In Liaoning Province where Zhao was born, the official per capita rural income was 6,908 yuan last year. That was about 1,000 yuan higher than the national average.
A newly minted member of the bourgeoisie, Zhao needs not defend his vulgarity any more, nor does he need to justify his extravagance and ambition in this gilded age, but he still has to confront annoying accusations from time to time.
According to recent media reports, Zhao's exclusive club is housed in, among other things, a siheyuan (a quadrangle of houses with a four-square courtyard) dating 278 years back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The whole complex covers over 10,000 square meters and is located in the prime Qianmen area, south of Tian'anmen Square.
The siheyuan in question was listed in 2004 as a site under protection of the Chongwen District, later incorporated into Dongcheng District.
In other words, the listed compound is part of the state's assets, and by law Zhao has no rights to alter, renovate, damage or add anything to the existing structure.
But converting the ancient compound into a fancy club involved two months of intensive renovation, at a cost of 60 million yuan.
Among the new creations are a swimming pool of over 60 square meters within the listed siheyuan, and a superstructure atop the compound.
In the face of growing public discontent, that superstructure was quietly removed this week.
The whistle blower is Zeng Yizhi, a dedicated campaigner for the protection of old buildings, who as early as April first alerted the district cultural relics protection department of Zhao's illegal renovations.
This August 8, Zeng inquired as to the result of her complaint.
Instead of hearing anything from the department, she received a call the next day from a representative from Zhao's media group who offered to communicate with Zeng face to face.
Apparently, instead of taking any moves to investigate Zhao's renovations, the district's relics protection authority had alerted Zhao of the whistle blower.
That explains why at first the district's watchdog seemed to be either ignorant of, or totally approving of, Zhao's two-month revamp.
Of course, under pressure from growing public indignation, the local authority suddenly woke to Zhao's illegal actions, and vowed to undertake a thorough investigation.
Ma Zishu, chairman of the China Culture Relics Protection Foundation, said this week that the loft and the swimming pool have fundamentally changed the original appearance and environment of the siheyuan.
Huisuo (exclusive club) is a fairly new concept in a nation that once take pride in proletariat status.
When those get-rich-first Chinese realized that they could not overestimate the importance of guanxi (connections) in China, the emergence of such exclusive clubs meet a widely felt need.