Friday, March 24, 2017

China's Plutocracy

The National People’s Congress (NPC) is China’s rubber-stamp legislature.

Out of the more than 5,100 delegates to these two assemblies, 209 possess individual wealth of more than 2 billion yuan (US$290 million). More than 100 of the wealthy individuals are members of the NPC, and 97 are from the CPPCC.

According to the survey, their cumulative assets tallied “almost 3.5 trillion yuan” (US$507 billion) – nearly equivalent to the annual GDP of countries such as Belgium, Sweden or Poland.
The majority of the wealthy delegates were businessmen, rather than politicians who had spent their careers within the party apparatus. Among them are the heads of internet giants, such as Pony Ma of Tencent and Robin Li of Baidu, smartphone maker Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, and Zong Qinghou, head of soft drink producer Wahaha.

1 comment:

GT said...

Wahaha indeed.