Children of the Revolution
China's 'princelings,' the offspring of the communist party elite, are embracing the trappings of wealth and privilege—raising uncomfortable questions for their elders.
By JEREMY PAGE
One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up
at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of
China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo.
Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman.
Bo Xilai, with his son, at a memorial ceremony held for his father in Beijing in 2007
The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was
in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao
Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as
"red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stints on
farms to reconnect with the countryside. His son, meanwhile, was driving
a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and as red as the Chinese
flag, in a country where the average household income last year was
about $3,300.
Grandfather, Bo Yibo
Helped lead Mao's forces to victory, only to be purged in the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Subsequently rehabilitated.
Son, Bo Guagua
Graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Father, Bo Xilai
Party secretary of Chongqing and Politburo member, likely to rise to the Politburo standing committee in 2012.
The episode, related by several people familiar with it, is
symptomatic of a challenge facing the Chinese Communist Party as it
tries to maintain its legitimacy in an increasingly diverse,
well-informed and demanding society. The offspring of party leaders,
often called "princelings," are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for
luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official
corruption and abuse of power.
State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the
austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the
political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace
the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising
uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power
by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.
Their visibility has particular resonance as the country approaches a
once-a-decade leadership change next year, when several older
princelings are expected to take the Communist Party's top positions.
That prospect has led some in Chinese business and political circles to
wonder whether the party will be dominated for the next decade by a
group of elite families who already control large chunks of the world's
second-biggest economy and wield considerable influence in the military.
"There's no ambiguity—the trend has become so clear," said Cheng Li,
an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution in
Washington.
"Princelings were never popular, but now they've become so
politically powerful, there's some serious concern about the legitimacy
of the 'Red Nobility.' The Chinese public is particularly resentful
about the princelings' control of both political power and economic
wealth."
The current leadership includes some princelings, but they are
counterbalanced by a rival nonhereditary group that includes President
Hu Jintao, also the party chief, and Premier Wen Jiabao. Mr. Hu's
successor, however, is expected to be Xi Jinping, the current vice
president, who is the son of a revolutionary hero and would be the first
princeling to take the country's top jobs. Many experts on Chinese
politics believe that he has forged an informal alliance with several
other princelings who are candidates for promotion.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
A look at China's leaders, past and present, and their offspring, often known as "princelings."
Among them is the senior Mr. Bo, who is also the son of a
revolutionary leader. He often speaks of his close ties to the Xi
family, according to two people who regularly meet him. Mr. Xi's
daughter is currently an undergraduate at Harvard, where Mr. Bo's son is
a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government.
“Princelings were never popular, but now ... there's some serious concern about the legitimacy of the "Red Nobility." ”
Already
in the 25-member Politburo, Bo Xilai is a front-runner for promotion to
its top decision-making body, the Standing Committee. He didn't respond
to a request for comment through his office, and his son didn't respond
to requests via email and friends.
The antics of some officials' children
have become a hot topic on the Internet in China, especially among
users of Twitter-like micro-blogs, which are harder for Web censors to
monitor and block because they move so fast. In September, Internet
users revealed that the 15-year-old son of a general was one of two
young men who crashed a BMW into another car in Beijing and then beat up
its occupants, warning onlookers not to call police.
An uproar ensued, and the general's son has now been sent to a police correctional facility for a year, state media report.
Top Chinese leaders aren't supposed to have either inherited wealth
or business careers to supplement their modest salaries, thought to be
around 140,000 yuan ($22,000) a year for a minister. Their relatives are
allowed to conduct business as long as they don't profit from their
political connections. In practice, the origins of the families' riches
are often impossible to trace.
Last year, Chinese learned via the
Internet that the son of a former vice president of the country—and the
grandson of a former Red Army commander—had purchased a $32.4 million
harbor-front mansion in Australia. He applied for a permit to tear down
the century-old mansion and to build a new villa, featuring two swimming
pools connected by a waterfall. (See the article below.)
