Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

One of China’s key objectives for this week’s meeting between President Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is the return of two Chinese men in the United States who may have access to some of Beijing’s innermost secrets.

According to U.S. officials, the Chinese president is expected to ask Mr. Obama to facilitate the return to China of businessmen Ling Wancheng and Guo Wengui, both of whom are wanted by Chinese authorities on corruption charges.

Mr. Ling is the younger brother of Ling Jihua, who was director of the Communist Party’s General Office under Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Communist Party chief Hu Jintao. Ling Jihua is being investigated for graft involving large sums of money, and the Chinese believe his brother was part of the scheme. Ling Jihua served as the Chinese equivalent of White House chief of staff.

The younger Mr. Ling lives in Los Angeles and is said by U.S. officials to have brought with him a large cache of classified Chinese government documents. He may be trying to seek political asylum. Mr. Guo is a millionaire Beijing real-estate developer who has been linked in Chinese news reports to Ma Jian, the former deputy head of the Ministry of State Security, China’s civilian intelligence service. Mr. Ma was purged earlier this year, and he and Mr. Guo are suspected of hatching a plot in 2006 to bring down Beijing’s deputy mayor, Liu Zhihua.

“Both are associated with the upper echelons of the communist leadership,” said a U.S. official familiar with the Chinese interest in having the two men repatriated.

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