China Brief: Xi s prosperity gospel
For members of China s red aristocracy, the problem isn t billionaires it s billionaires they re not related to. The new rich of the 1980s onward often scrabbled to build connections to powerful families, like the relatives of Gen. Ye Jianying, for exactly this reason. But the churn rate for the Chinese ultrarich has long been high. One study found that appearing on the Hurun Rich List, an index of the wealthy maintained by foreign expert Rupert Hoogewerf, nearly tripled the chances of a businessman being arrested or investigated in the next three years.
What appears different under Xi is the attempt to sell similar moves to the public as a return to equality. That may be trickier than the leadership thinks: After all, they live in gilded palaces, complete with their own special food supplies. How much they re in touch with the common person remains an open question.