[中國新聞] Offshore assets of China's elite revealed in leaked records (pt2) required, records, between, country, assets

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/off ... d-records-1.2504987

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Challenge for Xi

Chinese officials aren't required to disclose their assets publicly and until now citizens have remained largely in the dark about the parallel economy that can allow the powerful and well-connected to avoid taxes and keep their dealings secret. By some estimates, between $1 trillion and $4 trillion in untraced assets have left the country since 2000. A People's Bank of China report in 2011 found that public officials alone had embezzled more than $120 billion out of China since the mid-1980s, some of it funnelled through the BVI.

"There never used to be that kind of money floating around in the past," former ambassador Bild said.

"People at the very least will start demanding controls over what the leaders can do — over what the directors and these other people who run these enterprises can get paid. And they will ask for controls on placing fortunes abroad, on using tax havens."

Caribbean haven

The British Virgin Islands, or BVI as they're known, are a U.K. territory with a population of fewer than 30,000. Strong financial secrecy laws and zero income tax on international companies make the BVI a favourite place to incorporate offshore. More than 450,000 corporations have their home here, including 6,000 involving mainland Chinese residents and nearly 12,000 involving people from Hong Kong.  

It's a politically sensitive issue for China as the country's economy cools and its wealth gap continues to widen. The country's leadership has cracked down on journalists who have exposed the hidden wealth of top officials and their families as well as citizens who have demanded that government officials disclose their personal assets.  

In November, a mainland Chinese news organization that was working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to analyze the latest raft of offshore data backed out, explaining that authorities had warned it not to publish anything about the material.

But at the same time, Xi, since taking over as the Communist Party's top official in 2012, has sought to burnish his image with an aggressive anti-graft campaign, promising to go after official corruption involving both low-level "flies" and high-level "tigers."

Tiberghien said the latest revelations will test the honesty of those efforts.

"Xi actually has emphasized the fact that this inequality of wealth, the corruption, the abuse of power were very, very deleterious for the system and is cracking down on them, so to some extent it helps him," he said.

"But it's a delicate game, because to some extent if you go too far, you can threaten the legitimacy of the party itself. It's very damaging; it's very vivid information. There will be an effort by the propaganda to probably limit the spread of [this] information."

If you have more information on this story, or other investigative tips, please email [email protected].

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