree mill in Singapore for PRC students who want a University of Wisconsin system qualification.

Mr. Wang Quan Cheng is the Overseas Specially Invited Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)... In the meantime, he is also the President of Singapore Quanying Investment Group, the Investment Consultant of Xiamen Modern Agriculture, Overseas Consultant of The 4th Chongqing Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese Committee and Thai Young Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Director of The 6th General Assembly of China Overseas Exchange Association as well as the Honorary Advisor of The 1st Council of the European Fujian Development Union... Mr Wang has already donated more than 20 million dollars to both Singapore and China, and is being grateful for the spirit of giving back to society. [But not to Malaysia where he spent at least 15 years growing up!]

This excerpt should clear doubts that Wang attended the same or a very similar PRC parliamentary session as Chan, in exactly the same position as an overseas representative. Yet over and beyond this, Wang holds multiple lobbyist or even agent of influence positions for China in other countries. Such a CV might suggest he holds a great loyalty for China and its interests.

Of course, we may be ascribing too much competence to the ST;
maybe this was all unintended!

The question then is why was Philip Chan proscribed and outted by Singapore's authorities as a politically significant person, and not Wang Quancheng?