ZHU Changhong + Indian American: Preet Bharara

choi

Lingling Wei and Bob Davis, Manager of China's Cash Board Resigns; Former Pimco bond trader won praise for persuading superiors to invest reserves in US assets other than Treasurys. Wall Street Journal, Jan 29, 2014.
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579347891772093708

Quote:

(a) "The invisible man behind China's $3.8 trillion foreign-cash hoard is disappearing.

"Zhu Changhong, a former star bond trader in the US who was recruited by Chinese officials about four years ago from investment firm Pimco to manage the country's foreign-exchange reserves, resigned unexpectedly, officials said Tuesday.

"In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange [SAFE], the division of the central bank that manages the foreign currency the bank buys to control the value of the yuan, said the 44-year-old Mr Zhu ['whose title was chief investment officer'] is set to wrap up his mission at the agency at the end of the month. His departure was made 'according to plan,' the statement said

(b) "It isn't clear why Mr Zhu left. But people familiar with his work said he had trouble navigating internal politics at the secretive Chinese government agency. His two decades in the U.S. were held against him by some colleagues, who felt slighted that he was given such a plum position without having to work his way through the Chinese hierarchy, they said.

"'Zhu's performance was viewed positively, but there was always some doubt over whether he would fit in longer term,' said a Chinese government official.

"Not all those with long US experience have had similar problems. The agency's chief, Yi Gang, taught for years at Indiana University.

"Mr Zhu was the right-hand man to Bill Gross at Allianz SE's Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, before Chinese officials recruited him in late 2009.

(c) "It isn't clear what Mr Zhu plans to do next. Officials said the agency's policy forbids ex-employees in certain positions from competing with SAFE for a certain period.


Note:
(a) German English dictionary:

allianz (noun feminine): "alliance"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Allianz
(b) PIMCO
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIMCO
(Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC (commonly called PIMCO), is a global investment management firm headquartered in Newport Beach, California [a city in Orange County]; PIMCO is headed by Co-Founder and Co-Chief Investment Officer (Co-CIO) William H Gross (better known as Bill Gross); founded in 1971; In 2000, PIMCO was acquired by Allianz SE, a large global financial services company based in Munich, Germany [founded 1891], but the firm continues to operate as an autonomous subsidiary of Allianz))

choi

Gardiner Harris, India Finds New Methods to Punish US Diplomats. New York Times, Dec 28, 2013.
www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/world ... ee-retaliation.html

Quote:

(a) "Anger among Indians intensified after they learned that the United States had flown the maid’s husband and children out of India on visas meant for use in cases of human trafficking two days before Ms. Khobragade’s arrest, saying the family had been threatened.

"The human-trafficking designation deeply offended Indian officials, who termed the threats exaggerated and said the Americans should have discussed the matter with them, particularly since they had informed their American counterparts repeatedly about their concerns after the maid, Sangeeta Richard, left Ms. Khobragade’s employment in June [2013].

(b) "Outrage in India’s tiny diplomatic corps is particularly acute because those who deal with the United States often feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of communications. India has just three senior diplomats on its North America desk, who deal with scores of counterparts from the United States and Canada. And the issue of the treatment of domestic help does not resonate in India as it does in the United States; nearly all officials in New Delhi have maids working dawn to dusk six or seven days a week, and generally earning even less than Ms Richard did.

(c) "There are 14 other Indian maids working for Indian diplomats in the United States, and India is negotiating over their status with the State Department. To India, these maids should be considered Indian government employees whose employment does not fall under American wage and hour laws.

(d) "A little-noticed aspect of the uproar has been India’s unhappiness with American officials of Indian descent. The federal prosecutor on the case, Preet Bharara, is of Indian descent, as are many officials on the South Asia desk of the United States State Department.

"India has a fraught relationship with members of its own diaspora. Commercials and Bollywood films often treat such people with mild contempt, and in the Khobragade case, Indian officials have said they believe that their counterparts in the United States treated India poorly in an excessive show of loyalty to the United States.

"American [diplomatic] officials quietly say they bent over backward to heal bruised feelings. On Dec. 19, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to get in touch with the Indian minister of external affairs, Salman Khurshid, but Mr. Khurshid did not take his call for reasons he has not explained. So Mr Kerry called Shivshankar Menon, the Indian national security adviser, to express his 'regret' over the matter.

"Top Indian politicians instead demanded an official apology and a dismissal of all charges against Ms. Khobragade. On Dec. 20, Mr. Khurshid continued to express outrage over the affair and said he expected to hear from Mr Kerry soon. But by then, American eagerness to resolve the impasse had evaporated. That same day, a deputy State Department spokeswoman said Mr. Kerry had not spoken to Mr Khurshid and had no plans to do so.

(e) "Ms [Devyani] Khobragade[, India's deputy consul general in New York,] could leave the United States for India, never return and never face another day in court, but that seems unlikely because her husband, a professor of philosophy, was raised in the United States and has family there.

Note: Preet Bharara (Preetinder Singh "Preet" Bharara; born in 1968 in Punjab, India, to a Sikh father and Hindu mother; grew up in New Jersey; magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1990 and Columbia Law School in 1993)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara
(a) Anita Raghavan, The Billionaire's Apprentice; The rise of the Indian-American elite and the fall of the Galleon hedge fund. Business Plus, 2013)

("Bharara, whose first name, Preetinder, is a Sikh name meaning 'the one who loves God,' is of a different generation")
(b) Singh: "Sanskrit simha ‘lion’ * * * freely added to Rajput and Sikh male personal names and in the US often serves as a Sikh surname"