Two lawyers who said they represented the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China have issued a statement disputing aspects of a The New York Times article about the family’s wealth, a rare instance of a powerful Chinese political family responding directly to a foreign media report.
The statement, published in The South China Morning Post on Sunday, said, “The so-called ‘hidden riches’ of Wen Jiabao’s family members in The New York Times’s report” did not exist.
After criticising several points in the article, the statement hinted at the possibility of future legal action. “We will continue to make clarifications regarding untrue reports by The New York Times, and reserve the right to hold it legally responsible,” the statement said.
The statement reported in The Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, has not been obtained directly by The Times.
The statement was not a sweeping denial of the article. The statement acknowledged that some family members were active in business and that they “are responsible for all their own business activities.”
While the statement disputed that Wen’s mother had held assets, it did not address the calculation in the article that the family had controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.
Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The Times, expressed confidence in the article. “We are standing by our story, which we are incredibly proud of and which is an example of the quality investigative journalism The Times is known for,” she wrote in an e-mail.
The lawyers’ statement represents an unusual move for the family of a senior Chinese leader. When Bloomberg News published an article in late June describing real estate and other assets held by the family of Vice-President Xi Jinping, his family did not respond publicly.
The statement published in The Post was attributed to Bai Tao, a partner in the Beijing office of the Jun He Law Firm, and Wang Weidong, the managing partner of the Beijing office of the Grandall Law Firm. No one answered phone calls to both lawyers’ offices on Sunday, nor did Wang respond immediately to an email.
The statement denied an anecdote in The Times article that described how one investment in the name of Wen’s mother, Yang Zhiyun, was worth $120 million five years ago. “The mother of Wen Jiabao, except receiving salary/pension according to the regulation, has never had any income or property,” the statement said.
Corporate registration records reviewed by The Times showed that in 2007 the prime minister’s 90-year-old mother held about $120 million worth of shares in Ping An, an insurance company, through investment vehicles.
A signature bearing her name and her government-issued identity card were included in the registration record, which was obtained from government regulatory filings.
The family’s statement also said that some members had not engaged in business while others “were engaged in business activities, but they did not carry out any illegal business activity. They do not hold shares of any companies.”
The statement also said that Wen had not been involved in those activities. “Wen Jiabao has never played any role in the business activities of his family members, still less has he allowed his family members’ business activities to have any influence on his formulation and execution of policies.”
The Times article did not allege any illegal business activity, and it said that Wen did not appear to have accumulated assets.
The article also said that there was no evidence that Wen personally intervened to help family members’ investments. The article pointed out that as prime minister in a country where the state plays a large role in the economy, Wen oversaw many government officials whose decisions could play a large role in the fortunes of businesses and investors. Hong Lei, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, criticised the article on Friday during a briefing, saying that it “smears China and has ulterior motives.”
The Times posted the article in English on Friday, and in Chinese three hours later, after final edits in English were translated. The Chinese government quickly blocked access from mainland Chinese computers to the Chinese-language and English-language Web sites of The Times before the article was posted in Chinese. But many people in China appear to have used virtual private networks to view the article anyway. The report on the finances of Wen’s family has also received heavy coverage in the Hong Kong news media, which has extensive reach inside mainland China.
© 2012 The New York Times News Service
