Conspiracy theorists, start your engines: Leader of Chinese Automobile association ‘disappears’!

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From the Shanghai Daily:

THE secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers has left China mysteriously, leaving behind a string of questions including a reported probe into the use of the huge revenue from an auto show in Shanghai.

Jiang Lei, who also the standing vice chairman of the association, hasn’t shown up at several significant conferences since April 15, the day on which he was supposed to have given reports, according to a report in The Beijing Times today.

“The association leaders confirmed during a closed conference that Jiang had left China,” said an insider with the association. “But no further information was given about his sudden departure.”

Meanwhile, Jiang “is not a member of the association any more”, said the newspaper, quoting an interview on Tuesday morning with a staff member from the association’s headquarters in Beijing’s Xicheng District.

Zhi Min, deputy secretary general with the association, refused to comment on Jiang’s situation because “I haven’t been informed of a unified line of action.”

The China Machinery Industry Federation, the administrative body over the association, also refused an interview with the newspaper, giving the same excuse with Zhi.

The association is not a commercial organization, but it has seen huge incomes as it is the host of China’s three major auto shows, in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, said an auto expert Jia Xinguang.

But few know where the money has gone, Jia said.

China’s National Audit Office has begun a probe into the way the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade used its revenue from the just-wrapped-up Shanghai auto show, said the report.

Nobody can find him, because he’s most likely at the bottom of the Taiwan straits wearing concrete boots.