Zhong Shanshan, the richest man in China.(Photo by Jiang Xin/Imaginechina via AFP)To paint a portrait of the richest man in China is to delve into an ocean of secrets.Zhong Shanshan, 67, is much less well known than the Nongfu-stamped red-capped mineral water bottles that made his fortune.It sells more than 15 billion per year, which makes China the first consumer of mineral water in the world and the first fortune of the country, with 67 billion dollars according to the financial agency Bloomberg.His particularity compared to other "red" billionaires: not having enriched himself thanks to new technologies.But Zhong's real achievement isn't turning water into gold;the secret of its success is to have been able to navigate for a quarter of a century in the meanders of Chinese capitalism without ever sinking.One of the only interviews of this discreet little man with close-cropped hair and always impeccable suits dates back to 2016, in the very official China Daily.No scoop or alcove secret, but the portrait of a simple and discreet man, father and hard worker.Like many Chinese of his generation, Zhong was a victim of the Maoist purges.He left school in primary school and worked as a carpenter, then a journalist, before taking advantage of the reforms launched by former president Deng Xiaoping to go into business in the early 1990s. first to shrimp farming and the cultivation of mushrooms with supposed medicinal properties, then to the sale of turtle shell pills supposed to have aphrodisiac effects.In 1996, he abandoned traditional Chinese medicine to found the brand of spring water Nongfu, today the leader in the sector.More recently, he has quietly invested in biotechnology, becoming the largest shareholder in Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy.The company is preparing to market the first inhalation anti-Covid vaccine and has won one of the very lucrative licenses for PCR tests, which have been practiced with a vengeance in China for more than two years.The pandemic has earned the lab millions of dollars, which makes Zhong a must-have.In fact, the billionaire has a stake, investment or board position in more than 100 companies, according to Chinese business data.It is neither his qualities as a manager, nor his perseverance, nor his hard work that are to be commended, but his ability to go through the ages smoothly.Because being rich and staying so is a combat sport in China, where you have to learn to dodge the omnipotence of the state while multiplying commercial success."The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants Chinese companies to grow and internationalize, but it also wants to retain some degree of control over them," said Yun Jiang, director of the China Policy Center in Canberra, Australia. no prominent businessman can entirely hope to escape political scrutiny, especially when he is on the lists of the ultra-rich."Many before him have paid the price, starting with Jack Ma, the too media-focused founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, who for a time "disappeared" for having dared to half-wordly criticize the Party and its methods that were too intrusive and outdated to his liking.Since then, his group has been in the sights of the state and anti-monopoly investigations have considerably weakened the empire and the fortune of Ma to the benefit of those of Zhong.“Zhong Shanshan is the anti-Jack Ma, confides Rupert Hoogewerf, who establishes the Hurun ranking of Chinese billionaires each year. His fortune has increased at the same time that that of technology companies has collapsed."Although Alibaba and Nongfu are both headquartered in Hangzhou, in the east of the country, Zhong Shanshan very rarely attends events in the city, said a reporter from China Economics Weekly. It is very difficult to approach him and impossible to obtain confidences.""I worked as a journalist, I know exactly what will make the headlines, explained Zhong to the China Daily in 1996. I'm not used to flattery, so I prefer discretion."A saving discretion at a time when the regime is launching a crusade against the ultra-rich under the slogan "Common Prosperity".Xi Jinping's flagship project, it is a question of sometimes violently redistributing the cards of a society where 1% of the population controls 31% of the wealth, according to a note from Credit Suisse."Today, only the Party has the right to be rich. So this is a message to billionaires: we will confiscate your wealth! They must then pledge allegiance to the Party and pay. That's how it is in China Entrepreneurs no longer think about how to make money, but how to keep it,” says Edmond Shu, a disgraced billionaire exiled in London.“In China, the rich, the famous and the powerful are all vulnerable to disgrace, disappearance or worse, says Financial Times journalist Gideon Rachman. In the past eight years, 72 billionaires in the country have died prematurely, 15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, 7 died of accidents, 14 were executed according to the law and 19 died of diseases!In his book Red Roulette, Desmond Shum details the perilous life of the ultra-rich.A real estate developer, he did not hesitate - before his disgrace - to spend 100,000 dollars on fine wines to curry favor with a Party cacique.His wife, Whitney Duan, "disappeared" like so many others, and he fled to England.He denounces today a mafia regime which pockets, according to him, 30% on each contract.In case of resistance, it is prison.This is what happened to Xiao Jianhua, a Canadian billionaire of Chinese origin tried since July in China for corruption.Nicknamed the "banker of the red princes", he flirted a little too closely with the communist power, and in particular with the family of Xi Jinping, of which he would have helped to conceal part of the fortune.“The very nature of the Chinese system makes it impossible to protect yourself by avoiding politics. The business world is opaque and works through relationships, so everyone operates in what Desmond Shum calls the 'grey area', and therefore vulnerable to a charge of corruption. All institutions are under the sway of the CCP. A smart lawyer or a diligent journalist will not be of any help if you are arrested. The courts have a rate of conviction of 99.9%", explains Gideon Rachman.At the top of this system is President Xi Jinping.In a speech just a year ago to the CPC Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, he said, "Common prosperity is an essential condition of socialism and a key feature of modernization with Chinese characteristics."According to the highly official People's Daily, the goal is "to build a more equal China by expanding the proportion of middle-income groups, raising the incomes of low-income groups, reasonably adjusting high-income earners, and prohibiting high-income illegal".For the Party, it is also an opportunity to take advantage of common prosperity to reassert its authority over the big fortunes.“These billionaires and tech companies are a threat to the CCP because they are seen as an alternative form of social and political power,” said David Moser, associate professor at Beijing Normal University.In this ruthless universe, Zhong Shanshan stands out with his discretion and his coldness, to the point of being nicknamed the "lone wolf".He carefully avoids positions, knows how to navigate the troubled waters of politics and, above all, concentrates on his own business.A survival manual in the China of Xi Jinping, in power for ten years and who will seek this fall, during the 20th congress of the CPC, a third historic presidential term.