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CHINA-INTERNAL: ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN

Reports circulating in Beijing indicate that Chinese President Xi Jinping has asked his immediate family to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in investments to reduce his own political vulnerability. According to billionaire financier Xiao Jianhua, who co-founded the company that bought the stake, last January Xi Jinping's elder sister and brother-in-law finalised sale of 50% of their stake in a Beijing investment company. According to records cited by the New York Times on June 17, 2014, Xi Jinping’s sister Qi Qiaoqiao and brother-in-law Deng Jiagui sold investments in at least 10 companies, focused mostly on mining and real estate from 2012 until this year. Ms. Qi Qiaoqiao, her husband and daughter, Zhang Yannan, still hold tens of millions of dollars in company shares and real estate, including a villa overlooking Hong Kong’s exclusive Repulse Bay.

Records of China's State Administration of Industry and Commerce show that Ms. Qi Qiaoqiao, who uses her mother’s last name and also goes by the name Qi Lianxin, and her husband began selling off assets owned by their principal Beijing holding company, the Qinchuan Dadi Investment Company, in late 2012. The Qinchuan Dadi Investment Company was set up in the weeks after Xi Jinping ascended to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007 with $2.7 million in investments, ballooning to $156 million four years later. As per documents filed with the Chinese authorities, ownership of Qinchuan has been transferred into the hands of a longtime business associate, Xu Zaisheng.

Ding Xueliang, a Professor of Politics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said party and government officials had told him on a recent trip he took to mainland China that Mr. Xi had told his family to get out of their investments.