The alleged underground-banking network, which extended to the coastal metropolis of Shenzhen, also illustrates an increasingly popular channel through which the Chinese can get around the country's tight capital controls.
Last summer he had the city government set up a television channel, Centre Television, which is supposed to cover the whole country by the end of 1998.
Centre-stage was a newly revived and highly imaginative student movement, which first took to the streets in May to protest at the closure of the country's main opposition TV channel.