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Ed Jones / AFP - Getty Images, file
China's Premier Wen Jiabao's mother, siblings and children have accumulated huge wealth since Wen was named vice premier in 1998, according to the New York Times.
The family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, a leader known for his humble roots and compassion for ordinary Chinese, has accumulated massive wealth during his time in power, the New York Times reported on Friday.
"A review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that the prime minister's relatives, some of whom have a knack for aggressive deal-making, including his wife, have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion," it said.
The Times' websites in English and Chinese were blocked in China on Friday 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.
More China coverage from our Behind the Wall blog
Wen's mother, siblings and children have amassed the majority of the wealth since Wen was named vice premier in 1998, the Times reported. Wen was promoted to the premiership in 2003.
Giving one example, the Times said partnerships controlled by Wen's relatives and their friends and colleagues held up to $2.2 billion in stock in Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd in 2007, the last year those stock holdings were disclosed in public documents.
Wen's 90-year-old mother had one investment in Ping An that was worth $120 million five years ago, the newspaper added.
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The Times said it presented its findings to the Chinese government for comment. The Foreign Ministry declined to respond. Members of Wen's family also declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment, the Times said.
The State Council - China's cabinet, of which Wen is nominally the head - did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
'Ulterior motives'
When asked about the Times story, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists Friday that "relevant press reports are steering China's image driven by ulterior motives."
China Daily via Reuters, file
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao shakes hands with workers following an earthquake in Sichuan province in this photo taken on January 25, 2009.
The private lives of Chinese leaders as well as their assets are kept under wraps, with personal details considered state secrets.
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Still, cases against lower-level officials, often exposed by Chinese media, and reports on senior officials by western and Hong Kong news organizations, underscore the extent to which those with power profit from their standing.
Occasionally, top officials are caught and prosecuted.
In the biggest political scandal in China in decades, now-disgraced senior party leader Bo Xilai, whose wife was convicted of corruption and murder in August, has been expelled from the party and stands accused of corruption, bribery and sexual promiscuity.
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Bo was expelled from China's parliament on Friday and is expected to stand trial in the near future.
The extended family of Xi Jinping, China's current vice president who is expected to be named head of China's Communist Party next month and president of the country in March, has also amassed great wealth, according to an earlier news report.
Xi's relatives have investments in companies with assets of $375 million, and an 18 percent indirect stake in a company with $1.7 billion in assets, Bloomberg news reported in June.
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Bloomberg's website has been blocked in China since that report was published, underscoring the sensitivity of the Party and government towards such revelations about top leaders.
In the case of Wen and his relatives, the names of family members "have been hidden behind layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, work colleagues and business partners," the New York Times said.
AFP - Getty Images
A click-through history of modern relations between the United States and China.
It said Wen's family's holdings include a villa development project in Beijing, a tire factory in northern China, a company involved in building some of the venues for Beijing's 2008 Olympics including the "Bird's Nest" main stadium, and Ping An Insurance, one of the world's largest financial services companies.
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Wen's younger brother has a company that was awarded more than $30 million in government contracts and subsidies for waste water treatment and medical waste disposal in some of China's biggest cities, and controls $200 million in assets in a number of companies, the Times said, basing its estimate on government records.
The Chinese public has a fondness for Wen, who is often referred to as "Grandpa Wen" in the media, for his common touch with ordinary Chinese, and his penchant for rushing to console victims of disasters, such as earthquakes and major accidents.
NBC News' Ed Flanagan and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
The word would be a much better place if we just eleminated all politicians.
You can't have representative democracy without politicians.
I can't think of any country run by some sort of totalitarian despot that doesn't have the populace in abject poverty and the ruling class with millions if not more. This is what they get for eschewing this type of government and we should just keep our noses out of it.
They ought to stop calling the Chinese government communist. The Chinese government is Fascist! They started making the change back in 1989. Since then they have embraced private enterprise and have taken away social programs.
