MCLC: hidden riches (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: hidden riches (1)
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Source: NYT 
(10/26/12):http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/china-criticizes-th
e-times-for-article-on-premiers-family-fortune.html

China Blocks and Criticizes Investigation Into Premier
By KEITH BRADSHER 

HONG KONG — A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday criticized
a decision by The New York Times to publish a lengthy investigation
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-hol
ds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html> into assets accumulated by the family
of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, saying that the article “smears China and
has ulterior motives.”

Speaking at a regularly scheduled daily briefing in Beijing, the
spokesman, Hong Lei, also said that the Chinese government’s decision to
immediately block access to the English- and Chinese-language Web sites of
The Times on Friday morning was taken “in accordance with laws and rules.”

China’s censors also moved with unusual swiftness on Friday to delete any
social media postings alluding even tangentially to the article, which
cited publicly available corporate documents in reporting that Mr. Wen’s
family has controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

Sina Weibo, a very popular microblogging service similar to Twitter and
traded on the Nasdaq in New York, on Friday morning immediately deleted
the unofficial account that had been used to promote the culture and arts
coverage on the Chinese-language site of The Times and that had nearly
60,000 followers. The site’s official account had been blocked since the
site began operations in late June.

Even the term “$2.7 billion” was blocked on Friday on Weibo. But users
were still discussing the article by using deliberate mistakes like “2.7b.”

Despite the censorship, there were signs that the article was attracting
attention. According to the company’s statistics, the number of page views
and unique users of the Chinese-language site fell by only a third on
Friday compared with the previous Friday, even though 85 percent of users
are typically located in mainland China.

The investigative article was the site’s most popular, drawing nearly a
third of page views, while the home page drew another third.

The continued strength of traffic to the site was a sign that many users
were using virtual private networks, or V.P.N.’s, to effectively bypass
servers in China and circumvent the country’s censors.

“We are incredibly proud of the story, which is an example of the quality
investigative journalism The Times is known for,” Eileen Murphy, a company
spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, later adding that the company remains very
focused on global expansion and that “we see great opportunity in China as
we do in other countries around the world with growing economies and a
citizenship interested in quality journalism about global affairs.”

There were many comments about the article on social media sites outside
China, including some suggesting that such a detailed and comprehensive
look at a leading family’s finances in a secretive country like China
could have been possible only as a result of a deliberate leak by one of
Mr. Wen’s rivals in the country’s factional power struggles.

Those struggles appear to have become more fierce in recent months ahead
of the Communist Party Congress, which is scheduled to start on Nov. 8 and
is expected to produce a new slate of leaders to run China for the next 10
years.

But the reporter who wrote the article, David Barboza, said that he had
begun gathering corporate records
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/business/global/obtaining-financial-reco
rds-in-china.html> for the investigation late last year. “Thirty years of
economic reform — and government policies aimed at attracting foreign
investment — have created a set of government agencies that keep records
on private corporations and their major shareholders, including copies of
résumés and government-issued identity cards,” he said.

While China has started restricting access this year to some of these
documents in Beijing, they were previously publicly available, and Mr.
Barboza said that he had gathered many of them before the restrictions
were put in place. He also found that documents still remained available
in Tianjin — Mr. Wen’s hometown — as well as in Shanghai, Shenzhen and
other cities.