Changpeng Zhao hits back against claims that Binance is in China’s pocket, as skeptics and conspiracy theorists who have accused Binance of being a criminal business with links with the Chinese government arise.

CZ’s answer to criticism arises from a Twitter argument with a former Washington Post writer who asked him a question on Sept. 1.

“While I have you here, who’s Guangying Chen?”

He added that the query is in response to a conspiracy theory that claims his personal buddy and Chinese national Guangying Chen is the secret owner of Bijie Tech (a firm he formed in 2015) and perhaps Binance.

CZ, on the other hand, explains that Chen is a colleague he met through a friend and hired to “manage the back office” at Bijie Tech before re-hiring her at Binance, adding that conspiracy theorists then linked her as a secret owner of the firms because she was one of the few who initially remained in China.

According to Scam Binance, Chen once held 93% of the shares in both Bijie Tech and Binance, among other companies. According to CZ, such claims arose from a “old campaign undertaken by a rival via an anonymous website.”

“As a result, both she and her family have been targeted and harassed by the media and online trolls. Had I known how much of a negative impact this would have on her life, I never would have asked her to do what seemed like such an innocuous step at the time,” he said.

China Links

CZ also categorically refuted that his company had significant ties to China and its government, even going so far as to describe some of his terrible personal and commercial encounters with Chinese authorities. Changpeng Zhao hits back against claims that Binance is in China’s pocket, while stating:

“The greatest challenge that Binance faces today is that we (and every other offshore exchange) have been designated a criminal entity in China. At the same time, our opposition in the west bends over backward to paint us as a ‘Chinese company.’”

CZ believes the ill-intentioned assumptions stem from the fact that he and a few other Binance workers are of Chinese ancestry, making Binance an easy target for special groups, media, and even governments that despise our business.

“The inference is that because we have ethnically Chinese employees, and perhaps because I am ethnically Chinese, we are secretly in the pocket of the Chinese government,” he said.

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