More than half of the members of China’s rubber-stamp legislature hold foreign passports according to a leaked secret report.
The report by China’s Central Discipline Inspection Commission, which was leaked to the public in March during the annual two sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), says the nationality of most of the delegates are in question.
Based on February 2011 data, 76.77 percent of CPPCC members and 57.47 percent of NPC delegates hold foreign passports.
Chinese law prohibits its citizens to hold dual citizenship. Anyone who holds a foreign passport automatically loses Chinese citizenship. In other words, many of the two sessions attendees are foreign nationals representing Chinese citizens.
According to Boxun, an overseas Chinese dissident website, the Chinese regime is taking the leak very seriously and has launched a large investigation code-named “311” to investigate every person who has worked on or accessed the report.
Boxun said three people were arrested in connection with the leak on March 14 and were subjected to torture. One of the three was a woman who had given birth just four days previously, and all of them were innocent, according to Boxun’s confidential Beijing source.
The delegates and members whose nationality is in question include many social media celebrities and officials, including TV host Yang Lan, the deputy secretary-general of People’s Daily, the flagship propaganda newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party. Some of the delegates have reportedly moved family members and transferred assets to foreign countries.
Ye Jiannong, a CPPCC member, said in an interview with Beijing Morning Post that the dual citizenship issue has become an unspoken rule.
The news was reposted thousands of times by netizens who found it incredulous.
Zhao Qizheng, the spokesperson for the CPPCC, denied the claim that any delegate holds a foreign passport.
But many Chinese bloggers refused to believe him and questioned how he could verify this in such a short time. Some argued that Chinese media has often reported that corrupt officials were found holding foreign passports under different names after being arrested.
The Beijing source quoted by Boxun also said that for a long time there have been people engaged in the business of buying and selling delegate seats. The present going price to become an “elected” member in the CPPCC is 15 million yuan, and 25 million yuan assures a seat in the NPC, according to the source.
