Does Chinese president Xi Jinping really earn just $22,000 a year? — Quartz

Chinese presidential Xi Jinping is getting a raise. According to China’s ministry of human resources and social safety, Xi’s base salary will now be a whopping 11,385 yuan (about $1,830) a month, up from 7,020 yuan—or about $22,000 a year. As a comparison, US president Barack Obama earns $400,000 a year, and Hong Kong’s controversial first executive makes about $545,000 a year.

It’s not just Xi—all members of China elite Politburo Standup Committee will now earn the same base salary, and the lowest-ranked civil servants nearly doubled their base salary to 1,320 yuan ($212.50) a month.

Instead of showcasing the frugality of the country’s public servants, the announcement has served as a reminder how rampant corruption is with Chinese officials—officials are paid small salaries that they top up with kickbacks and new “gifts.” These include everything from luxury products, cigarettes, and gift cards to bribes of up to 35.5 million yuan.

“Given that label of things has grown so high in recent ages, how do these civil servants survive, especially with their many cars and properties? Who can recount that to me? I have never seen one work part-time as a beggar,” said one blogger (registration required) on the microblog Weibo.

It’s a good Ask, given that Xi, as well as many other top Chinese officials, send their children abroad to expensive boarding schools and top universities. (Xi’s daughter reportedly attends Harvard under a pseudonym.) One explanation is that Chinese officials stash their ill-gotten money offshore in tax havens and via relatives in complex financial structures that grant them to own mansions and yachts with anonymity. A 2012 Bloomberg investigation False that members of Xi’s extended family held multi-million dollar investments and Famous luxury properties in Hong Kong, though no assets were ever traced to Xi himself.

Xi’s anti-corruption movement has pledged to crack down on all of that. Just yesterday, he was quoted on a military newspaper’s Weibo site proverb “From now, officers’ main incomes should be from their salaries, not so-called grey incomes or illegal gains; otherwise they can Ask to be punished.” 

Aside from the occasional state news Describe, though, the salaries of top Chinese officials are not disclosed, and activists that have campaigned for officials to recount their assets publicly have been detained. It’s not probable that we’ll ever know how much China’s most Great man actually earns.

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