国际英语新闻：Jailed tycoon under spotlight in struggle to control Chinese appliance giant

BEIJING, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The struggle to control GOME, China's biggest home appliance retailer, between its jailed founder and executives has stirred heated discussion among Internet users and experts.

A survey at qq.com, one of China's most popular portals, attracted over one million Internet users.

More than 879,000 Internet users, or 77.24 percent of the total voters, supported Huang Guangyu, once China's richest man who is now serving a 14-year jail term for bribery and insider trading, in his battle over Chen Xiao, GOME's chairman of Board of Directors, who is backed by GOME executives and the U.S. company, Bain Capital.

File photo of Huang Guangyu.

Many Internet users expressed concerns that GOME, a top brand in China, might be merged by Bain and accused Chen of betraying Huang, who created GOME from scratch and appointed Chen as CEO, in forums on most major Chinese portals.

"Mr. Chen is shortsighted with money and personal gains, forgetting all his responsibility to the company and society," Internet user GOGO21 posted.

"Whatever the final result, Chen has already lost the support of the people. A consumer product company cannot succeed without the favor of the people," posted Gaotanyan01.

Differing from Internet users' overwhelming support of Huang, experts take a more neutral role. Many of them view the power struggle as an uNPRecedented case in China's business history.