A Silicon Valley entrepreneur attending a technology conference in Beijing was declared brain dead after being beaten unconscious in a bar, according to an Associated Press report.
Family members told the San Jose Mercury News that Steven Leung of San Jose, California, founder and chairman of Scenix Semiconductor of Mountain View and the president of Emvix Communications of Santa Clara was found unconscious in a karaoke bar several hours after the conference on 18 January.
Leung, the father of three, is now being treated in a Hong Kong hospital, the AP reported.
"This is so horrible and we want answers to what happened," the victim's wife, Melody Leung, said told the AP from Hong Kong.
Beijing authorities declined to say whether they knew about the case. The State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, citing privacy laws, also refused to discuss it.
Melody Leung told the AP her husband arrived in Beijing 13 January to attend a conference organized by the Chinese Ministry of Information Industries.
She said Beijing police told a U.S. Embassy official that Leung was found slumped over the table of the An Ka bar and dance hall in downtown Beijing. But family members and associates insisted that Leung didn't frequent such places.
No one knows how much time elapsed between the injury and when he was brought to a hospital. After an emergency operation, Leung was declared brain-dead, his wife told the AP.
Leung, who immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in the 1960s, has founded several companies. In 1988, he started Resumix, which scans resumes and matches applicants with job openings, said his brother, John Leung.
In 1993, he founded DocuMagix, which developed paper management software. He founded Scenix, which makes chips to connect common appliances to the Internet, in 1996. His latest venture, Emvix, develops telecommunications products.
