Chinese government investigates vanished beer baron.

AP--It was an all-too-familiar vanishing act: The chairman of China's biggest beer hops company moved his family abroad, drained his bank accounts and dropped from sight, official reports say.

But in a nation where thousands of officials have fled, leaving behind ruined companies and angry shareholders, the sudden disappearance of Aikelamu Aishayoufu is getting unusual attention.

It provoked a vigorous response from authorities in Xinjiang, a poor region of China's far west that is inhabited by restive Muslim minorities.

Top Communist Party officials in Xinjiang met in the regional capital, Urumqi, last week and urged creditors and suppliers of Xinjiang Hops Co., now under investigation by securities regulators, to support Aishayoufu's troubled flagship enterprise and keep it afloat.

The tycoon, one of the wealthiest members of the Muslim Uighur minority, left behind more than 1 billion yuan, or $120 million, in previously unknown loan guarantees and other financial liabilities, his company says.

Top Xinjiang leader Wang Lequan, the region's Communist Party secretary, and Ismail Tiliwaldi, its chairman, accused him of causing huge losses to the company and of "totally irresponsible behavior."

The unusually public condemnation followed reports that Aman Haj, Xinjiang's vice chairman, was being investigated by the Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog.

It is unclear whether the tycoon's disappearance was linked in any way to that probe--local officials refused to comment. A report by the official China News Service said Xinjiang authorities had set up an "emergency leading group" and were conducting their own investigations.

By speaking out, local officials could be trying to quash rumors that Aishayoufu fled due to troubles over alleged ties with separatists, said Ding Xueliang, a professor of social science at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology. Separatists have been waging a low-level campaign of bombings and assassination in Xinjiang, making it one of the country's most volatile regions.

"Normally, provincial leaders wouldn't publicly condemn officials who fled because some are often personally involved," Ding says. "But ... the regional government doesn't want to let rumors spread about possible trouble between Han Chinese and the local minority."

After Aishayoufu dropped from sight, banking regulators froze millions of dollars of assets owned by the tycoon and his companies, as Xinjiang Hops' share price plunged.

A former soldier and local official for the central People's Bank of China, Aishayoufu made his fortune in real estate and later bought a controlling stake in Xinjiang Hops, then a thriving state-run company.

As the world's second-biggest beer producer, China has nurtured its domestic hops industry over the past two decades, becoming the third-biggest grower. Xinjiang Hops is reportedly China's biggest supplier of domestically grown hops used by Chinese brewers.

Hops growing is a costly and labor-intensive industry, and Xinjiang's growers face tough competition from newer farms in nearby Gansu and Ningxia provinces, whose younger hops vines tend to be more productive.So far, Xinjiang Hops' most urgent crisis seems to be over the mountain of loan guarantees pledged against its assets. Such guarantees are common but carry substantial risks.