Chinese President Xi Jinping has amassed over $1 billion in assets through relatives, according to a U.S. intelligence report made public Thursday revealing “endemic” corruption at all levels of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
The report stated that as many as 65% of all government officials in China receive unofficial income through bribery or graft — despite more than a decade of anti-corruption efforts that have ensnared over 5 million Chinese Communist Party officials.
“Corruption is an endemic feature of and challenge for China, enabled by a political system with power highly centralized in the hands of the CCP, a CCP-centric concept of the rule of law, a lack of independent checks on public officials, and limited transparency,” the report said.
The report suggests that Mr. Xi’s high-profile 13-year campaign as president to stamp out corruption has been a failure. Anti-corruption efforts instead are focused on imposing political discipline and ideological purity rather than rooting out rampant financial crime, the report said, to preserve party control and hide illegitimacy.
“Corruption in China often involves money in the form of different types of bribery or graft, and open-source research has demonstrated that some officials and their families have amassed significant wealth due to their positions and connections,” the report said.
The six-page unclassified DNI report, “Wealth and Corrupt Activities of the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” was required by Congress under the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. It was due to Congress in December 2023 but has been delayed by intelligence agencies for unspecified reasons.
The report was drafted by David O. Shullman, current head of the National Intelligence Office for China, which is part of the DNI National Intelligence Council, an analysis group.
The legislation mandating a report was sponsored by Rep. Andy Ogles, Tennessee Republican and then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, now secretary of state.
The report said determining exact levels of corruption among senior Chinese leaders is difficult despite “indications that corruption remains widespread.” However, research published in 2012 identified the families of two senior leaders, then-Premier Wen Jiabao and then-incoming president, Mr. Xi, as having “amassed significant wealth,” the report said.
The report said Mr. Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews “held assets worth over $1 billion in business investments and real estate.”
The family of Mr. Wen controlled at least $2.7 billion in 2012 through his mother, wife, son and siblings, the report said.
Specific investments by Mr. Xi and Mr. Wen were not directly linked to the leaders. The research also did not identify direct influence by the two officials in helping grow the investments.
“However, their senior-level positions would have granted access to privileged information and both private and state-owned enterprise actions could have advantaged family holdings due to their connections to persons with political power,” the report.
After reports of high-level party corruption, China tightened information controls in a bid to thwart outside researchers. The report said Mr. Xi may have urged those in his family controlling the wealth to divest the holdings as he came to power in 2012.
“However, industry research provides evidence that, as of 2024, Xi’s family retains millions in business interests and financial investments,” the report said.
Corruption among officials of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, the leadership core group, involves officials overseeing varying portfolios and projects, including Chen Gang, a former science and technology party official who accepted over $18 million in bribes.
In April, Yao Qian, director of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CRSC) Department of Technology Supervision, was caught up in a corruption scandal involving the China Central Bank’s digital currency project. High-level officers of the People’s Liberation Army also were found to be corrupt as a result of a “culture of pay-for-promotion.”
Mr. Xi has focused intensely on corruption and dissent in the armed forces, saying in a 2024 speech that “the barrels of guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and dependable to the Party.”
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and some U.S. China watchers said the final product failed to capture the scope of official corruption in Beijing.
“This pathetic seven-page report, two and a half years in the making, is an insult to Secretary of State Rubio who requested it by law in December 2022, Director [Tulsi] Gabbard who released it, President Trump who needed it to protect our nation, and the American people who funded it,” said Paul Berkowitz, a China expert and former congressional aide.
The intelligence community was given ample time to produce a thorough account of the wealth of Chinese leaders but did not do so, he contended.
Chinese leaders have murdered millions of Americans through illicit fentanyl,” he said, “And they won’t stop until the details of their wealth are known by the Chinese people and American political leaders led by President Trump.”
Mr. Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, is said to fear that widespread corruption in the military will diminish the People’s Liberation Army’s war fighting capabilities, which will be needed to be prepared for a potential 2027 conflict over Taiwan, the report said. Senior Chinese military leaders ousted for corruption include the 2023 removal of Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu and his predecessor, along with the commander of the PLA Rocket Force and at least nine other current and former Rocket Force officials.
Last year, Adm. Miao Hua, director of the Central Military Commission’s Political Work Department and the official in charge of political loyalty within China’s armed forces, was fired over corruption.
“Both Li and Miao were accused of party discipline violations, and both were considered proteges of Xi, demonstrating the seriousness of the CCP’s concerns regarding loyalty and effectiveness — particularly within the PLA — and the scope of the regime’s approach to corruption,” the report said.
The DNI report is the first official U.S. disclosure about the sensitive subject of Chinese leadership and CCP corruption. A Chinese Embassy official lobbied Congress unsuccessfully to have the report killed, a congressional aide said.
The report on corruption also could upset President Trump’s efforts to establish a new direct diplomatic tie with Mr. Xi. U.S.-China relations have been troubled on a number of fronts, including trade, Taiwan and control of the South China Sea.
Mr. Trump said last week that a meeting with the Chinese president is in the works. Mr. Rubio, however, said this week that no date had been set for a meeting.
Getting the story out
The New York Times and Bloomberg news service reported on the hidden wealth of Mr. Xi and Mr. Wen in the early 2010s, prompting Chinese government harassment of their reporters. More information on regime corruption came with the 2016 leak of more than 11 million legal and financial records known as the Panama Papers.
The papers revealed evidence that leading Chinese government families had used offshore companies to hide large amounts of money.
Mr. Xi’s link to $1 billion in assets is more than $600 million than earlier estimates of his hidden wealth.
A Congressional Research Service Report first disclosed by The Washington Times in June said Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, including an indirect 18% stake in a rare earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company.
“The [Communist Party of China] does not require its officials to publicly disclose their assets. CPC and PRC media controls ensure that any non-state sanctioned reporting on, or discussion of the wealth and corruption of top leaders or their relatives either does not appear or is quickly removed from [China’s] media ecosystem,” the CRS report said.
That report, prepared in advance of the DNI report, identified four types of corruption in China: access money, speed money, grand theft and petty theft.
Access money includes bribes to powerful party officials for access to privileges, like cheap financing, land grants, monopoly rights, procurement contracts and tax breaks. In China, business people frequently bribe party and government bosses based on the idea that the benefits are worth the expense, the report said.
The CRS survey said a published estimate of Mr. Xi’s estimated hidden wealth is $707.2 million spread among relatives, including his wife, Peng Liyuan, and daughter, Xi Mingze. Most of the assets are owned by Mr. Xi’s eldest sister, Qi Qiaoqiao, her husband, Deng Jiagui, and their daughter, Zhang Yannan.
A 2015 Bloomberg investigation looked at corruption charges targeting politically connected Chinese tycoon Wang Jianlin, who headed the real estate and entertainment empire Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties.
The New York Times later reported that Ms. Qi and Mr. Deng were early investors in Dalian Wanda and paid $28.9 million in 2009 for shares that had risen in value to $240 million by 2015.
Mr. Xi’s cousin, Australian national Ming Chai, was also linked to corruption, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019. Mr. Chai is actually Qi Ruixin, the younger brother of Mr. Xi’s mother, Qi Xin, the report said. Mr. Chai was investigated by Australian police over links to organized crime, money laundering and Chinese influence operations.
Other news reports in 2019 revealed that officials of Germany’s Deutsche Bank advanced business interests in China through expensive gifts to senior Communist Party leaders, hiring CCP leaders’ relatives and investing in leaders’ businesses.
Those linked to that corruption included former CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin, China’s president and party leader from 1989 to 2002; Wang Qishan, a member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee from 2012 to 2017; and Mr. Wen.
