Wen Jiabao

Wen Jiabao at the World Economic Forum, Jan. 28, 2009

Wēn Jiābǎo ( Chinese  溫家寶  /  温家宝 , Pinyin Wēn Jiābǎo ; born September 15, 1942 in Tianjin ) is a Chinese politician. From 2003 to 2013 he was Prime Minister of the State Council of the People's Republic of China , d. H. Prime minister . According to a report in the American daily New York Times , his family has amassed more than two billion dollars in fortunes during his tenure.

Life

Wen Jiabao was born in the Beijiao District of Tianjin City in 1942 . From 1960 he studied at the Geological Institute in Beijing , where he also received his doctorate. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1965. During the Cultural Revolution , he went to Gansu Province as a technician , where he became Vice Director of the Geological Office in 1978. In 1982 he returned to Beijing, where he became Deputy Minister of Geology and Soil Resources in 1983 and Deputy Director of the Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1985. From 1986 onwards he headed the ZK main office. It is unclear how Wen Jiabao survived the internal purges after the Tian'anmen massacre on June 4, 1989: A well-known photo (published on the front page of the People's Daily ) shows him a few days before the Tiananmen Square massacre, at the side of his mentor at the time, the reformer and General Secretary of the Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang , who gave an emotional address to the students. Zhao Ziyang was against the use of the army and was removed from office immediately after the massacre and was under house arrest until his death in January 2005. Wen Jiabao's career doesn't seem to have been affected by the incident.

In 1998 Wen Jiabao rose further and became vice-prime minister of the central government, responsible for agriculture and finance. In March 2003, he replaced Zhu Rongji as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China. As prime minister, he was primarily responsible for managing the Chinese economy. On May 2, 2004, he arrived in Munich for his first visit to Europe in this capacity. He was succeeded in March 2013 by Li Keqiang .

Family and family wealth

During his reign, Wen Jiabao rose to become one of the richest leaders in the world, according to the New York Times , the outgoing statesman's family had amassed at least $ 2.7 billion in fortunes in 2012, most of it after Wen's rise to vice premier (1998) and five years later to prime minister. Accordingly, Wen's 90-year-old mother, Yang Zhiyun, acquired a $ 120 million stake in Ping An Insurance in 2007. The company had benefited from reforms by the Wen government.

Wen Jiabao's wife, Zhang Peili, is one of China's leading jewelery and gemstone dealers and made a fortune in the diamond trade (daimengde (戴 梦 得)). She was the main shareholder in Beijing Diamond Jewelery until the company went public in Shanghai. She is known as China's "diamond queen". She was involved in the privatization of several state-owned companies and helped relatives to capitalize on the privatizations. According to the platform Wikileaks , the US embassy telegraphed in 2007 that Wen was getting a divorce because he was disgusted by his wife's diamond deals. Why he left it is not known. His daughter Wen Ruchun, who is said to be married to Xu Ming, head of the construction company Dalian Shide, is facing a similar situation, according to the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post . Xu is one of the ten richest Chinese and a confidante of Bo Xilai . Xu was arrested on March 15, 2012 for unspecified economic offenses, the same day Bo was deposed as Chongqing party leader .

It is more likely, however, that Wen Ruchun is married to Liu Chunhang, director of the Statistics Department and Research Bureau of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

As another example, the New York Times cites Wen's younger brother, Wen Jiahong, whose company has won $ 30 million in government contracts to dispose of sewage and medical waste. In total, Wen Jiahong controls stakes worth $ 200 million. Wen's only son, Wen Yunsong, sold a technology company to a Hong Kong entrepreneur for $ 10 million. He also founded New Horizon Capital, one of China's largest private equity firms.

Wen has two children with his wife. His daughter Wen Ruchun (worked for Credit Suisse) - she often calls herself Lily Chang - is married to Liu Chunhang (works for China's banking regulator). The son Wen Yunsong is often called Winston Wen in the West. In January 2014 the was the research International Consortium for Investigative Journalists ( offshore leaks ) announced that the family of Hu Jintao money by setting up offshore - letterbox companies relocated abroad.

literature

• Susan V. Lawrence: Wen Jiabao is no new Zhu . In: Far Eastern Economic Review , vol. 2002, no. 165, pp. 28–32.
• Josef Joffe : Family ties. How did the Chinese premier's clan amass $ 2.7 billion? In: Die Zeit from October 31, 2012, p. 23.

Web links

Commons : Wen Jiabao  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Wen Jiabao  - on the news

• Wen Jiabao ( Memento from November 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• China Vitae: Wen Jiabao (English)
• The Wen Family Empire

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Petra Kolonko: Tiananmen massacre: Dum-Dum bullets . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 10, 2004 ( FAZ.net ).
2. ^ Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader . New York Times , October 25, 2012
3. ↑ Wen Jiabao: China's premier and his family are hoarding $ 2.7 billion. In: Spiegel Online . October 26, 2012, accessed June 9, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Wen Ruchun, Wen Jiabao's mysterious daughter . ( Memento from November 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: WantChinaTimes May 13, 2012
5. ↑ Tricky deals from China's power elite . ( Memento from January 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau.de
6. ↑ Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China's Elite . icij.org, January 21, 2014
7. ↑ Tax havens: China's powerful people allegedly made fortunes in the Caribbean . Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 21, 2014
8. ↑ China's princelings storing riches in Caribbean offshore haven . The Guardian January 21, 2014

predecessor	Office	successor
Zhu Rongji	Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China 2003–2013	Li Keqiang