Overseas offspring of Chinese leaders summoned home

• Staff Reporter
 
• 2013-03-23

Xi Jinping's daughter was at Harvard before she dropped her studies to return to Beijing. (Photo/CFP)

The children of China's newly appointed leaders and senior officials who have been studying or working abroad have abruptly dropped what they were doing and returned home, a move intended to demonstrate that their parents are loyal to the country. They include Xi Mingze, the daughter of the country's new president, Xi Jinping, who had been studying at Harvard University, according to the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao.

Shortly before and after the Communist Party's 18th National Congress in November last year, many offspring of leaders have returned, also selling their houses and cars as well as cancelling their bank accounts abroad, the paper said.

A number of them were at Harvard, especially its Kennedy School of Government, which has had strong ties to China's government sine 1990s and has been attended by senior officials such as the new vice president, Li Yuanchao, and Hubei party secretary Li Hongzhong. Harvard president Drew Faust said the university has turned down the children of many state leaders in the past.

Bo Guagua, the son of the disgraced Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, is another to have studied at the Kennedy School of Government. He is believed to be keeping a low profile in the United States with his father set to stand trial for abusing his power at an as-yet-unspecified date.

The 21-year-old Xi Mingze, Xi Jinping's only daughter, dropped out of the university in November last year before her father was named head of the party. She has returned to work at Peking University where she previously studied. Very few people with the exception of staff members at the university have information about what she is doing, according to Ming Pao.

Li Yuanchao's son Li Haijin, who was attending Yale University, and the daughters of new vice premiers Wang Yang and Ma Kai have also reportedly moved back to China. Ma's daughter is understood to have been living and working in the United States for several years.

Though there have been suggestions that the leaders' offspring are being brought home to ensure their safety given their parents' new positions, the move is more likely to be politically motivated — to avoid any perception that their powerful parents have a foot in two camps. In the past, many senior officials who sent their spouses and children abroad have drawn heavy criticism that became an obstacle to their career advancement. In the case of many unscrupulous officials at lower levels, it has been the prelude for them leaving the company themselves, having moved their assets abroad beforehand through this means.