{{short description|American businessman}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2024}} {{Infobox person |name = David Ji |birth_name = David Longfen Ji | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1952|8|5}} | birth_place = Jintan, Jiangsu Province, China | alma_mater = Fudan University and Pacific States University | other_names = | occupation = Electronics entrepreneur | years_active = | awards = ''Time magazine'' "Global influential" (2002) | title =Chairman and co-founder of Apex Digital | known_for = Held against his will in China for months without charges during business dispute }} '''David Longfen Ji''' (also known as '''Ji Longfen'''; born August 5, 1952) is a Chinese-American electronics entrepreneur who co-founded Apex Digital, an electronics trading company based in Los Angeles, California.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Berestein |first1=Leslie |title=David Ji and Ancle Hsu: Founders of Apex Digital |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1003823,00.html |access-date=18 May 2022 |magazine=Time |date=2 December 2002}}</ref><ref name=dispute>Joseph Kahn (November 1, 2005). [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/world/asia/dispute-leaves-us-executive-in-chinese-legal-netherworld.html "Dispute Leaves U.S. Executive in Chinese Legal Netherworld,"] ''The New York Times''.</ref><ref name=forb/> He was held against his will in China for months without charges during a business dispute.
==Early life== Ji is ethnic Chinese, and became an American citizen in 2000.<ref name=forb/><ref name=dispute/> He was born in Jintan, Jiangsu Province in eastern China.<ref name=forb/><ref name=dispute/> He studied at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, graduating from its Department of Foreign Languages, and then emigrated to California in 1987.<ref name=dispute/> There he lived in Walnut, California, with his wife Liu Ru Ying and daughter Jean.<ref name=forb/><ref name=ex/> In the U.S., he earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Pacific States University.<ref name=ex>[https://www1.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/gem/2003/0520/gln20030520020.pdf "Unconditional Cash Offer by Somerley Limited on Behalf of Apex Digital, Inc. to Acquire All the Issued Shares of China Data Broadcasting Holdings Limited (Other Than those Already Owned by Apex Digital, Inc. and Parties Acting in Concert With It),"] Hong Kong Exchange News, May 20, 2003.</ref>
==Business career== ===Apex Digital founding and business=== In the United States, in 1997 Ji co-founded and became chairman of Apex Digital, a Los Angeles electronics trading company.<ref>[https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2004/12/28/leading-chinese-tv-exporter-has-huge-loss/31679385007/ "Leading Chinese TV Exporter Has Huge Loss"], ''The Gainesville Sun''.</ref><ref name=dispute/><ref>[https://www.scmp.com/article/484446/us-company-alleges-coercion-china "US company alleges coercion in China,"] ''South Chine Morning Post''.</ref> Ji was named by ''Time magazine'' one of 15 "global influentials" of 2002.<ref name=wrong/> In 2004, Apex had $1 billion in sales.<ref name=wrong/>
In 2001, Ji reached an agreement on behalf of Apex with the Chinese company Sichuan Changhong Electric (Changhong).<ref name=dispute/> Changhong was China's largest television manufacturer, a supplier majority-owned by the company-town city of Mianyang and the province of Sichuan.<ref name=dispute/> The company provided two-thirds of the city of Mianyang's revenue, and Changhong's chairman and managing director Zhao Yong was until late 2004 the city's deputy mayor.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business/worldbusiness/efforts-continue-to-win-release-of-american-in-china.html "Efforts Continue to Win Release of American in China,"] ''The New York Times''.</ref> Changhong became Apex's largest supplier of DVD players.<ref name=dispute/> In 2002, Apex became the top brand of DVD player in the United States.<ref name=dispute/> Apex also began selling Changhong-made television sets.<ref name=dispute/> Apex sales rose to almost $2 billion in 2003.<ref name=dispute/>
===Arrest by Chinese police, and detention by Changhong=== On October 23, 2004, as Apex was in a business dispute with Changhong in which the two companies argued over hundreds of millions of dollars, as he was in China on a business trip Ji was arrested by police in his hotel room in Shenzhen, China; the police were Mianyang police who had traveled from 500 miles away from Shenzhen.<ref name=forb/><ref name=dispute/><ref>{{cite news |title=U.S. Embassy Confirms Arrest Of Apex Digital Chief in China |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110444578569613253 |access-date=18 May 2022 |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=31 December 2004}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=US company boss arrested in China |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4134349.stm |access-date=18 May 2022 |date=30 December 2004}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Arrest of Apex Digital Chairman in China Confirmed |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-30-fi-chinatv30-story.html |access-date=18 May 2022 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=30 December 2004}}</ref> Changhong accused Ji of defrauding them through bad checks.<ref name=wrong>{{cite news |title=The Price Is Wrong |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-price-is-wrong |access-date=18 May 2022 |work=IEEE Spectrum |date=1 March 2005 |language=en}}</ref>
He was held in China by Changhong for months without charges.<ref name=dispute/><ref name=forb/> Ji was taken to Sichuan, where he was handed over to Changhong, which kept him in a makeshift jail.<ref name=dispute/>
