Who is Wen Jinbao?

Published by Thomas Herold in Economics

'Wen Jinbao' is explained in detail and with examples in the Economics edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.

Wen Jinbao proved to be the sixth Premier of the People’s Republic of China state council. He served in the position as head of government of China during the important decade from 2003 to 2013. While premier, Wen gained the much-deserved reputation as the main figure behind the successful expansionary economic policy of the People’s Republic. During the years 2002 to 2012, he also held memberships in the Communist Party of China and the Politburo Standing Committee. These are the literally highest halls of power in Beijing and China. He held the rank of importance at number three out of the total nine members at this time.

From 1986 to 1993, Wen Jinbao labored as the Party General Office chief. He proved his early importance in the scheme of things when he was an accompanying official to then Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang at the Tiananmen Square protests that later became the infamous massacre site of the same name in 1989. By 1998, Wen had gained an important promotion to the job of Vice Premier serving under Premier Zhu Rongii, his personal mentor. He personally oversaw the crucially important portfolios of both finance and agriculture in this capacity. It later emerged (because of an in depth New York Times newspaper investigation) that Wen astutely used this firsthand personal knowledge in both sectors to help his family advance from their long-term life of poverty to becoming among the richest families in all of China.

Wen Jinbao’s family may have in fact lived in extreme poverty as he grew up like he has publicly claimed, but thanks to his critically important connections in government and the advance knowledge this provided him with, his mother, brother, and sister all began to make astonishingly astute business deals that catapulted them into several billions of dollars of wealth in China’s fast-moving economy. As a prime example, at 90 years old his mother Yang Zhiyun holds a single investment in her name (within an important Chinese financial services firm) that possesses a market value of in excess of $120 million as of five years ago, per the regulatory records in China.

This was not an accident by any means. While serving as premier of the world’s fastest growing and second largest economy on earth, Mr. Wen enjoyed vast authority over and deal making knowledge of the important state-backed and overseen industries where his various relatives have earned massive fortunes. He possessed significant influence over all investments in important state sectors including telecommunications and energy as well.

Neither is the success of Wen’s mother an isolated incident. His daughter, son, brother-in-law, and younger brother have all attained legendary wealth in the time when he was the head of government in China and even several years before this. Combining the fortunes and holdings of his close relatives reveals that their combined controlled assets have a paper value of minimally $2.7 billion U.S. dollars.

His family ventures even enjoyed special advantages of state financial assistance, financing, or guarantees from the government or companies which were directly state-owned and -operated. China Mobile is a prime example of this trend in his family. They were among the largest phone operators in China and backed their investments. His family ventures also enjoyed significant support from some of the richest men in Asia. His relatives have successfully accumulated a substantial number of both shares and stakes in jewelers, banks, tourist resorts, infrastructure projects, and telecommunication firms. Many of these projects and endeavors are disguised by utilizing offshore entities.

Chief among such lucrative holdings are a tire factory operating in northern china, a villa development project located in the capital Beijing, a construction firm that put up various Olympic stadiums for the Beijing games, and Ping An Insurance, now among the largest financial services companies on earth. The younger brother of the former premier owns a company which received important $30 million government contracts and state subsidies to treat wastewater and to perform medical company waste disposal for several of the largest cities in China. The combined family businesses as of 2007 possessed various partnerships that owned $2.2 billion US dollars in Ping An stock alone.

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The term 'Wen Jinbao' is included in the Economics edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.