After three years of persistently pursuing a
rigorous anti-corruption campaign, the administration of Chinese President Xi
Jinping is now facing a serious credibility crisis.
The administration’s drive to
clean up the rot within the government and the Communist Party has won public
support because the unusually tough crackdown has led to a slew of arrests and
indictments of political heavyweights. Many party bigwigs are still under
investigation.
But the so-called Panama
Papers, or millions of internal documents about hidden wealth leaked from a
Panama-based law firm, have implicated some members of China’s most powerful
policy body.
The names mentioned in the
leaked documents include the husband of Xi’s elder sister and relatives of Liu
Yunshan and Zhang Gaoli, two other members of the Communist Party Politburo
Standing Committee. They were shareholders in companies registered in overseas
tax havens, according to information obtained and made public by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The disclosures raised
suspicions that the leaders who have been acting as champions of the
anti-corruption crusade are corrupt themselves. The leaked documents have cast
serious doubt on the administration’s credibility and moral rectitude.
The Panama Papers also cite
five relatives of former Chinese leaders including the husband of Mao Tse-tung’s
granddaughter.
Chinese authorities have
imposed a strict media blackout to block public access to information
concerning the Panama Papers.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry
has refused to comment on any of the many questions about the topic posed by foreign
media.
But the government has been
unable to stop the embarrassing facts about top leaders from becoming known
widely among the people.
The phrase “husband of an
elder sister” has already become fashionable on the Internet.
We have heard a raft of stories
about how relatives of Chinese leaders have taken advantage of their positions
to win the rights to use state-owned land and made huge profits through real
estate investments.
It is unclear whether reported
secretive offshore financing is related to such dubious wealth accumulated
through abuse of political privileges.
But two things are clear.
One is that people around
China’s top leader have amassed amounts of wealth well beyond the imagination
of ordinary citizens in the country.
The other is that they have
taken the trouble to set up companies in remote offshore tax havens.
Why have they transferred
their assets to such companies far away from home? The only plausible
explanation is that they were trying to hide their money from Chinese
authorities’ oversight.
These leaders deserve to be
criticized for putting a higher priority on protecting the profits of their kin
than on promoting the nation’s development. That’s at least how Chinese
citizens will think about the revelations.
At least three of the seven
members of the paramount leadership organ have been implicated.
China lacks a system under
which its leaders are chosen through free and fair elections.
If the Communist Party
government is to win public support for its rule of the nation, it must ensure
that the living standards among the people will keep rising.
If the party’s leaders are
working hard to make themselves far richer than citizens, however, the very
foundation of the legitimacy of the party’s monopoly on power could be
seriously undermined.
The documents that tell sordid
stories about relatives of top Chinese leaders are widely available across the
world. It is hard to imagine how the Xi administration will be able to get away
with this scandal without offering convincing explanations.
--The Asahi Shimbun,
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