Bloomberg blocked in China after Xi family wealth story

Bloomberg’s news websites remained blocked in China five days after it issued a story about the finances of the extended family of the country’s vice president, highlighting how Beijing is trying to shape public opinion ahead of a leadership transition. Bloomberg said it believes its English-language website and its Business Week site were blocked on Friday by Chinese authorities after it published details about the multimillion dollar fortunes of Vice President Xi Jinping’s extended family. Beijing will hold a once-a-decade leadership transition this year during which Communist Party chief, President Hu Jintao, and Premier Wen Jiabao will hand power to a younger group of leaders, headed by the party chief heir apparent Xi. In an e-mailed statement, Bloomberg spokeswoman Belina Tan said: “Our website is currently inaccessible in China in reaction, we believe, to a story that was published on June 29.” She would not comment on whether Bloomberg was in talks with the government over the issue, but said “there is no impact” to the company’s other services, including terminal feeds used by clients to access economic data and news. Asked at a Foreign Ministry briefing last week about the blocked websites, a ministry spokesman did not respond directly but said all websites must abide by China’s laws. In its article, Bloomberg stated that no assets were traced to Xi, his wife or their daughter, adding there was no indication Xi intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, or of any wrongdoing by Xi or his extended family.