Chinese censors scramble to delete all mentions of Panama Papers on Weibo
The Chinese censors on Weibo have been busy scrubbing the country's version of Twitter clean of mentions of the Panama Papers, most likely because it implicates Chinese President Xi Jinping and several other members of China's top government.
On Monday, this part of the world woke up to the Panama Papers leak -- 11 million internal documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca that reveal secret offshore holdings that can be used for tax avoidance. Within are the names of many connected to powerful politicians and public officials around the world, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to name some.
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In China, people with family ties to at least three top government officials have been named in the documents. This includes Premier Xi himself, as well as other top-ranking members of the ruling Communist Party.
Throughout Monday and Tuesday, posts with mentions of "巴拿马" (Panama) and "巴拿马文件" (Panama Papers) have been deleted within moments of appearing on Weibo.
Even English language searches for "Panama Papers" have been blocked. Search the term and you get an error message citing "relevant laws, regulations and policies".
In one post, which has not yet been deleted on Weibo when we searched, a user is complaining that "Panama" is a blocked term.
It is in response to a post from a community account -- Overseas Chinese Society -- that is protesting regarding its previous post being deleted. The user says it shouldn't have been censored as it did not mention China in the post talking about the Panama Papers.
(Here is a machine-translated version of that post.)
On Freeweibo, a site that captures deleted Weibo posts, the top blocked term is "Panama". The posts blocked point to articles detailing the Panama Papers, and also include people commenting about the censorship itself.
This post says: "Suddenly, Panama is a sensitive word." The retweeted post says: "The world's biggest news today. No news in local papers, Weibo blocked."
This post says in a tongue-in-cheek manner: "Please don't spread the Panama offshore story, in case the boss gets angry and closes Weibo."
Why the Panama Papers are sensitive in China
In China, the mere connection the scandal has with the Communist Party could lead to negative public sentiment and speculation about its members.
While it isn't illegal for Chinese citizens to have offshore companies, these business activities could show secret wealth accrual by the Chinese elite. This looks especially bad for Xi, who started a high-profile anti-corruption crackdown in 2012 that has so far put away as many as 100 high-ranking officials within the government.
This looks especially bad for Xi, who started a high-profile anti-corruption crackdown in 2012.
Directly connected to Xi is his brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, who is named in the documents. Deng married Xi's elder sister, and it was reported in 2012 the couple already held hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets including real estate and shares.
In 2009, at the time that Deng was the sole director and shareholder of two British Virgin Islands-based firms under Mossack Fonseca's purview, Xi was rising within the Chinese Communist Party, en route to becoming its head.
The documents also name Jasmine Li, the grand daughter of Jia Qinglin, a top ranking official in the Communist Party. Li reportedly received her first offshore company as an undergrad at Stanford University, and through a number of complicated ownership agreements, Li was able to hide her holding of several offshore companies.
A third connection has been made to former powerful Communist Party official Bo Xilai -- who was later sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption in 2013. The Panama Papers point to Bo's wife's former associate, French architect Patrick Henri Devillers, who helped her set up a secret offshore company used to buy a luxury property in the south of France.
Devillers was detained in China in 2012, and his testimony during Bo's corruption trial was eventually part of the prosecution's arsenal that put Bo away for life.
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
