In the following months five more multimillion-dollar homes were sold to Huang's "friends", all lower down the hillside in Beauty Point. Agents, baffled but delighted, listened to buyers speak of their hope that Huang's "good fortune" would rub off on them through living nearby. As word spread of the area's excellent feng shui, interest from other Chinese buyers surged, Mosman prices broke out of a prolonged post-GFC slump, and long-time residents took to calling the area "Beijing Point". Huang Xiangmo with Malcolm Turnbull at Chinese New Year celebrations in Sydney this month. Huang arrived in Australia in near-total obscurity. But big spending and relentless networking behind closed doors has seen him swiftly ingratiate himself with Australia's most powerful politicians to become the figurehead of the new wave of "mainland money" coursing through Australia. On top of a fast-growing portfolio of property developments, Huang's Yuhu Group is party to a landmark $2 billion Australian agriculture investment deal, endorsed by the federal government in late 2014. There is the question, however, of just how much the government and public institutions know about Huang, a prolific political donor who has funnelled more than $1 million into the coffers of both major parties since 2012, including through family members, his companies and staff. The 46-year-old, who also goes by his legal name Huang Changran, gave $1.8 million to establish the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, helmed by former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr, and another $1 million to the Children's Medical Research Institute at Westmead. In December, he pledged $3.5 million for an Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University.

Fairfax Media can reveal Huang was caught up in a far-reaching corruption scandal involving senior government officials in his native Jieyang, a city of 6 million in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, which prompted a hasty departure from his base in Shenzhen. Huang's Beauty Point home in Mosman. Credit:HuwLambert.com Sources with knowledge of the matter say Huang, having been tipped off that a close political patron would be investigated for graft as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive - which includes operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, left hurriedly for Australia, where he had already explored the possibility of expanding Yuhu Group. Huang has been conspicuously low-profile in China since 2013, with Yuhu's website documenting his every move in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan - but never on the mainland. Huang says he has had no trouble returning to mainland China. Mr Li Ruipeng (second from left) of Li Guancheng Investment Group (LGIGA) with a number of coalition politicians (including Tony Abbott, McFarlane and Stuart Robert)

Last month, he failed to appear at his own company's annual meeting in Shenzhen, where a major strategic decision was announced, refocusing Shenzhen Yuhu's expansion plans toward Australia and away from the mainland Chinese market. Friends in high places: Huang Xiangmo with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. My philanthropic donations don't come with any hidden agenda, and it has nothing to do with China Huang Xiangmo Around the same time Huang was picking up the pieces, another Jieyang entrepreneur was seeking to reinvent himself in Australia. Li Ruipeng is now notorious as the Chinese businessman who fished luxury Rolex watches out of a paper bag, presenting them to Tony Abbott and former frontbenchers Ian Macfarlane and Stuart Robert.

Despite representing himself as a billionaire in Australia, Li has left behind a multimillion-dollar trail of unpaid creditors and employees in mainland China, according to court documents obtained by Fairfax Media. Li and several co-accused have been consistent no-shows in court; lawyers acting for those owed money believe he absconded to Australia as his business started to go sour. A Guangdong court ordered his company assets frozen in September 2014. The Jieyang city gate that got Chen Hongping and friends in hot water. Though Huang is listed as a director of Yuhu's Australian subsidiaries, he has chosen not to hold any shares in his name, according to corporate filings. Yuhu's lucrative property operations are majority-owned by his wife, Huang Jiefang, and Huang Jiquan, believed to be the couple's son. The Mosman mansion is also in Huang Jiefang's name. Huang's woes in Jieyang stem from the close political connections which helped him ride from rags to riches during China's real estate boom. In 2009, Huang gave 150 million yuan ($32 million) toward the construction of a grand pagoda-style city gate, citing his close relationship with the city's top official, Communist Party secretary Chen Hongping. Huang Xiangmo playing mahjong with NSW Premier Mike Baird.

"One night, it was after 10pm, I was having a chat over tea with Secretary Chen," Huang told the local state-run newspaper in a hagiographic account of his contribution to the city. "When he raised the matter of the Jieyang Tower, he was very impassioned, very worked up. He made no secret that Jieyang's financial situation was inferior to more developed regions, and hoped that I could provide some valuable assistance." Trouble struck when Chen was investigated for corruption in November 2012. A subsequent court indictment alleged that, obsessed with building himself the perfect grave, Chen embezzled millions to construct a luxurious family burial site in accordance with the principles of feng shui. He was formally detained in June 2013, has been expelled from the party and is awaiting sentencing. Huang Xiangmo with former prime minister Kevin Rudd. Ominously for Huang, the indictment also found Chen erred by overspending on the city gate, which features nine 10-metre spires surrounding a giant rhyolite boulder transported from the storied Mount Tai, some 1600 kilometres away in Shandong province. All told, the court found Chen had accepted an "unprecedented" sum of more than 125 million yuan in bribes. Chen's arrest also led to the downfall of his immediate predecessor, Wan Qingliang, who had by then been promoted to party secretary of the city of Guangzhou. Local media ran sordid accounts of the pair sharing the same mistress, adding that Wan flew around on chartered China Southern flights, picking his favourite air stewardesses from a photo line-up on his iPad.

Huang Xiangmo with former prime minister Tony Abbott. There is no suggestion that Huang's contribution toward the Jieyang Tower should be construed as a bribe. But Huang's decision to leave at a politically turbulent time proved astute. Even if innocent, staying would have meant putting faith in China's party-controlled judiciary instructed to pry into Wan and Chen's financial benefactors. Another local businessman who donated toward the city gate, Huang Hongming (no relation), was detained in connection to Chen's investigation, his whereabouts still unknown. In a rare telephone interview with Fairfax Media, Huang Xiangmo said he was never affected by Chen's case, pointing out he was never mentioned by name in the prosecution's indictment. "It was a philanthropic act," he said, referring to his contribution to the Jieyang Tower. "I don't have any business or investments in Jieyang, my company doesn't have any projects in Jieyang."

He said he had made plans to migrate to Australia as early as 2010, well before he knew Chen was in trouble. He is applying for citizenship and expects to get his passport next month. He denied having any trouble entering mainland China, saying he frequently returned. On his donation to UTS, he said he hoped "Australians could understand China more clearly, and that China could understand Australia more clearly". "My philanthropic donations don't come with any hidden agenda, and it has nothing to do with China," he told Fairfax Media. "My company doesn't invest in China any more; it just has some small residual assets. When the media say I have some [ulterior] motives, I don't know whether to laugh or cry … I feel it is unfair, not objective." And of his political donations to both major parties, he said: "I just sometime participate in their activities … I feel sometimes their politics are in line with us Chinese-Australian businesses, in line with our standards and ideas. We just support their political views, without raising ours." If Li's efforts to court favours in Australia have backfired, Huang is swiftly moving toward political reinvention. As head of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, he gives speeches urging Chinese-Australians to oppose independence for Taiwan, Xinjiang or Tibet.

When Xi made his first official visit to Australia as China's president in late 2014, Huang was there to greet him as a leader of Australia's Chinese business community. He gave a keynote address at this month's farewell reception for China's outgoing ambassador to Australia, Ma Zhaoxu. And having sought to woo Australia's revolving door of recent prime ministers, he was granted a front-row seat alongside Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at Sydney's lantern fair celebrations marking the Lunar New Year. In a statement, UTS said it is "proud to have attracted financial support from Mr Huang Xiangmo as it has from other Australian-Chinese donors". "Like all universities, UTS undertakes due diligence before accepting any donations. The university is not aware of any impropriety involving Mr Huang."