By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, April 5: The Chinese government has resorted to a mass censorship over the Internet on materials related to the Panama leaks which named relatives and family members of high-ranking politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, including family members of President Xi Jinping.
The data leak has named many relatives of high-ranking politburo including President Xi Jinping’s bother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, and family members of Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan, two sitting members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee.
News or discussions over the 11 million documents leaked from the database of offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca have been blocked or removed from all the Chinese social media and micro-messaging app including Weibo and WeChat.
According to Weibo, ‘Panama’ and ‘Panama files’ ranked in the top three most popular searches on the Chinese social network before the censorship kicked in. Since then, Panama has become the second most censored word in Weibo.
Xinhua, Chinese government mouthpiece, has denounced Western reporting on the leak as biased against non-Western leaders.
The leak unmasks the fault in the party constitution that discourages officials from profiting from their ruling positions or assisting family members to profit from their ties.
The present Chinese government under Xi and his anti-corruption drive has punished over 300,000 party officials. However, due to involvement of relatives of Politburo, Beijing has refrained from making comments.
A copy of Hong Kong passport of Li Xiaolin, Li Peng’s daughter, was found in the leaked documents as it was used to prove her identity, reported Hong Kong Free Press. Li Peng served as the fourth Premier of the People’s Republic of China from 1987 and 1998.
