>From "Family Matters", Wall Street Journal, page 1, July 17, 1995:
Late last year, when Wang Jun opened China's first business club, in a skyscraper high above this city's glittering night lights, the elite flocked to sip champagne and offer congratulations.
But few exuded the warmth of Xiao Rong, the youngest daughter of China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping. While other guests politely shook hands with Mr. Wang, a gruff engineer-turned-financier, Ms. Xiao kissed him on one cheek, then prompted her 15-year-old daughter to "give Daddy a kiss" on the other.
Ms. Xiao and Mr. Wang aren't related but their families are close. More than four decades ago, Mr. Deng and Mr. Wang's father fought in the revolution to bring communism to China. Their descendants remain tight: Wang Jun, who runs China International Trust & Investment Corp., or Citic, is a business and golfing partner of Ms. Xiao's husband; Ms Xiao's brother-in-law heads several Citic subsidiaries; and Mr. Wang's niece works for Ms. Xiao's property company.
Family ties have always mattered in China, but never so much as today. In the so-called classless society of the past, one leader reigned supreme; everybody else lived in relative equality, which usually meant poverty. Now, with decentralization of control and growing economic opportunities, power in China is being diffused. As the nation is prospering, so are the children of the revolutionaries who founded the Communist Party.
This small group claims a major hold on the power, wealth and opportunity that elude most of China's 1.2 billion people. Members of these loose, family-based alliances lead lives of privilege: attending the right schools, making the right friends, securing the right jobs--and staying far from the limelight to avoid criticism of their lifestyles.
All this makes China's ongoing leadership transition look ever more like a shift from a dictatorship of one--Mao Tse Tung or Mr. Deng--to rule by a Latin American-style oligarchy of powerful families.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)