Zhongwang, a Chinese aluminium giant, resists American pressure

LIU ZHONGTIAN has been called Asia’s “aluminium king”. His firm, Zhongwang Group, is one of the world’s largest makers of aluminium products. At one point he was the richest man in China’s north-eastern rust belt, where the company is based. In America, Mr Liu has a different reputation. Firms controlled by the 57-year-old were convicted in late August of orchestrating one of the most brazen tariff-avoidance schemes in history. Now his empire appears to be coming undone, not at the hands of American prosecutors but owing to domestic economic woes.Zhongwang’s long, hollow metal rods are a key component in everything from cars to homes and bridges. They have undergirded China’s building and manufacturing boom. Literally at times: Zhongwang grabbed big contracts with the construction groups behind the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. An initial public offering in Hong Kong in 2009 made Mr Liu one of China’s richest industrialists.