China's incoming president Xi Jinping's family 'has wealth of hundreds of millions'
The family of China's next president has amassed a fortune running into hundreds of millions of pounds, according to a hugely damaging new report.
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
3:40PM BST 29 Jun 2012
The revelation comes as the Communist party faces increasingly difficult questions about how its leaders, who are paid ministerial salaries of just £8,000-a-year, live such gilded lives.
Xi Jinping, who turns 59 this month, is all but certain to be unveiled later this year as China's next paramount leader.
Mr Xi has carefully fostered a reputation for clean government, and there is no evidence that he has a personal fortune. Chinese officials are forbidden from accumulating significant wealth.
However, his daughter Xi Mingze studies at Harvard University under a pseudonym and an investigation by Bloomberg revealed yesterday (FRI)
that Mr Xi's other relatives have built an enormous empire.
Related Articles
US prepares to welcome Chinese VP Xi Jinping
13 Feb 2012
Bo Xilai 'spied on China's president and other top leaders'
26 Apr 2012
The investments are hidden from public view in multiple holding companies, but were identified among thousands of pages of regulatory findings, Bloomberg said.
The family's interests include a 1.83 billion yuan (£188 million) share of the assets of Shenzhen Yuanwei, a property investment company, according to a filing from December 2011.
Other companies in the same group, wholly owned by the family, have assets of at least 539.3 million yuan. They also have an indirect 18 per cent stake in Jiangxi Rare Earth & Rare Metals Tungsten Group, whose assets are worth some £1.1 billion.
Another 3.17 million yuan investment in Beijing's Hiconics Drive Technology company, made in 2009, is now worth 128.4 million yuan. The sums do not account for liabilities and consequently do not reflect the net worth of the family.
The family also owns a villa in Hong Kong worth £20 million and another six properties in the former British colony with an estimated value of £15.4 million. The Chinese Foreign ministry declined to comment on the revelations.
Most of the traceable fortune is held by Mr Xi's older sister, Qi Qiaoqiao, 63, her husband Deng Jiagui, 61, and her daughter Zhang Yannan, 33. However, a brother-in-law, Wu Long, ran New Postcom Equipment Co, which has won hundreds of millions of yuan in contracts from state-owned China Mobile.
No assets were traced to Mr Xi himself, his wife Peng Liyuan, or their daughter. There is also no indication that Mr Xi helped to advance his relatives' business, or of any wrongdoing by Mr Xi or his family, Bloomberg said.
However, the Chinese authorities were quick to censor the report, blocking Bloomberg's website from view on the mainland.
As China prepares for its once-in-a-decade transition of power, there is growing outrage over the wealth of its "princelings", the relatives of Communist party leaders.
While many princelings engage in legitimate business, there is a widespread perception that they trade on their connections to make money.
Bo Xilai, a member of the Communist party's politburo and the former chief of Chongqing, is now under investigation amid suspicions that his wife funnelled billions of dollars out of China.
On April 11, just hours after announcing Mr Bo's purge, the People's Daily, the official party mouthpiece, attacked Communist leaders for parlaying their power into wealth.
"Many use designated third parties – spouses, sons and daughters, lovers or friends" to generate and conceal wealth," it said.
Mr Bo's son, Guagua, has recently graduated from Harvard after studying at Papplewick, Harrow and Oxford University. His elder brother used a second name to control millions of pounds of shares at the Hong Kong subsidiary of a Chinese state bank. Two of his sisters are worth at least £80 million, according to a separate Bloomberg investigation.
There is a danger now, however, that the exposure of Mr Bo's wrongdoings will serve to illuminate the behaviour of other Communist party leaders. "Even Bo's opponents want everything to return to normal as soon as possible. His case is not unique and in some way illustrates the breakdown of the entire system," said one university professor, who asked not to be named.
Bo Zhiyue, a professor of Chinese politics at Singapore's National University said no systemic change is likely: "It is not possible for them to go after the princeling families. It would be like committing suicide. In the end, they will make Bo a single case and claim there is no wider implication." The revelations about Mr Xi's family's wealth will now challenge that.
Meanwhile, a poll in the People's Daily showed 91 per cent of respondents believed that all rich families in China had political backgrounds.
China's incoming president Xi Jinping's family 'has wealth of hundreds of millions' - Telegraph
