The opening ceremony of the National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China takes place at the Great Hall in Beijing on March 5, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), known as “political vases” and “rubber stamps,” are being held in Beijing. The number of wealthy people among the NPC deputies and CPPCC members and the wealth they possess have been attracting attention from the outside world. According to the Taiwanese media, the wealth of the “two sessions” tycoons has increased by an average of 68% over the past year, with a total value of US$391 billion. This is even higher than Hong Kong‘s GDP last year.
Taiwan Free Finance quoted on March 5 that Ma Huateng, founder and CEO of Tencent Holdings, is the richest entrepreneur to attend the Communist Party’s “two sessions” in 2021, and is currently worth US$74 billion. Qin Yinglin, chairman of Makara Foods, which started as a pig farmer, ranks second with a net worth of $41 billion.
The third place is Ding Lei of NetEase, with $38 billion; Li Zakui, the son of Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing and chairman of Cheung Kong Hutchison, with $34 billion, ranks the fourth richest person in the two meetings; and Lee Ka-kit, chairman of Henderson Land, ranks the ninth with $25 billion in assets.
Yang Guoqiang, chairman of Chinese property tycoon BIG PIL and Hui Ka Yan of Evergrande ranked sixth and seventh, with wealth of $33 billion and $31 billion, respectively.
According to the Hurun Research Institute’s “2020 Hurun World 500” ranking released on Jan. 12, 51 Chinese companies entered the “Hurun World 500” in 2020, with a total value up 73 percent from the previous year to 35 trillion yuan, almost as much as the next three countries, Japan, France and the United Kingdom, combined.
Among them, Tencent and Alibaba both entered the world’s top ten. The wealth of Chinese tycoons participating in the “two sessions” grew by an average of 68 percent over the past year, reaching a total value of $391 billion, more than Hong Kong’s GDP last year.
The Communist Party’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are considered “political vases” and “rubber stamps” and are known as China’s super-rich club.
The Voice of America has quoted critics as saying that those on the list are actually only a small fraction of the real rich, and that the assets of corrupt officials and their families, who have embezzled large sums of state property, are extremely difficult to discover, and that many of the country’s wealthy thieves are almost never known to the public.
Hurun himself has said, “We estimate that for every one [tycoon] we find, there are two that we fail to count.”
Hurun released China’s first wealth ranking, the Hurun 100 Rich List, in Shanghai on July 19, 1999. But the list has since become the “kill list” of China’s rich. Many of the Chinese tycoons who made the list were arrested and imprisoned.
Hurun’s fourth special report on China’s “problematic rich”, which was dubbed the “Pig Kill List” in 2015, mentioned that among the rich people on the Hurun 100 list in the past 17 years, there were 35 “problematic rich”. A total of 35 “problematic tycoons” appeared, accounting for 1.1%, 18 tycoons were imprisoned, 11 tycoons have been released, 5 tycoons have not yet been sentenced, and 1 tycoon was executed.
The main reason for the incident is bribery, embezzlement and other economic crimes. From the distribution of industries, the real estate industry has the most “problematic tycoons”, with 11 people, followed by the financial investment sector, with 9 tycoons falling.
Some analysts believe that the high proportion of problematic tycoons in China is inextricably linked to the Chinese Communist Party‘s characteristic state of collusion between government and business, leading to increased political risks in business. Some netizens also called for the public disclosure of the personal assets of CCP officials, so that the real “problematic tycoons” hiding in official circles can be exposed.
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