February 17, 2025

China Says Times Reporter Was Not Expelled

Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s daily news briefing, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman, said foreign news organizations were to blame for the departure on Monday of Chris Buckley, a 45-year-old Australian who had been a correspondent for Reuters until September, when he rejoined The New York Times.

Ms. Hua said the ministry had not been properly informed of his changed status.

“So far, we have neither received any notice of resignation (from Reuters), nor has the press card, which was issued by the information department (of the Foreign Ministry), been returned by Chris Buckley,” Ms. Hua said, according to the Xinhua news agency. “So, we do not know who his real boss is now.”

When Mr. Buckley’s visa, which had been issued while he worked for Reuters, ran out on Dec. 31, he and his family were forced to fly to Hong Kong, despite repeated requests from The Times for a new visa to be issued.

Ms. Hua said he was not expelled.

“There has been no such thing as a rejection of a visa extension and there is no such thing as Chris being expelled,” Ms. Hua said, according to The Associated Press.

On a related matter, The Times is also waiting for the visa of its new Beijing bureau chief, Philip P. Pan, to be issued. Mr. Pan first requested a visa last March. The  English- and Chinese-language Web sites of The Times have been blocked in China since October, when it published an investigative article about the finances of the family of China’s premier, Wen Jiabao.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the job title of Philip P. Pan. He is the new Beijing bureau chief of The New York Times, not the China bureau chief.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/world/asia/china-says-reporter-chris-buckley-was-not-expelled.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Lobbying, a Windfall and a Leader’s Family

The survival of Ping An Insurance was at stake, officials were told in the fall of 1999. Direct appeals were made to the vice premier at the time, Wen Jiabao, as well as the then-head of China’s central bank — two powerful officials with oversight of the industry.

“I humbly request that the vice premier lead and coordinate the matter from a higher level,” Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An, implored in a letter to Mr. Wen that was reviewed by The New York Times.

Ping An was not broken up.

The successful outcome of the lobbying effort would prove monumental.

Ping An went on to become one of China’s largest financial services companies, a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential. And behind the scenes, shares in Ping An that would be worth billions of dollars once the company rebounded were acquired by relatives of Mr. Wen.

The Times reported last month that the relatives of Mr. Wen, who became prime minister in 2003, had grown extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, acquiring stakes in tourist resorts, banks, jewelers, telecommunications companies and other business ventures.

The greatest source of wealth, by far, The Times investigation has found, came from the shares in Ping An bought about eight months after the insurer was granted a waiver to the requirement that big financial companies be broken up.

Long before most investors could buy Ping An stock, Taihong, a company that would soon be controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives, acquired a large stake in Ping An from state-owned entities that held shares in the insurer, regulatory and corporate records show. And by all appearances, Taihong got a sweet deal. The shares were bought in December 2002 for one-quarter of the price that another big investor — the British bank HSBC Holdings — paid for its shares just two months earlier, according to interviews and public filings.

By June 2004, the shares held by the Wen relatives had already quadrupled in value, even before the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And by 2007, the initial $65 million investment made by Taihong would be worth $3.7 billion.

Corporate records show that the relatives’ stake of that investment most likely peaked at $2.2 billion in late 2007, the last year in which Taihong’s shareholder records were publicly available. Because the company is no longer listed in Ping An’s public filings, it is unclear if the relatives continue to hold shares.

It is also not known whether Mr. Wen or the central bank chief at the time, Dai Xianglong, personally intervened on behalf of Ping An’s request for a waiver, or if Mr. Wen was even aware of the stakes held by his relatives.

But internal Ping An documents, government filings and interviews with bankers and former senior executives at Ping An indicate that both the vice premier’s office and the central bank were among the regulators involved in the Ping An waiver meetings and who had the authority to sign off on the waiver.

Only two large state-run financial institutions were granted similar waivers, filings show, while three of China’s big state-run insurance companies were forced to break up. Many of the country’s big banks complied with the breakup requirement — enforced after the financial crisis because of concerns about the stability of the financial system — by selling their assets in other institutions.

Ping An issued a statement to The Times saying the company strictly complies with rules and regulations, but does not know the backgrounds of all entities behind shareholders. The company also said “it is the legitimate right of shareholders to buy and sell shares between themselves.”

In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry did not return calls seeking comment for this article. Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman sharply criticized the investigation by The Times into the finances of Mr. Wen’s relatives, saying it “smears China and has ulterior motives.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/business/chinese-insurers-regulatory-win-benefits-a-leaders-family.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

China’s Struggle With Inflation Continues as Price Index Rises

Although analysts were expecting inflation to peak for the year in June, the figures are troubling, particularly because food prices rose 14.4 percent from a year ago, up from 11.7 percent in May, suggesting that Beijing may have a difficult time reining in rising prices.

The price of pork — a major food staple in China — rose 57 percent in June alone, making it the biggest contributor to inflationary pressure. Beijing is trying to slow growth in what is now the world’s second largest economy in the hopes of preventing inflation and high property prices from undermining an economy that has grown strongly over the last two years.

A $586 billion government stimulus package in 2009 and aggressive lending by state-owned banks, much of it aimed at investments in real estate construction and government infrastructure projects, have driven the economy during the last two years. But now, to moderate that growth, Beijing is trying to tighten credit by restraining bank lending and is raising interest rates.

On Thursday, China’s Central Bank raised interest rates for the fifth time since October. And over the last few months there are signs that manufacturing and economic growth have moderated. Last month, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said the government had succeeded in one of its chief policy goals this year: bringing inflation under control. But he also conceded that the government might not meet its inflation target of 4 percent this year.

Indeed, rising wages among migrant workers, higher prices for food and gasoline, as well as droughts and flooding in key agricultural regions have all contributed to inflation this year. Many analysts say that China will succeed in its efforts to battle inflation and that the economy will ease but not face a difficult hard landing later this year. But with severe power shortages expected this summer and few signs of food prices easing, it’s unclear whether Beijing will be successful.

Many analysts, though, say that for the last seven years, Beijing has repeatedly faced this cyclical pattern of volatile growth followed by government-orchestrated slowing, then aggressive bank lending and robust property markets rebounding, time and again.

That has been the see-saw nature of China’s economic boom for much of the decade, with the country generally registering 10 percent annual growth. Yu Song, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Goldman Sachs, said pork was the main contributor to the big jump in the consumer price index while non-food inflationary pressure seemed to be easing.

She said her worry was that with the economy moderating, the government could reverse its tightening measures too soon in the hopes of reigniting growth — creating bigger problems. The main risk on this front is a significant policy loosening as it happened in the second half of 2010, she wrote in a report released Saturday.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/global/chinese-inflation-jumps-again-as-pork-prices-soar.html?partner=rss&emc=rss