As of 2024, Xi’s family retains millions in business interests and financial investments. While the available data does not link the investments directly to Xi, it is possible that these holdings are managed indirectly on Xi’s behalf.’
Washington, D.C.: On 21 March 2025, Ms Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), released the results of a long awaited intelligence report called, “Wealth and Corrupt Activities of the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.” The DNI unclassified report provides some information on the wealth and corrupt activities of the PRC government, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leadership.
REPORT BACKGROUND: The US Congress and President Biden signed into law the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on 23 December 2022 which included a task for the DNI in coordination with the Secretary of State to complete the report within a year (not later than the end of 2023) that would include details of the wealth and corrupt activities of the following officials: “the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and senior leadership officials in the Central Committee, the Politburo, the Politburo Standing Committee, and any other regional Party Secretaries.” In total, the 2023 NDAA law tasked the DNI with these five tasks:
* Sec. 6501. Report on wealth and corrupt activities of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
* Sec. 6502. Identification and threat assessment of companies with investments by the People’s Republic of China.
* Sec. 6503. Intelligence community working group for monitoring the economic and technological capabilities of the People’s Republic of China.
* Sec. 6504. Annual report on concentrated reeducation camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.
* Sec. 6505. Assessments of production of semiconductors by the People’s Republic of China.
The wealth and corruption report was a year and a half late. Neither the previous DNI, Ms Avril Haines, nor the Biden administration gave a reason for not publishing the study when it was due to Congress in late 2023. They also did not give a reason for not providing it before leaving office on 20 January 2025.
OVERVIEW
The DNI report on wealth and corruption describes the structural problems of a one-party state and how this structure encourages corruption within all levels of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government and throughout the CCP. The report highlights the fact that “corruption within China is primarily due to structural features that centralize power, eschew independent checks or accountability—especially at the provincial level—and produce[s] perverse incentives for political advancement and financial enrichment.” In fact, the report claims that according to one PRC academic study of one PRC city, “that 8- to 65-percent of officials—depending on the official’s rank—received an unofficial income from bribery or graft; a separate study and a survey of public perceptions both estimated that approximately half of Chinese officials have engaged in corruption, especially at the local levels” (author emphasis). Furthermore, the report added that another PRC academic analysis of corruption concluded that “bribery could increase an official’s legal earnings four to six times.”
INVESTIGATIVE AUTHORITIES
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission are the organizations that primarily investigate corruption. These organizations are part of the CCP which makes the entire process highly political and non-transparent. The DNI report noted that these investigative organizations “work directly for their Party committees and lack[ed] independent external oversight, allowing them to pursue anti-corruption cases in often arbitrary ways.”
The DNI report highlighted that from 2012 through 2022, these two organizations investigated almost five million people within the PRC government and the CCP and found 4.7 million officials guilty. More recently, during 2024, the anti-corruption campaign targeted more than fifty senior government officials. These statistics correlate with the PRC legal system where, according to a recent New York Times article, criminal conviction rates are 99% and the newer “plea leniency” system, introduced in 2018, has a 90% conviction rate.
SENIOR LEADERSHIP
The report notes that Xi Jinping initially used accusations of corruption to target his political rivals or those associated with his competitors. Analysis later by PRC academics concluded that after ten years, the anti-corruption campaign did not exclusively pursue any specific factions. Even those officials associated with Xi, “top officials considered loyal to Xi and who had risen under his patronage,” were not exempt from charges of corruption.
Furthermore, the report referred to another PRC study that criminal corruption cases “at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy was very high and, of those charged with a crime, more than 80 percent of the charges involved bribery.”
Investigative research on corruption and wealth noted the following cases:
* Premier Wen Jiabao’s “family—such as his mother, wife, son, and siblings—controlled assets of at least $2.7 billion in 2012. Similarly, Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews held assets worth over $1 billion in business investments and real estate.”
* Incoming President Xi Jinping “may have urged family members to divest holdings as he came into power. However, industry research provides evidence that, as of 2024, Xi’s family retains millions in business interests and financial investments. While the available data does not link the investments directly to Xi, it is possible that these holdings are managed indirectly on Xi’s behalf.”
Journalistic research in 2012 “did not identify investments specifically linked to the leaders themselves, nor did it uncover any direct influence from the leaders contributing to a growth in family 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. Following publication of this research, China tightened information controls and limited access to many foreign news organizations, which continues to challenge public research on issues of senior leader corruption or personal wealth.”
Within the CCP Central Committee, the report highlighted the following cases:
* “In 2020, Zhang Wei, a Chinese businessman, was arrested on charges of organizing, leading, and participating in organized crime; illegal detention; and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. He was also found guilty in 2021 of illegally absorbing public deposits.
* “Chen Gang, a former member of the Leading Party Members Group of the China Association for Science and Technology, was accused in 2019 of accepting over $18 million in bribes—at least some of which was likely associated with his role in overseeing citywide construction projects for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
* “In April 2024, Yao Qian, Director of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CRSC) Department of Technology Supervision, was investigated for ‘serious violations of discipline and law,’ possibly for his role in China’s Central Bank Digital Currency initiative. The CCDI has investigated at least 16 individuals within the CRSC, with six of those investigations occurring in 2024.”
The DNI report stressed that corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues, such as a culture of pay-for-promotion, even after Xi implemented an anti-corruption campaign over a decade ago: “In 2024, Xi stressed during a speech to military commanders that ‘the barrels of guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and dependable to the Party,’ further emphasizing his commitment to Party loyalty and expectations of the same from the military, especially.”
The report speculated that one probable reason Xi is laser-focused on PLA anti-corruption is because “corrupt practices will prevent the military from acquiring the capabilities and readiness he has directed it to achieve by 2027, in preparation for a potential conflict over Taiwan.”
The report concludes with a list of well-known corruption cases within the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the PLA:
* “In 2023, China removed General Li Shangfu, then-Minister of National Defense, investigating both Li and his predecessor after arresting the commander of the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) and at least nine other current or former PLARF personnel.
* “In 2024, Beijing launched an investigation of Admiral Miao Hua, then-director of the Central Military Commission’s Political Work Department and in charge of political loyalty within China’s armed forces.
* “Both Li and Miao were accused of Party discipline violations, and both were considered protegees 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.”
CONCLUSION
We can only assume that the classified version of this report has more details and could be a serious embarrassment to the CCP and the PRC leadership. The report admits that it does not provide a detailed list of the wealth and corrupt activities of individuals, “the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and senior leadership officials in the Central Committee, the Politburo, the Politburo Standing Committee, and any other regional Party Secretaries,” as directed by the 2023 NDAA law.
The information in the unclassified DNI report obliquely refers to 2012 open-source researchers published in Bloomberg News (Michael Forsythe was later fired for his reporting), New York Times (David Barboza won the Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting), New Yorker, Washington Times, and other mostly reliable publicly available sources. Therefore, one wonders why the intelligence analysts did not include more details available from these open sources? Perhaps these and other more sensitive details are being held back as collateral for future US-PRC negotiations or to be revealed when appropriate?
* Guermantes Lailari is Visiting Scholar at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan (ROC).