Many princelings engage in legitimate business, but there is a
widespread perception in China that they have an unfair advantage in an
economic system that, despite the country's embrace of capitalism, is
still dominated by the state and allows no meaningful public scrutiny of
decision making.
The state owns all urban land and
strategic industries, as well as banks, which dole out loans
overwhelmingly to state-run companies. The big spoils thus go to
political insiders who can leverage personal connections and family
prestige to secure resources, and then mobilize the same networks to
protect them.
BO XILAI waves a Chinese flag during a concert with revolutionary songs in Chongqing on June 29.
The People's Daily, the party
mouthpiece, acknowledged the issue last year, with a poll showing that
91% of respondents believed all rich families in China had political
backgrounds. A former Chinese auditor general, Li Jinhua, wrote in an
online forum that the wealth of officials' family members "is what the
public is most dissatisfied about."
One princeling disputes the notion that she and her peers benefit
from their "red" backgrounds. "Being from a famous government family
doesn't get me cheaper rent or special bank financing or any government
contracts," Ye Mingzi, a 32-year-old fashion designer and granddaughter
of a Red Army founder, said in an email. "In reality," she said, "the
children of major government families get very high scrutiny. Most are
very careful to avoid even the appearance of improper favoritism."
For the first few decades after Mao's 1949 revolution, the children
of Communist chieftains were largely out of sight, growing up in walled
compounds and attending elite schools such as the Beijing No. 4 Boys'
High School, where the elder Mr. Bo and several other current leaders
studied.
In the 1980s and '90s, many princelings went abroad for postgraduate
studies, then often joined Chinese state companies, government bodies or
foreign investment banks. But they mostly maintained a very low
profile.
Now, families of China's leaders send their offspring overseas ever
younger, often to top private schools in the U.S., Britain and
Switzerland, to make sure they can later enter the best Western
universities. Princelings in their 20s, 30s and 40s increasingly take
prominent positions in commerce, especially in private equity, which
allows them to maximize their profits and also brings them into regular
contact with the Chinese and international business elite.
Younger princelings are often seen among the models, actors and
sports stars who gather at a strip of nightclubs by the Workers' Stadium
in Beijing to show off Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Maseratis. Others
have been spotted talking business over cigars and vintage Chinese
liquor in exclusive venues such as the Maotai Club, in a historic house
near the Forbidden City.
In 2008, Bo Guagua invited Jackie Chan to lecture at Oxford - and sang with him on stage at one point.
On a recent afternoon at a new polo club on Beijing's outskirts,
opened by a grandson of a former vice premier, Argentine players on
imported ponies put on an exhibition match for prospective members.
"We're bringing polo to the public. Well, not exactly the public,"
said one staff member. "That man over there is the son of an army
general. That one's grandfather was mayor of Beijing."
Princelings also are becoming
increasingly visible abroad. Ms. Ye, the fashion designer, was featured
in a recent edition of Vogue magazine alongside Wan Baobao, a jewelry
designer who is the granddaughter of a former vice premier.
But it is Bo Guagua who stands out among the younger princelings. No
other child of a serving Politburo member has ever had such a high
profile, both at home and abroad.
His family's status dates back to Bo
Yibo, who helped lead Mao's forces to victory, only to be purged in the
1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Bo Yibo was eventually rehabilitated, and
his son, Bo Xilai, was a rising star in the party by 1987, when Bo
Guagua was born.
The boy grew up in a rarefied environment—closeted in guarded
compounds, ferried around in chauffeur-driven cars, schooled partly by
tutors and partly at the prestigious Jingshan school in Beijing,
according to friends.
In 2000, his father, by then mayor of the northeastern city of
Dalian, sent his 12-year-old son to a British prep school called
Papplewick, which according to its website currently charges £22,425
(about $35,000) a year.
About a year later, the boy became the first person from mainland
China to attend Harrow, one of Britain's most exclusive private schools,
which according to its website currently charges £30,930 annually.
In 2006, by which time his father was
China's commerce minister, Mr. Bo went to Oxford University to study
philosophy, politics and economics. The current cost of that is about
£26,000 a year. His current studies at Harvard's Kennedy School cost
about $70,000 a year.
