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For Xi Jinping, head of China’s anti-transplant Communist Party, the Panama Papers reveal that his brother-in-law and the relatives of two other members of the party’s elite inner circle owned offshore companies, known as tax havens, could have been very damaging.
Instead, Xi will most likely emerge unscathed because of his non-public grip on political power, his lax speech and media, and the feeling among the public and potential rivals that all ruling families are tainted to some extent, analysts say.
However, with the most recent reports only a few days old, lingering effects are ruled out entirely.
The damage to Xi’s reputation may result in unforeseen difficulties in forming a new team when he assumes a momentary five-year term as head of the ruling Communist Party next year and in putting in place a succession plan by 2022.
Challenges to his leadership of a multitude of offices and committees, or to his extensive anti-corruption campaign, can also be symptoms of weakness.
The most recent report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, known as ICIJ, says Xi’s brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, bought an offshore Panamanian corporate law corporation Mossack Fonseca in 2004 and two others in 2009.
All three had been disbanded or were inactive during the time Xi became party leader in 2012, according to the ICIJ, which shows a stockpile of 11. 5 million leaked Mossack Fonseca documents, dubbed the Panama Papers, dealing with cases involving politicians, celebrities and businessmen from around the world.
Analysts say the revelations shed little new light on the Xi family’s economic activities, further limiting their impact.
Xi’s case is also favored by the fact that he has shown no concern about attacking prominent targets in his anti-corruption crusade and has been seen in the afterlife as a way to restrict his family’s illicit activities by making them sell their interests and telling provincial leaders that they did. not acting on your behalf, Say.
“I would have suspected that many of those who adhere to elite politics as Xi’s long circle of relatives is like many, if not most, elite families to the extent that some of them have controlled to benefit from China’s economic boom.
However, I think it is still known that he cracked down on high-level corruption,” said Andrew Wedeman, a political scientist at Georgia State University who has worked extensively on corruption in China.
The survey, however, provides new insights into how members of China’s elite use foreign law businesses and offshore shell corporations in tactics that facilitate the concealment and coverage of fortunes whose provenance is likely unknown.
The other two existing members of the Politburo Standing Committee named in the ICIJ report are Zhang Gaoli, whose son-in-law was named a shareholder of 3 corporations incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and Liu Yunshan, whose daughter-in-law, the director and shareholder of a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in 2009.
Having such accounts is not illegal and no express function, amount of assets or accusation of irregularities has been made in any of the cases. Like Xi, none responded to the news.
While the leaked documents also revealed hidden relationships between politicians in Western-style democracies, Xi is immune to the kind of scrutiny his Western counterparts face.
Along with its muzzled press, China allows its national legislature to meet in plenary consultation once a year and then debate and approve proposals sent through the government.
China also does not allow public protests of the kind faced by Icelandic leader Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson before he pulled out on Tuesday amid outrage over revelations that he used a shell company to distribute huge sums of cash while Iceland’s economy was in crisis.
While the private lives and finances of China’s leaders are strictly forbidden to Chinese media, foreign media have sought to investigate the fact of perceptions that the country’s opaque politics and growing economic expansion provide an environment conducive to corruption.
Previous reports, especially that of Bloomberg News in 2012, did not implicate Xi, his wife or daughter and had no discernible effect on his political fortunes.
They show, however, that Xi’s long circle of relatives amassed investments and stakes in corporations worth millions of dollars at a time when he was emerging in the party and government.
As the youngster of celebrated communist revolutionary Xi Zhongxun, he and his brothers enjoy privileged prestige as members of what is called China’s “red aristocracy,” with exclusive access to circles of strength and privileged data that can be exploited for non-public gain.
Chinese censors largely blocked, removed or modified all ICIJ reports to prevent mention of Xi or the relatives of seven other existing or former members of the party’s omnipotent Politburo Standing Committee, who allegedly owned offshore tax havens.
On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called it “unfounded” and said he would decline to comment further.
Even this brief exchange was removed from the transcript of Tuesday’s briefing posted on the ministry’s website.
Behind the same old secrecy and thoughtful preference for party control lies the popularity that corruption remains a volatile problem. Anti-corruption sentiments were one of the driving forces behind the student-led pro-democracy protests in 1989 and, since then, more than a dozen active or retired members of the party’s elite inner circle have been ousted over corruption allegations.
However, the belief that all ruling families are corrupt to some extent also acts as a form of “MAD (destruction of mutual trust) deterrence,” said Steve Tsang, a senior fellow at the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.
Criticism, if it arises, is more likely to emerge “from outside the upper echelon of leadership in China,” Tsang said.
Chinese officials are also through public disclosure regulations that only require them to claim their assets internally. In most cases, the public never knows what’s in those statements or how verified they are. Calls to replace have fallen on deaf ears or, in some cases, have been subject to retaliation.
The wealth among the members of the legislature, the National People’s Congress, is even to hide, one of the reasons why the framework is known as the richest parliament in the world.
Despite political obstacles, some Chinese continue to denounce that the public does not supervise and push for greater transparency in the monetary transactions of their leaders.
“If implemented correctly, asset declaration will be a smart way to fight corruption and ensure the integrity of public officials,” the official Ningbo Daily newspaper said in a March 31 article.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, on a stopover in Hong Kong on the anniversary of the city’s handover on Thursday, told the crowd that the city had “risen from the fire” and “risen from the ashes” in what gave the impression of being references to pro-democracy protests suppressed by security forces in 2019 and a large-scale Covid-19 outbreak earlier this year.
Hong Kong is “rising from the ashes,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said thursday, on a rare stopover in the former British colony. Xi Jinping was in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his return to China and swear in the new head of the global monetary center, John Lee. Today was Xi Jinping’s first stop in Hong Kong since 2017.
Chaos erupted in Kabul when several explosions and gunfire were reported near the corridor where the “Loya Jirga” or the wonderful gathering of devout scholars and elders takes place, local media reported. The precise cause and location of the shots are still unclear. The Freedom Fighters Front said in its statement that its “special forces” attacked the Taliban demonstration. But the Taliban regime said nothing, Aamaj News English reported.
Canada has extended all existing Covid-related border restrictions until at least September 30 this year, the government announced on Wednesday. The restrictions come with a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all people who have not yet received the full vaccine, which in this case means taking the first set of two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine approved by Canadian fitness authorities. Those who are not fully vaccinated will also be screened on the first and eighth day after entering Canada.
A Congolese woman has been kidnapped twice by activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raped and forced to cook and eat human flesh, a Congolese rights organization told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. Julienne Lusenge, president of the women’s rights organization Solidarité féminine pour los angeles paix et le développement intégré (SOFEPADI), told the women’s story as she addressed the 15-member council on conflict-torn eastern Congo.
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