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Princelings

Princelings

A series that looks at how relatives of top Chinese officials have amassed vast wealth through businesses closely entwined with the state. The series won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting on April 15, 2013.

May 18, 2012

Family members of many high-ranking officials have profited enormously from China’s economic boom.

‘Princelings’ in China Use Family Ties to Gain Riches

By David Barboza and Sharon LaFraniere

Evidence is mounting that the relatives of many current and former senior officials in China have amassed vast wealth, often playing central roles in businesses closely entwined with the state, including those involved in finance, energy, domestic security, telecommunications and entertainment. Many of these so-called princelings also serve as middlemen to a host of global companies and wealthy tycoons eager to do business in China.

Oct. 26, 2012

Petar Kujundzic/Reuters

Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader

By David Barboza

A review of corporate and regulatory records by The New York Times indicates that the relatives of China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao — some of whom, including his wife, have a knack for aggressive deal making — have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion. Untangling their financial holdings provides an unusually detailed look at how politically connected people have profited from being at the intersection of government and business as state influence and private wealth converge in China’s fast-growing economy.

Nov. 25, 2012

The New York Times

Lobbying, a Windfall and a Leader’s Family

By David Barboza

The greatest source of wealth for the relatives of Wen Jiabao, the prime minister of China, came from the shares in Ping An bought about eight months after the insurer was granted a waiver to the requirement that big financial companies be broken up. Long before most investors could buy Ping An stock, Taihong, a company that would soon be controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives, acquired a large stake in Ping An from state-owned entities that held shares in the insurer, regulatory and corporate records show. And by all appearances, Taihong got a sweet deal.

December 31, 2012

The New York Times

Chinese Regulator’s Family Reaps Insurance Profit

By David Barboza

Relatives of a top Chinese regulator profited enormously from the purchase of shares in a once-struggling insurance company that is now one of China’s biggest financial powerhouses, according to interviews and a review of regulatory filings. The regulator, Dai Xianglong, was the head of China’s central bank and also had oversight of the insurance industry in 2002, when a company his relatives helped control bought a big stake in Ping An Insurance that years later came to be worth billions of dollars. The insurer was drawing new investors ahead of a public stock offering after averting insolvency a few years earlier.

Comments

I can see the body of Mao spinning in his glass coffin in Beijing right now. So much for the communist ideal of everyone is equal and everyone shares in the wealth of the state.

Nick Metrowsky · Longmont, Colo.

My experience in China has taught me that nothing happens there without some party official profiting from it. The second thing I have learned is that this is culturally accepted as the engine of progress.

tosten · Swan Valley, Mont.

Insiders are such a pernicious bane of capitalist economies. They are even worse in a situation like China where insiders can hide behind political power structures.

c harris · Rock Hill, S.C.

I am a citizen of China. I just want to thank the press of NYTimes for providing such in-depth investigation and report.

scidem · New York, N.Y.

The children of powerful people have always found ways to cash in on their family connections. There is nothing newsworthy about it. This is how human societies operate.

mingsphinx · Singapore

It constantly amazes me how the societies that attempted to change themselves through Marxist revolution end up not changing at all.

James Hadley · Orleans, Mass.

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