Written by By Udi Ofer, CNN
Saudi billionaire and real estate developer Deng Guangyu may have been banned from traveling by China’s government, but that hasn’t stopped his eldest son from flying around China’s northern city of Harbin.
The son of the businessman, whose old age helped land him in China’s politically charged crosshairs, is making appearances at Harbin’s international tech trade show in two videos that have been uploaded on a popular Chinese video website.
Deng Guangyu in his prime
The clips (which CNN couldn’t immediately verify the authenticity of) feature model Deng Guangyu Sui, 26, from Peking University, standing next to Huawei’s Taikang Vision display and talking about the drone industry.
Efforts to reach Deng Guangyu Sui for comment weren’t successful.
The younger Deng Guangyu, who’s also the son of fugitive business tycoon Han Wen-bin, was banned from all business transactions with state-owned companies in 2014 after he successfully bid to acquire a lucrative land development company.
The younger Deng Guangyu has become more prominent in recent months and has been called out in a string of other videos released by the propaganda-driven China Youth Daily — shot in the absence of his father.
Last week, the younger Deng Guangyu was filmed alongside billionaire Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, who also uses Alibaba’s billionaire Jack Ma as a mentor.
But tech reports indicated that Wang Jianlin, who’s a close ally of top Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, had told Deng to be careful of his “image” to avoid the “dark cloud” of association with his father.
Reports that Han Wen-bin would leave the country ahead of an anti-corruption inspection were also confirmed by Deng Guangyu Sui on Weibo.