Pursuits
Once a Billionaire, Miao Is Latest Humbled China Solar King
- Yingli missing debt payment sends panel maker into retreat
- Miao hopeful he can negotiate a resolution of the debt burden
Miao Liansheng.
Photographer: Ryan Anson/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
More than two decades ago in China, Miao Liansheng made a first tentative step toward harnessing the sun to produce power -- eventually becoming a billionaire.
For a time, it worked, making his Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. the world’s biggest solar panel maker. Then in an all-too-familiar scene for clean energy producers, reality took hold for the 60-year-old former soldier in the People’s Liberation Army.