Funny our leaders push away private enterprise and embrace social programs. This is why China holds our debt and is laughing at us.
China sounds like Romney's vision for America to me.
We can all live in dormitories attached to a factory where we work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, without a break. Everyone will have a catheter to increase productivity.
[God] cares for you.—1 Pet. 5:7.
Perhaps you were an elder or a ministerial servant at one time but are not presently serving in that capacity. You love Jehovah and can be sure that he still cares for you. If you are a brother in that situation, do not become discouraged. Reflect on how Jehovah is blessing your ministry and your household. Build your family up spiritually, visit the sick, and encourage the weak. Above all, cherish your privilege of praising God and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. (Ps. 145:1, 2; Isa. 43:10-12) The need for overseers and ministerial servants is greater today than ever before. So each baptized male can ask, 'If I am not a ministerial servant or an elder, should I analyze the reasons why I am not serving?' Let God's spirit help you to get the right focus on this vital matter. w10 5/15 3:17-19
Yeah, he says that, he'll even say he loves you, but once he's had you he stops calling.
Do you have enough bicycles to go around?
and he needs money.
How creditable is this report?
NYT is well known for fabricating stories in the past. http://www.speroforum.com/a/LIJOUMGWZR46/70871-Did-a-New-York-Times-reporter-fabricate-a-story-about-Catholic-abortionist
What NYT reports does not mean it is necessarily true.
HEY! I think I just swa something move under your bed! BTW, how many times do you check under your bed before going to sleep?
EXACTLY! Go to Fox News for the facts. People who don't watch Fox, don't realize that Saddam was flying one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.
Keep sending our jobs there. The Chinese leaders lie, cheat and steal. No wonder they turned off the NYT. Does RED CHINA ring any bells?
I think this is awesome news. If he keeps the peasant poor, my iphone won't get more expensive.
LOVE MY $29 DVD PLAYER!
Jiabao blocks internet news that show him and his family for what they are and Obama won't release his college transcripts for the same reason. In the end we all know why regardless of their attempts to hide the truth.
You don't think Obama graduated from college?
Seriously? Watch out for the black helicopters.
If Obama releases his college transcripts, will Mittens release his tax returns?
I bet he won't.
It's too late.
EMBRACE GLOBALISM.
American corporations outsource jobs to China to "lower our costs" and "increase shareholder value".
YOU CAN TOO!
Shopping for a computer? Lower your costs! Buy Lenovo! Same cheap chinese parts..LOWER PRICE!
Why pay extra for over-compensated American management?
I can't wait for "China Mart" big box discount retailers to open in the U.S. so I can get cheap stuff even cheaper without having to pay a profit to Bentonville Arkansas.
EMBRACE GLOBALISM!
Government systems have different names just to separate people. They all have the same elements: a ruling class with access to wealth and services that the ruled class do not.
The ONLY difference from one country to another is the name.
Global Economy = Global Standard of Living.
Our standard of living is not competitive in a global economy and will decline until it is.
Simple law of supply and demand. The markets work.
Get used to it. America is over.
The Chinese version of Romney revealed.
No wonder Romney spends so much time in China. He's giving their leadership lessons in how to rip off the people. Vulture capitalism is being exported to China.
Can't have the proletariat knowing their leaders aren't one of them, now can we??
Stories circulating in Beijing that supporters of the disgraced Bo xilai passed the make-up story of Wen family fortune to NYT to discredit Wen.
In a politicial fight, it is habitual that when one is down he tries to bring his enemy down with him.
A Chinese government official making that much money during his tenure as a selected dictator of a region gives the outside world the impression there is obviously no accountability and transparency with respect to the Chinese form of communism. They are either bandits or idealists.
whatever happened to Carl marx 's communist ideology of "everybody the same, equal etc."; what china, north korea, cuba, venezuela etc. stand for is the exact opposite of what communism stands for; sadly there are plenty of naive people everywhere who dont seem to be able to see this.
Othmar Brunner