On December 30, 2020, the Shanghai High People's Court handed down a final verdict against Zhao Fuqiang on multiple charges including "organizing and leading a criminal organization of a mafia nature," "rape," "fraud," and "organizing prostitution," sentencing him to death with a two-year reprieve and restrictions on commutation; the other thirty-seven co-defendants received prison terms ranging from two years and six months to twenty years. The real-life "Shanghai Little Red House Case" is even more shocking than the plot of the TV drama Crackdown on Organized Crime. The case's central figure, Zhao Fuqiang, was a country tailor from rural Taixing, Jiangsu. Despite his humble origins, within a few short years of arriving in Shanghai he rose to become a local crime boss with ties to both the underworld and officialdom — a story more tortuous and shadowy than those of the old gangster legends Huang Jinrong and Du Yuesheng. He bought a six-story building on Xuchang Road in Yangpu District and named it Chuangfu Mansion; the building sits about two hundred meters from the Yangpu District government and the Yangpu District Women's Federation. There, in broad daylight, he imprisoned hundreds of women, forced them into prostitution, and used sexual bribery to buy off officials at every level. The building came to be known as the "Little Red House" — an even grander, more sophisticated version of the infamous "Red House" run by smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing in the Yuanhua smuggling case of years past. Zhao Fuqiang has been brought to justice, but the case is far from closed. One cannot help but ask: how, in a bustling downtown district, could such large-scale, almost openly conducted illegal detention and prostitution have gone on for years without local police noticing? Given how long Zhao committed his crimes, how wide their scope, and how many victims — over a thousand — how vast a protective network must have shielded him? How many people, and who exactly, wove that net? Which officials and dignitaries came here to indulge themselves? In a country where a pianist who paid for sex on his own was denounced and vilified nationwide, why do the names of the officials who visited for free remain so carefully hidden? Among those who served as Zhao Fuqiang's accomplices and protectors, only a handful of low-level officials were ever punished: Lu Yan, secretary of the Yangpu District Political and Legal Affairs Committee; Ren Yongfei, Party secretary of the Yangpu District Court; Hu Chenghao, chief of the Yinzoulu police station under the Yangpu branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau; Feng Boping, deputy chief of the Jiangpu Industrial and Commercial office under the Yangpu branch of the Industry and Commerce Bureau; Sun Zhendong, deputy chief of the Changbai Xincun police station... Tellingly, the highest-ranked among them held only division-chief rank, with the rest at section-chief level. Given their standing, could they alone have let Zhao Fuqiang run wild for so many years? On the eve of the verdict's announcement, news of the "Shanghai Little Red House" briefly went viral on Weibo, only to be scrubbed completely soon after. The comment section was left with just a few surviving remarks: "Six hundred million views, gone without a trace," and "It's rather sad — which law does discussing this case even violate?" Even sadder was the collective silence of Shanghai's media — not a single official outlet, mainstream media organization, or even independent online commentator in Shanghai spoke up. This fact alone suggests that someone with real power must be hiding behind the case — at the very least a municipal-level Shanghai official, since only such power could achieve a total media and internet blackout. Rumor has it that Chen Yin, member of the Shanghai Municipal Party Standing Committee and executive vice mayor; Zhuge Yujie, member of the Standing Committee, secretary-general of the Party committee, and secretary of the municipal organs' Party working committee; and Jin Xingming, vice chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Political Consultative Conference, were all connected to the case — yet all emerged unscathed. In this age of big data that the CCP so prides itself on, the police supposedly track every move of ordinary citizens with keen precision — so how could the authorities possibly have known nothing about a figure who caused as much of a stir as Zhao Fuqiang? A Facebook friend of mine in Shanghai posted an astonishing account: "I recently heard about a new scheme — a 'big data crackdown on vice' is underway. The idea is that if a woman between twenty-five and thirty, with no clear occupation, regularly receives fixed-amount transfers between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. — say, 498, 598, or 698 yuan — and the payments are linked to a location at or near a hotel, big data will flag her as a suspected prostitute; at the same time, it will flag everyone who has ever transferred money to her, and what awaits them are shiny handcuffs. My friend just sent me a small money gift so I could buy cat treats, and after I accepted it I regretted it — the amount was way too suspicious. I really don't want to be classified as part of the prostitution crowd, and the price was so low too — it's infuriating." From this, it isn't hard to guess that big data conveniently spared Zhao Fuqiang and the "Little Red House" precisely because someone in a position of power had designated it a "no-comment zone." Is there safety in Shanghai? Is there safety in China?