“'The children of major government families get very high scrutiny,' says the granddaughter of a Red Army founder.”
A question raised by this prestigious
overseas education, worth a total of almost $600,000 at today's prices,
is how it was paid for. Friends said that they didn't know, though one
suggested that Mr. Bo's mother paid with the earnings of her legal
career. Her law firm declined to comment.
Bo Guagua has been quoted in the Chinese media as saying that he won
full scholarships from age 16 onward. Harrow, Oxford and the Kennedy
School said that they couldn't comment on an individual student.
The cost of education is a particularly hot topic among members of
China's middle class, many of whom are unhappy with the quality of
schooling in China. But only the relatively rich can send their children
abroad to study.
For others, it is Bo Guagua's freewheeling lifestyle that is
controversial. Photos of him at Oxford social events—in one case
bare-chested, other times in a tuxedo or fancy dress—have been widely
circulated online.
In 2008, Mr. Bo helped to organize something called the Silk Road
Ball, which included a performance by martial-arts monks from China's
Shaolin temple, according to friends. He also invited Jackie Chan, the
Chinese kung fu movie star, to lecture at Oxford, singing with him on
stage at one point.
The following year, Mr. Bo was honored
in London by a group called the British Chinese Youth Federation as one
of "Ten Outstanding Young Chinese Persons." He was also an adviser to
Oxford Emerging Markets, a firm set up by Oxford undergraduates to
explore "investment and career prospects in emerging markets," according
to its website.
This year, photos circulated online of
Mr. Bo on a holiday in Tibet with another princeling, Chen Xiaodan, a
young woman whose father heads the China Development Bank and whose
grandfather was a renowned revolutionary. The result was a flurry of
gossip, as well as criticism on the Internet of the two for evidently
traveling with a police escort. Ms. Chen didn't respond to requests for
comment via email and Facebook.
Asked about his son's apparent romance at a news conference during
this year's parliament meeting, Bo Xilai replied, enigmatically, "I
think the business of the third generation—aren't we talking about
democracy now?"
Friends say that the younger Mr. Bo recently considered, but finally
decided against, leaving Harvard to work on an Internet start-up called
guagua.com.
The domain is registered to an address in Beijing. Staff
members there declined to reveal anything about the business. "It's a
secret," said a young man who answered the door.
It is unclear what Mr. Bo will do after graduating and whether he
will be able to maintain such a high profile if his father is promoted,
according to friends.
He said during a speech at Peking University in
2009 that he wanted to "serve the people" in culture and education,
according to a Chinese newspaper, Southern Weekend.
He ruled out a political career but showed some of his father's
charisma and contradictions in answering students' questions, according
to the newspaper.
Asked about the pictures of him partying at Oxford, he
quoted Chairman Mao as saying "you should have a serious side and a
lively side," and went on to discuss what it meant to be one of China's
new nobility.
"Things like driving a sports car, I know British aristocrats are not
that arrogant," he said. "Real aristocrats absolutely don't do that,
but are relatively low-key."
—Dinny McMahon contributed to this article.
Sophie:
As Lord Acton famously said, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The Occupy Wall Streets are primarily ignorant, socialist utopians that have matriculated in leftist ideology for far too long. How will destroying the 1% help the 99%? It won't. The 99% can take that one-bite-at-the-apple as the blood envious French did in 1789, but how'd that work out for them. Heads kept rollin', rollin', rollin' right through Robspierre up until a smallish man from Corsica pronounced himself, not just King of France, but "Emperor of France and her Dominions."
As I have repeatedly pointed out, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao did not live like peasants. Tito, CeauÅŸescu, Erich Honecker, and Nagy did not live like the proletariat. Castro, Chavez, Ortega, Morales, etc. do not live like peasants.
The remainder of the OWStreeters know all of this and it is exactly what they want. Power. Revenge. Authority.
Update: China just quadrupled the number of its citizens that it estimates to be living in poverty.
Update: China just quadrupled the number of its citizens that it estimates to be living in poverty.
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