Wen Jiabao Requests Probe Into Family Fortune

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, is reported to have asked for a formal investigation into his family's wealth after claims that it is as high as £1.67 billion.
Mr Wen, 70, sent a letter asking for the investigation to the Politburo Standing Committee, China's equivalent of the Cabinet, according to the South China Morning Post.
It is not known how the investigation will proceed, or if its findings will ever be made public, but the request was accepted, unnamed sources told the newspaper.
Last month, the New York Times reported that Mr Wen's close relatives had become enormously wealthy during his ten-year tenure.
In particular, some of his family members, including his 90-year-old mother, allegedly obtained stakes in Ping An Insurance, one of China's largest financial services groups, before its flotation. Their share was worth an estimated £1.37 billion in 2007, the last year when public records are available.
Lawyers claiming to act for his family said some of the claims were not true. "The so-called 'hidden riches' of Wen Jiabao's family members in The New York Times' report does not exist," they said in a statement, adding that they would continue to "make clarifications regarding other untrue reports" by the newspaper and reserved the right to hold it "legally responsible".
They said Mr Wen "has never played any role in the business activities of his family members" and had not allowed those activities to influence his policies.
Readers in China have not been able to log onto the New York Times' website, either in English or Chinese, since the report came out.
Only one reporter for the New York Times has so far been accredited for the upcoming 18th Party Congress, a key convention which begins on Thursday.
The names of Mr Wen, his wife, mother, younger brother, son and brother-in-law all remain censored from Weibo, the hugely popular Chinese microblogging site.
The report was hugely damaging to Mr Wen, who has cast himself as a reformer and a man of the people. However, there is now speculation that he may publish his family's assets to clear his name and push for other officials to do the same.
On Sunday, Mr Wen left Beijing for Vientiane, in Laos, for an annual Asia-Europe summit.
"Sunshine" legislation, under which Chinese officials would disclose their assets and those of their families, was first proposed in 1987. Draft laws were formulated as far back as 1994. However, the proposals have stalled until now.
Even if Mr Wen wished to disclose his wealth, it is unlikely that any of his colleagues would do the same.
Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of China, remained silent after Bloomberg published a similar report about the extent of his family wealth earlier in the summer. The Bloomberg website is also blocked in China, and banks have been instructed to boycott the company's financial data services.
However, at the end of last week, one local Chinese government official created waves by openly publishing his assets on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter.
Zhang Tiancheng, the deputy secretary of Hanshou county's Politics and Law Committee in Hunan province, said his total annual income totalled 34,030 yuan (£3402) and his wife's was 30,000 yuan. He also listed the price of his home, and the 70,000 yuan he had given his daughter to help her buy an apartment in the central city of Changsha.
"He dares to do what the others dare not," wrote one approving commenter on Weibo. "Those millions of officials, please follow suit".