A room in Shanghai's "Little Red House," as described by a victim's mother
Among Zhao Fuqiang's many identities, one stands out above all: he was a shareholder of Shanghai Wanji Culture Media Co., Ltd., which held the operating rights to Safe Shanghai, a program on Shanghai Television's "Rule of Law World" channel.
In 2012, Shanghai launched its "Safe Shanghai" initiative; in 2016, the Safe Shanghai television program officially began airing; in February 2017, around the time of the CCP's 19th Party Congress leadership transition, Party secretary Han Zheng attended the Safe Shanghai construction conference and used it as one of his achievements on his way to a glittering promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee. At that very same moment, mafia boss Zhao Fuqiang took over the Safe Shanghai program. This was no coincidence. His status as a shareholder of a television program showcased by the Propaganda Department transformed Zhao from a criminal into someone with a veneer of official endorsement, practically a mouthpiece of the party-state — and from there he grew ever closer, thick as family, with the police and the political-legal system. Even if Han Zheng never had any formal contact with Zhao Fuqiang, the two are undoubtedly cut from the same cloth, sharing the same essential nature of preying on the people, differing only in rank. Han Zheng's rise to power and Zhao Fuqiang's rise to power follow strikingly similar paths that converge on the same destination. Extending the logic further — are Mao Zedong's rise to power and Xi Jinping's rise to power not likewise steeped in ugly deeds and reeking of blood?
Shanghai is China's most modern city; judging by visible hardware like skyscrapers, expressways, high-speed rail, and subways, New York, London, and Paris all pale in comparison. But this dazzling facade of hardware cannot conceal the rot underneath — under CCP rule, Shanghai is in fact the most extreme-left city of all: most of the Gang of Four rose to power from Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, and the "Shanghai Gang" of the reform-and-opening era is likewise full of lies while amassing wealth that rivals entire nations.
Do ordinary people living in this glossy, glittering city of Shanghai have safety? In the past, most people assumed that those trafficked or coerced into selling their bodies were mostly rural women — the "low-end population" the party-state considers negligible. Yet in the "Shanghai Little Red House Case," many of the victims were in fact high-end, middle-class individuals, some even returnees who had studied abroad.
Cui Qian, a dance teacher who reported the case to the central anti-mafia inspection team, had been about to leave for study in South Korea and was only looking for temporary work to save up some money when Zhao Fuqiang targeted her and turned her into a sex slave. Because she held Shanghai residency (hukou), Zhao took a photocopy of her household registration booklet to the civil affairs bureau and completed a "marriage" registration without her ever needing to appear in person. Zhao had greased every wheel along the way, and it went through without a hitch. After being "married" without her consent, Cui Qian was kept under house arrest, had her eggs harvested, and served as a surrogate, eventually giving birth to Zhao's illegitimate child, who was even granted Shanghai hukou. Some say Shanghai hukou is worth millions of yuan; others say Shanghai natives are the only true "city people" in China, with everyone outside Shanghai counted as country folk. But holding Shanghai hukou did not spare Cui Qian from becoming a victim.
Chen Qian, a returnee who had studied in the United States, saw a job posting online for an "operations specialist" position. After attending what seemed like a routine interview, she was placed under house arrest, raped, photographed, and forced to "accompany clients," becoming what was euphemistically called a "companion specialist." When she finally got a chance to go to a bank to withdraw money, she seized the opportunity to report the case to police. In her own words: "Zhao Fuqiang kept innocent women captive in Chuangfu Mansion, harvesting their eggs and supplying escorts to government officials." Yet despite the shocking scale of this case, the public security authorities simply closed the file, citing it as a "family dispute." After a failed escape attempt, Chen Qian was severely beaten, strapped to an operating table, and had her eggs forcibly extracted; she nearly died from resulting abdominal fluid buildup and ultimately lost her fertility.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party fabricated the story of the "Rent Collection Courtyard" to portray landlord Liu Wencai's manor as a lightless den of horrors. Yet the "Little Red House," where Zhao Fuqiang and Communist Party officials mingled so cheerfully, was the true den of horrors, one so dark you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face. As a child I watched a Brazilian TV drama called The Slave Isaura, and I sighed over the tragic fate of its enslaved heroine; yet today, in a China that claims to have human rights conditions five times better than the West's, there are more women enslaved, and in more tragic circumstances. Many people believe that as long as they do not resist the CCP's tyranny, they can live out peaceful, settled lives. That belief is far too naive. Neither a higher education nor experience studying abroad, nor even middle-class status in Shanghai or Beijing, can guarantee anyone basic safety and freedom.
The Bible says: "They have healed also the hurt of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Indeed — there is no peace in Shanghai, and no peace in China. All of Shanghai is one hellish "Little Red House," and all of China is one great "Red House" of willing slaves.