An article today by Chun Han Wong and Joah Chin [http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-link-to-panama-papers-widens-1459965602] brings out a couple of new names in the Chinese side of the Panama Papers. This will probably go on for awhile but it is not likely to spawn investigations of the upper crust, since it is a little to close the ruling class of China. "A report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on Wednesday linked relatives of two current members of the Communist Party leadership—Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan, who oversees propaganda and ideology—to offshore commercial activities conducted through law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co. The report didn’t accuse any individual or organization of wrongdoing." Neither are investigations, should they occur, likely to lead to any charges. The Chinese have been using these loose arrangements from everything from spying to facilitating contracts with governments.
I used an example in my first book. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has an interesting place, 88 Queensway, in Hong Kong identified in one of its reports that had 34 companies working out of the same physical address. Most of them were owned by wives and other family members of some high ranking officials and one was a cover operation for spying. This type of business arrangement has many uses, but the main one is to hide the beneficial owner of whatever it is the company is doing. The Chinese government would say those uses are legitimate, but some analysts in financial circles might disagree.
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