Michael Forsythe, Chris Buckley and Jonathan Ansfield, Severing a Family Ties, China’s President Signals a Change; Taking on corruption, and taking down a political rival. New York Times, Apr 20, 2014 (front-page top report).
Quote:
(a) “In thousands of pages of corporate documents describing these ventures [which benefited his clan], the name that never appears is his own: Zhou Yongkang
(b) “In all, the holdings examined by The Times are worth at least one billion renminbi, or about $160 million, though that estimate is based on a limited assessment of each company’s value and does not include real estate or overseas assets, which are more difficult to identify and assess.
“Even so, these assets make Mr. Zhou the third member of the nine-man Politburo Standing Committee that ruled China from 2007 to 2012 to have family members with documented wealth exceeding $150 million.
“In 2012, The Times reported that relatives of Wen Jiabao, then the prime minister, controlled investments worth at least $2.7 billion. And Bloomberg News linked hundreds of millions of dollars in assets to the extended family of Mr. Xi, who was China’s vice president and leader in waiting at the time. There is no indication that authorities have investigated the financial dealings of Mr. Wen’s or Mr. Xi’s relatives.
(c) “ZHAN Minli [詹 敏利, mother-in-law of Mr ZHOU Bin,] lives in an Orange County, Calif, retirement community of ranch-style homes and broad lawns. * * * [that] house has an estimated value of more than $700,000 * * * Ms Zhan’s home in Beijing looks to have been much more expensive. In 2010, a company document listed her residence in a luxury development in northeastern Beijing where units can sell for more than $11 million. Her official business address was listed several miles away inside a dusty compound at the end of a dirt road. The building appears long abandoned
(d) ZHOU Bin “remained a shadowy figure when he returned to China more than a decade ago, with few photos or media reports about him published even abroad despite his father’s prominence. His name appears in the records of only one of the 37 companies examined by The Times, an energy investment firm in Beijing named Zhongxu Yangguang Energy Technology Company 中旭阳光能源科技股份有限公司. His wife and his wife’s parents also feature in the company’s filings.