Elite Chinese Politics and Political Economy

As we near the 4th plenum in September, factional fights seem to intensify. Taking a cue from the Chen Yun play book, both Wen and Jiang are now pointing fingers at each others' children for allegedly corrupt behavior. There is little doubt that children from both families have abused their connections in various ways. The manifestation of this fight has been a wave of audits on government units headed by Jiang cronies and most recently, a report from the 21st Century Herald insinuating corrupt dealings by Wen's son. 21st Century Herald, which is operated by the Guangdong government (where Jiang crony Zhang Dejiang is party secretary) published a strange story inquiring the mysterious investor who bought over 7 billion HKD worth of Ping'an Insurance shares. The article did not name Wen Yunsong's name, but the profile is very similar to Wen's businessman son. Incidentally, Wen Yunsong is a graduate of our Kellogg Scool at NU. I should see if alumni relations can dig up more. Anyway, as I pointed out before, the NAO was auditing Netcom, but I don't think the audit will "discover" anything now. The score is 1 to 1.