Mr Deng joined the People’s Liberation Army as a teenager and fought in a border war with Vietnam. In 1985, he left and began a property business before emigrating to the United States in the early 1990s. But he returned to Chengdu when China began to accelerate its economy and persuaded the local government that he could draw both Chinese and foreign tourists and businessmen to the city. “I really don’t have anything to do with my fellow businessmen,” he told the Washington Post in 2002. “My business depends on the government.”