On his fifth day there, he was placed on the phone with a Washington D.C. lawyer named Charlie Wang (Wang Xiaoling, in Chinese), of the American law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who accused Ji of committing fraud and said that Ji's only way out was to sign documents that Wang would deliver to him that would help Changhong recover missing funds.<ref name=dispute/>
Ji was then presented with legal documents for his signature that pledged all of Apex's assets as well as Ji's personal assets to Changhong to settle a claimed $470 million debt.<ref name=dispute/> Ji initially refused.<ref name=dispute/> A guard then asked Ji, "Do you want this pen, or do you want your hand?", as the guard made a motion of chopping off his hand.<ref name=dispute/> Ji signed the papers.<ref name=dispute/> On December 14, 2004, Changhong sued Apex in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging breach of contract and citing the documents Ji had signed.<ref name=dispute/> Apex contested the suit, stating that Ji had been abducted and that the documents had been signed under coercion.<ref name=dispute/>
In order to create an argument that Ji was not in fact a hostage, Charlie Wang, the Cadwalader lawyer for Changhong, deposed Ji on videotape.<ref name=dispute/><ref name=forb/> Ji did not have a lawyer; Apex later argued that that raised questions as to whether the tape would have any value in American courts.<ref name=dispute/> At the deposition, Ji disputed Changhong's version of events; this led to a heated argument between Ji and Charlie Wang, according to people who saw the deposition.<ref name=dispute/>
The following day, Ji was taken to meet Mr. Zhao, Changhong's head.<ref name=dispute/> Zhao warned Ji that Changhong controlled the Mianyang courts, that Ji would be tried in those courts, and that Changhong would decide if he lived or died.<ref name=dispute/><ref name=forb>{{cite web|url=http://www.forbes.com/business/free_forbes/2005/1114/142.html|title=Held Hostage In China|website=Forbes |date=1 November 2005|url-status=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20051101041242/http://www.forbes.com/business/free_forbes/2005/1114/142.html|archivedate=1 November 2005}}</ref>
Charlie Wang then conducted a second taped deposition of Ji.<ref name=dispute/> In response to everything Wang asked Ji, Ji muttered agreement, including that Changhong had "invited" him to stay at its apartment in Shanghai.<ref name=dispute/>
Apex then complained that Cadwalader lawyer Charlie. Wang had acted improperly and unethically by being a party to Ji' detention.<ref name=dispute/><ref name=forb/> Cadwalader subsequently withdrew from the case.<ref name=dispute/> Charlie Wang, who had been made a Cadwalader partner just a few months earlier, left the firm.<ref name=dispute/><ref name=forb/>
On May 28, 2005, seven months after Ji was first detained, he was handed over to the Mianyang police for formal arrest on charges of "financial instrument fraud."<ref name=dispute/> In police custody, his conditions improved.<ref name=dispute/> In June 2015, Apex acknowledged a $150 million debt, but the debt remained unpaid as Apex said it did not have any money.<ref name=dispute/> In August 2015, the police released Ji on restricted bail, without him being indicted.<ref name=dispute/>
Ji's case highlighted an "implicit racism" in dealings with American businessmen. As a U.S. citizen he was not granted the same treatment by authorities as non-ethnically Chinese businessmen sharing the same nationality.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/1114/142.html|title=Held Hostage In China|first=Stephane|last=Fitch|website=Forbes |date=14 November 2005|publisher=}}</ref> At the time, Ji was one of a dozen United States businessmen who had been detained in China without due process in the past decade.<ref name=forb/>
For its coverage of the Ji story and half a dozen other related stories, Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley of ''The New York Times'' received a 2006 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting: "For their ambitious stories on ragged justice in China as the booming nation's legal system evolves."<ref>[https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/joseph-kahn-and-jim-yardley "Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley of The New York Times,"] Pulitzer.</ref>
In 2010, Apex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which finally closed in January 2018.<ref>[https://www.nhbr.com/details-emerge-in-winning-brookstone-bid-fate-of-merrimack-employees-unclear/ "Details emerge in winning Brookstone bid; fate of Merrimack employees unclear,"] ''NH Business Review'', October 3, 2018.</ref>
===Later career=== Ji founded and became chief executive officer of McLovin's Pet (a California pet food and pet care company) in 2020, and chief executive officer and director of Caduceus Software Systems (a holding company which wholly owns McLovin's Pet) in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ji |first=David |title=David Ji |url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-ji-921195242/ |access-date=15 September 2023 |website=LinkedIn}}</ref><ref>[https://www.petage.com/mclovins-pet-parent-company-caduceus-appoints-new-chief-executive-officer/ "McLovin’s Pet Parent Company Caduceus Appoints New CEO,"] Pet Age, June 30, 2023.</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ji, David}} Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:American businesspeople in manufacturing Category:American technology company founders Category:American people imprisoned in China Category:Businesspeople from California Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States Category:Fudan University alumni Category:People from Jintan, Changzhou Category:People from Walnut, California Category:Foreign nationals imprisoned in China Category:21st-century American businesspeople