Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm surprised that in a centrally-managed, state-controlled, corporatist economic system, the family of the most powerful individual in the nation would have managed to amass great personal wealth. That just runs counter to all of my instincts, and if these stories are true, it would really be the first time this sort of thing happened throughout history.<p>I'm shocked, really. I would have thought the People's Republic of China is above this sort of thing.
Elizabethan courtiers hid many of their assets behind nominees. If Chinese leaders are also using nominees who aren't family members (I don't see why they wouldn't), the fortunes they control could be a lot bigger than the NYT can discover.
It's rare to see successive and extensive news coverage of corruption among major Chinese Communist Party leaders, and there's been 3 this year already: Bo Xilai in March, Xi Jinping in June, and now Wen Jiabao.<p>This year's unusual because 7 major members of the Politburo Standing Committee are stepping down and their replacements will be selected at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. This is the reason the dueling political factions are aggressively ousting eachother, or else stories about corruption would never have made it to major media outlets.<p>The Congress was originally scheduled to commence November 4th (or sometime just before the US presidential elections) but was suddenly changed to November 8th. I don't think there's been official commentary on the last minute date change, but it's pretty obvious the Chinese party leaders want to know who's going to be the next US president first so they could "adjust" the makeup of of the Chinese political body accordingly.<p>I'm impressed by Bloomberg's and NYT's coverage. There's so much stuff that gets suppressed, even when tidbits of stories go viral on Weibo, the entire story almost never makes it over to this side of the Atlantic in one piece.
Related, from a little while ago, "Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes of Elite": <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/xi-jinping-millionaire-relations-reveal-fortunes-of-elite.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/xi-jinping-milliona...</a><p>For that article, our sites were blocked in China. I'm curious whether NYT will get the block as well.
The common Chinese understanding of government is cyclical: each dynasty dispels the abuses of the past when it arrives, then becomes corrupt and is itself overthrown. The current regime is trying to base its legitimacy on "results" - ie growth - not clean government. It is also using nationalism to divert popular attention. This may work. If it doesn't, however, Chinese tradition makes it unlikely that the party leaders will be forgiven. A bloodless transition to democracy is sadly the least likely outcome.
I have a theory.<p>Giant productive societies will be ruled by billionaires. If the society tries to choose otherwise -- whoever else they choose as leaders will become billionaires.<p>I'm not sure the theory is true, but we may want to prepare mechanisms that still work for checking leaders' power, and attaining an acceptable level of competent and just governance, if it does turn out to be true. I suspect that will require more transparency than China practices.
While the natural response is to be disgusted by the corruption, there is also something else going on here. If startups are defined by growth, China is the land where tons companies are winning startups. For every 1992 dollar of income there are now 15 dollars to spread around.* An astonishing amount of wealth has been created in the last 20 years, and it has spilled on many people.<p>In the US, when tremendous amounts of value and wealth are created, it also lands in odd places. Think of the early Google chef, or the Facebook artist who are both extremely wealthy. They got the money because tons of value was created and it just landed on them because they were in the right place at the right time.<p>I am not really making a point other than saying that this is a story of corruption which is terrible, and a story of value creation.<p>* In the same period, the US has gone from $1 to $2 in real income per capita
I saw some foreign policy gurus on Twitter saying that the names of central party leaders are permanently blocked on Weibo, so as to prevent online discussion of them. Which is really interesting.
What are the alternatives? Transferring from state-owned economy to privately owned one has to happen somehow. The experiment with straightforward privatisation, as done in Eastern European countries after 1989 was a disaster at least comparable to what's going on in China now.
Single page view of the article: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-...</a>
Most of Governments are corrupt. It's not a inherently Asian thing.<p>What is an Asian thing is the fact that in most other countries, you can do something about it.<p>Good luck with that in Asia.
they have blocked NYT, making a confirmation in Chinese government way. In china , smart people call Wen a "king of actors".He appears in "CCTV news" everyday as a hard work leader , but we do not believe him .He is so like acting, nearly forgeting he is an asshole.
But mass chinses people think, he is a good leader, who will never steal money using his power(because he is a so good an actor).
I dont know how can we do as a chinese civalian . I do not believe the next government either.
I assume this with any kind of nexus between politics and business - doesn't matter which country.<p>I've always found it funny that we pay those who control the budgets of trillion dollar economies so little as compared to their private sector counterparts. I mean - what would you pay the CEO of a trillion dollar corporation?<p>Paying public servants so little makes it relatively easy to either buy their favour or have their favor bestowed upon you with insignificant sums of money. Give ~1% of yearly profits to campaign finance - get a $10 billion dollar defense contract, or relaxed loans or a stronger monopoly.<p>It's just legalised bribery.
Unheard of. Ever seen a western politician (or their family) go bankrupt while in office? This runs counter to odds, statistics, etc. The only difference is the methods and the scale.