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Chinese premier’s
family has massive wealth: ‘NY Times’
Reuters and NY Times News Service, BEIJING
The family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), a leader known for his humble
roots and compassion for ordinary people, has accumulated massive wealth during
his time in power, according to a New York Times report yesterday.
The Times said that a review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that
the premier’s relatives, some of whom have a knack for aggressive deal-making,
including his wife, have controlled assets worth at least US$2.7 billion.
The Times’ Web sites in English and Chinese were blocked in China yesterday
morning, and searches for the New York Times, as well as the names of Wen’s
children and wife, were blocked on China’s main Twitter-like microblog service.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) told a daily briefing the
report “smears China’s name and has ulterior motives.”
Asked why the Web sites were blocked, Hong said: “China manages the Internet in
accordance with laws and rules.”
The Times said that Wen’s mother, siblings and children had amassed the majority
of the wealth since Wen was named vice premier in 1998. Wen was promoted to the
premiership in 2003.
In many cases, the names of the relatives have been hidden behind layers of
partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, work colleagues and
business partners. Unlike most new businesses in China, the family’s ventures
sometimes received financial backing from state-owned companies, including China
Mobile (中國移動通信), one of the country’s biggest phone operators, the documents
show. At other times, the ventures won support from some of Asia’s richest
tycoons.
The Times found that Wen’s relatives accumulated shares in banks, jewelers,
tourist resorts, telecoms firms and infrastructure projects, sometimes by using
offshore entities.
The holdings include a villa development project in Beijing; a tire factory in
northern China; a company that helped build some of Beijing’s Olympic stadiums,
including the iconic “Bird’s Nest”; and Ping An Insurance (平安保險), one of the
world’s biggest financial services companies.
As premier in an economy that remains heavily state-driven, Wen, who is best
known for his simple ways and common touch, more importantly has broad authority
over the major industries where his relatives have made their fortunes.
Because the Chinese government rarely makes its deliberations public, it is not
known what role — if any — Wen, who is 70, has played in most policy or
regulatory decisions. However, in some cases, his relatives have sought to
profit from opportunities made possible by those decisions.
His younger brother, for example, has a company that was awarded more than US$30
million in government contracts and subsidies to handle wastewater treatment and
medical waste disposal for some of China’s biggest cities, according to
estimates based on government records. The contracts were announced after Wen
ordered tougher regulations on medical waste disposal in 2003 after the SARS
outbreak.
In 2004, after the State Council, a government body Wen presides over, exempted
Ping An Insurance and other firms from rules that limited their scope, Ping An
went on to raise US$1.8 billion in an initial public offering of stock.
Partnerships controlled by Wen’s relatives — along with their friends and
colleagues — made a fortune by investing in the company before the public
offering.
While Chinese Communist Party regulations call for top officials to disclose
their wealth and that of their immediate family members, no law prohibits
relatives of even the most senior officials from becoming deal-makers or major
investors — a loophole that effectively allows them to trade on their family
name.
The Times presented its findings to the Chinese government for comment. The
foreign ministry declined to respond to questions about the investments, the
premier or his relatives. Members of Wen’s family also declined to comment or
did not respond to requests for comment.
The review of the corporate and regulatory records, which covers 1992 to this
year, found no holdings in Wen’s name. It was not possible to determine from the
documents whether he recused himself from any decisions that might have affected
his relatives’ holdings or whether they received preferential treatment on
investments.
As premier, Wen has staked out a position as a populist and a reformer, someone
whom the media has nicknamed “the People’s Premier” and “Grandpa Wen.”
While it is unclear how much the premier knows about his family’s wealth, US
State Department documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010 included a cable that
suggested Wen was aware of his relatives’ business dealings and unhappy about
them.
“Wen is disgusted with his family’s activities but is either unable or unwilling
to curtail them,” a Chinese-born executive working at a US company in Shanghai
told US diplomats, according to the 2007 cable.
Wen’s supporters say he has not personally benefited from his extended family’s
business dealings and may not even be knowledgeable about their extent.
Last March, during a nationally televised news conference, Wen said he had
“never pursued personal gain” in public office.
“I have the courage to face the people and to face history,” he said. “There are
people who will appreciate what I have done, but there are also people who will
criticize me. Ultimately, history will have the final say.”
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