Wang coy on past, confident on ambitious Nicaragua canal project

The baby-faced Chinese businessman behind plans to slash a canal through Nicaragua has invested millions in telecommunications and mines. But he won’t say how he made his fortune. Wang Jing says he once studied traditional Chinese medicine. At which school? He won’t say. Nor can he put a dollar figure on his current business interests.

Wang was obscure even in China until he shot to fame in June after securing rights from the Nicaraguan government to build and operate a US$40 billion shipping channel through the country to rival the Panama Canal.

Scepticism and outright disbelief have poured in about the mysterious 40-year-old chief of telecoms company Xinwei.

He acknowledges having no particular expertise in telecommunications before buying Xinwei in 2010 and remains untested when it comes to an infrastructure project as enormous as the one dangled before Nicaragua. The sluggish recovery in global trade from the 2009 recession has also raised doubts about the economic viability of a second central American canal.

Ever upbeat, Wang is promising to break ground on the waterway next year. Yet he is coy about his history and his money, and seems to revel in his previous obscurity, adding to the incredulity that surrounds an undertaking with a price tag about four times the size of Nicaragua’s economy.

“I can pound my chest and guarantee it will succeed,” he said, using a Chinese expression for full confidence.