By Coconuts Hong Kong January 15, 2015 / 13:35 HKT
Like us Follow us
People pose with a life-size cardboard cut-out of Chinese President Xi Jinping on Oct. 28, 2014. (Laurel Chor/Coconuts Media)
An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(ICIJ) has uncovered a list of clients of companies that help to create offshore businesses, trusts and bank accounts.
Among their clients are 22,000 who have addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong, writes the ICIJ for the Business Insider.
Chinese officials are not legally obligated to disclose their assets to the public, but offshore accounts allow the rich and the powerful to avoid paying taxes and keep their business secret.
Some estimates suggest Chinese people have hidden between USD1 trillion and USD4 trillion in offshore accounts since 2000.
(We’re not going to bother telling you what that is in HKD because it’s going to be an unfathomable amount of money in any currency.)
Some of the notable people on the listinclude President Xi Jinping’s brother Deng Jiagui, and former Premier Wen Jiabao’s son Liu Chunhang.
Minxin Pei, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California, said offshore wealth is often linked to “conflict of interest and covert use of government power”.
“If there is real transparency, then the Chinese people will have a much better idea of how corrupt the system is [and] how much wealth has been amassed by government officials through illegal means.”
A mainland news organisation that was helping out with the investigation had to pull out in November. They said the Chinese authorities warned them not to publish the findings.
http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2015/01/15/hong-kong-rich-and-mainland-political-elite-among-leaked-list-offshore-clients
