Beijing, Aug 19: A Chinese-born Canadian tycoon who disappeared from Hong Kong in 2017 was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison for a multibillion-dollar string of financial offences and his company was fined 8.1 billion, a court announced.

Xiao Jianhua was convicted of misusing billions of dollars of deposits from banks and insurers controlled by his Tomorrow Group and offering bribes to officials, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court said on its social media account.

Xiao was fined 6.5 million yuan ( 950,000) and his company was fined 55 billion yuan ( 8.1 billion), the court said.

Xiao was last seen at a Hong Kong hotel in January 2017 and was believed to have been taken to the mainland by Chinese authorities. News reports later said he was under investigation by anti-graft authorities, but no details were released.

The Canadian government said diplomats were blocked from attending his July 5 trial.

Xiao was deemed to be a Chinese citizen, which meant he wasn't entitled to see Canadian diplomats under a consular treaty between the two governments, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

That suggested Xiao might have entered the mainland using a Chinese travel document instead of his Canadian passport. Beijing has in other cases refused diplomats access to citizens of their countries who entered using Chinese identity documents.

China does not recognise Chinese citizens with dual nationality. Xiao Jianhua has Chinese nationality, Wang said. He does not enjoy the right to consular protection of other countries.

The Canadian Embassy in Beijing referred a request for comment to the Canadian government in Ottawa.

Tomorrow Group has been linked to a series of anti-corruption prosecutions and seizures of financial companies by regulators.

Friday's announcement said Xiao and Tomorrow Group were convicted of improperly taking more than 311.6 billion yuan ( 46 billion) from the public and misused entrusted property and money totaling 148.6 billion yuan ( 21.8 billion).

Xiao vanished amid a flurry of prosecutions of Chinese businesspeople accused of misconduct.

That fuelled speculation the ruling Communist Party might be abducting people outside the mainland. Hong Kong at that time prohibited Chinese police from operating in the former British colony, which has a separate legal system.

Since then, Beijing has tightened control over Hong Kong, prompting complaints it is violating the autonomy promised when the territory returned to China in 1997. The Communist Party imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 and has imprisoned pro-democracy activists.

Hong Kong police investigated Xiao's disappearance and said he crossed the border into the mainland. An advertisement in the Ming Pao newspaper in Xiao's name the same week denied he was taken against his will.

At the time of his disappearance, Xiao was worth nearly 6 billion, making him China's 32nd wealthiest person, according to the Hurun Report, which follows the country's wealthy.

In 2020, regulators seized nine companies controlled by Xiao.

That included four insurers, two securities firms, two trust firms and a company involved in financial futures. The business magazine Caixin reported at the time that the seized assets totaled almost 1 billion yuan ( 150 million).

A retired bank regulator, Xue Jining, admitted taking 400 million yuan ( 62 million) in bribes in a corruption case linked to Baoshang Bank Ltd. in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, which regulators seized from Tomorrow in 2019.

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Washington (AP): Manufacturers struggling to make long-term plans. Farmers facing retaliation from Chinese buyers. US households burdened with higher prices.

Republican senators are confronting the Trump administration with those worries and many more as they fret about the economic impact of the president's sweeping tariff strategy that went into effect Wednesday.

In a Senate hearing and interviews with reporters this week, Republican skepticism of President Donald Trump's policies ran unusually high. While GOP lawmakers made sure to direct their concern at Trump's aides and advisers — particularly US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who appeared before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday — it still amounted to a rare Republican break from a president they have otherwise championed.

Lawmakers had reason to worry: the stock market has been in a volatile tumble for days and economists are warning that the plans could lead to a recession.

"Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis told Greer as he pressed for an answer on which Trump aide to hold accountable if there is an economic downturn.

Tillis' frustration was aimed at the across-the-board tariff strategy that could potentially hamstring U.S. manufacturers who are currently dependent on materials like aluminum and steel from China. His home state of North Carolina, where he is up for reelection next year, has attracted thousands of foreign firms looking to invest in the state's manufacturing industries.

Ever wary of crossing Trump, Republicans engaged in a delicate two-step of criticizing the rollout of the tariffs then shifting to praise for the president's economic vision. In the afternoon, Tillis in a Senate floor speech said that the “president is right in challenging other nations who have for decades abused their relationship with the United States," yet went on to question who in the White House was thinking through the long-term economic effects of the sweeping tariffs.

Tillis even allowed that Trump's trade strategy could still turn out to be effective, but said there is a short window to show that it is worth the higher prices and layoffs that will burden workers.

For his part, Greer emphasised to the committee that the US was engaged in negotiations with other countries but that “the trade deficit has been decades in the making, and it's not going to be solved overnight.”

Republican leaders in Congress, as well as a sizeable chunk of lawmakers, have emphasized that Trump needs time to implement his strategy. They've mostly rejected the idea of putting a check on Trump's tariff power, but it is clear that anxiety is growing among rank-and-file Republicans about what's ahead.

Sen James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said there is a company in his state that had spent “millions of dollars" moving its parts production from China to Vietnam. But now that Vietnam is facing steep tariffs, the business is unable to move forward with negotiating prices with retailers.

Lankford pressed Greer for a timeline for negotiations, but the trade representative responded, “We don't have any particular timeline. The outcome is more important than setting something artificially for us.”

Trade agreements between countries typically take months or even years to work out and often require the parties to navigate through a host of legal, economic and business issues. Still, Republicans said they were encouraged by the indications that Trump is entering into negotiations with other nations.

Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, said at the committee hearing that he was “very encouraged” by news of trade negotiations and attributed a momentary upward tick in the stock market to “hope that these tariffs are a means and not solely an end.”

He told Greer, "Who pays these high tariffs? It will be the consumer. I'm worried about the inflationary effect. I'm worried if there is a trade war that we're going to have markets shutting down for American farmers, ranchers and manufacturers.”

Other GOP lawmakers contended that the pain was worth bearing. Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, said the president is on the right track.

“It's pain, but it's going to be,” he said. “The president will make the right call. He's doing the right thing.”

Still, traditional Republicans were looking for ways to push back on Trump's tariff plan.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senior Republican, has introduced a bipartisan bill to give Congress the power to review and approve of new tariffs, and Republican members in the House were also working to gain support for a similar bill. Such legislation would allow Congress to claw back some of its constitutional power over tariff policy, which has been almost completely handed over to the president in recent decades through legislation.

But the White House has already indicated that Trump would veto the bill, and both Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have said they are not interested in bringing it up for a vote.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican closely aligned with Trump, said on social media that the bill was a bad idea because “Congress moves at the pace of a tortoise running a race.”

“The reason why Congress gave this authority to the president to begin with is because the ability to pivot,” he added.

But the president's unclear messaging has also left lawmakers only guessing as they try to decipher which advisers and aides hold sway in the White House.

Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said that as he's received calls from the business community in his state, he's had no answers for them besides telling them the prospects for the economy are uncertain. The communication from the president's aides has often been conflicting, Kennedy said even as he voiced support for Trump's long-term goals.

Kennedy told reporters, “I don't think there's any way to double or triple your tariffs on the world when you're the wealthiest country in all of human history without being somewhat shambolic."