MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China PM family’s alleged fortune triggers debate on “sunshine law” for Beijing leaders

According to the New York Times, Wen Jiabao family has amassed a fortune of over 2.2bn dollars

China’s communist party leadership has launched a probe into the alleged family wealth of Wen Jiabao at the premier's request, according to sources. In a letter submitted to the Politburo Standing Committee, the party's top decision-making body of which the premier is also a member, Wen asked for a formal inquiry into claims made by The New York Times.

A report on October 26 alleged his family had amassed at least 2.7 billion dollars of assets during his premiership. The Standing Committee had agreed to his request, the sources said. It is unclear what the inquiry is likely to dig up, or when the results will be published, if at all.

The probe is expected to focus on the family's alleged shares in Ping An, one of the mainland's largest insurance companies. The NYT report, citing regulatory filings and corporate documents, said that in 2007 Wen's family had a 2.2bn dollars stake in Ping An. It also alleged Wen's 90-year-old mother had 120 million dollars of shares in the company.

According to the sources, several conservative party elders known to dislike Wen’s more liberal stance have urged him to provide detailed explanations on all the major allegations in the NYT report, especially on the Ping An holdings.

Businesswoman Duan Weihong, whose company Taihong was described by the NYT as the investment vehicle for the Wen family, told the newspaper she used the names of Wen's relatives to register the ownership of the Ping An shares.

The party elders argued that this process, which would require registering their official ID numbers and obtaining their signatures, raised immediate questions about how Duan could obtain such personal details without consent from the Wen family.

Wen's wife and his son have been plagued by corruption allegations for years. But the family issued a statement, through two lawyers, for the first time on October 27, hitting back at the NYT allegations about their “hidden riches” and threatening legal action.

According to media web reports, Wen has seized the opportunity to demand that a long-overdue “sunshine law” - which would require a public declaration of family assets by senior leaders - be finally put into effect.

He also said he would be happy to make public his family's assets. This would appear to be more than just an attempt by the image-conscious outgoing premier to defend his name, analysts say.

They say it shows he is keen to use the inquiry as one last chance to push forward the long-stalled “sunshine law”. Professor Zhu Lijia, of the Chinese Academy of Governance, said: “It is a ground-breaking step towards greater government openness and transparency.”