Senior Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, are engaged in corruption and hiding wealth worth hundreds of millions of dollars by using relatives to disguise the activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

Mr. Xi by 2012 had amassed at least $376 million in investment in companies, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth.

“Publicly available information on the wealth and/or corruption of currently serving senior CPC leaders is limited,” the report said.

“The [Communist Party of China] does not require its officials to publicly disclose their assets. CPC and PRC media controls ensure that any non-state sanctioned reporting on, or discussion of the wealth and corruption of top leaders or their relatives either does not appear or is quickly removed from the [People’s Republic of China] media ecosystem.”

The CRS report was produced for members of Congress in advance of a congressionally mandated report on the subject required under 2022 legislation in 2022 to be produced by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

The DNI report was due to Congress in December. A spokeswoman for Ms. Haines said in April the director is aware of the reporting requirement and analysts are working on the study.

The DNI report was directed to include details of corruption by Mr. Xi and other senior Chinese leaders in Beijing and throughout the country.

The intelligence report is expected to undermine Mr. Xi’s 12-year anti-corruption campaign that included investigations into millions of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members.

A total of 266 members of the CCP Central Committee have been ousted, including former Defense Minister Li Shangfu, also a former member of the Central Military Commission, and former China Foreign Minister Qin Gang, the CRS report said.

Corruption in China comes in four varieties, “access money,” “speed money,” grand theft and petty theft, the report said.

The dominant form is access money described by one expert as bribes paid by “capitalists” to powerful party officials for access to privileges, such as cheap financing, land grants, monopoly rights, procurement contracts, tax breaks and other perks.

“From a businessperson’s point of view, access money is less a tax than an investment,” the report quotes Yuen Yuen Ang, a Johns Hopkins University political economist, as saying.

Chinese business people frequently use bribes of “Party-state bosses” since the benefits offset the expense, the report said.

China’s government has Chinese censors and foreign affairs officials have vigorously sought to hide foreign reporting on corruption and CCP hidden wealth.

Foreign news outlets that have conducted investigations into leadership wealth and corruption faced government retaliation, including expulsion of reporters, closure of foreign bureaus and failed visa renewals.

Censors also quickly block and remove all online content related to the wealth and corruption of senior officials and their relatives. Online databases used in identifying leaders’ corruption also have been restricted.

Chinese staff members of foreign news outlets, often key facilitators for foreign news gathering, also have been forced to leave their jobs after corruption is reported, the report said.

A new counterespionage regulation put in place last year also redefined espionage to include any accessing documents and data broadly defined as “state secrets.”

The report identified two major news investigations into Mr. Xi’s hidden wealth both from 2012, one by Bloomberg News and another by the New York Times.

Both were able to trace money flows from corporate and regulatory documents.

The estimated $707.2 million in hidden wealth by Mr. Xi is said to have been spread among relatives, including his wife, Peng Liyuan, and daughter, Xi Mingze.

Most of the assets are owned by Mr. Xi’s oldest sister, Qi Qiaoqiao; her husband, Deng Jiagui; and Ms. Qi’s daughter, Zhang Yannan.

The Bloomberg probe coincided with a New York Times investigation in 2012 that identified an estimated $2.7 billion held by relatives of then-Premier Wen Jiabao, the CCP’s third-most senior leader.

Those assets were controlled by Mr. Wen’s wife, son and brother.

A third news investigation in 2015 related to the politically connected Chinese tycoon Wang Jianlin, who headed the real estate and entertainment empire Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties.

The Bloomberg story on corruption was killed by the news service before it could be published. The action led to the reporter who wrote the story, Michael Forsythe, to quit and join the New York Times.

Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief at the time Matthew Winkler, killed the story over fears publication would “wipe out everything we’ve tried to build there,” NPR reported in 2020.

Mr. Forsythe reported for the Times in 2015 that Mr. Xi’s sister and brother-in-law, Qi Qiaoqiao and Deng Jiagui, were early investors in Dalian Wanda and paid $28.9 million in 2009 for shares that by 2015 had risen in value to $240 million.

Another case of corruption related to Mr. Xi appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2019 involving a cousin of Mr. Xi called Ming Chai, an Australian citizen.

The report said Mr. Chai is the Qi Ruixin, the younger brother of Mr. Xi’s mother, Qi Xin.

Australian police investigated Mr. Chai during an investigation into organized crime, money laundering and Chinese influence operations.

After the article appeared, China expelled one of the two co-authors, Chun Han Wong.

Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2022 that Mr. Chai, Mr. Xi’ cousin, had moved about $695,000 to a Chinese money-laundering operation in Australia.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) produced a database from leaked document that revealed Mr. Xi’s brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, the husband of Qi Qiaoqiao, was a director sole shareholder in two British Virgin Island companies.

A Chinese official, Feng Qiya, a member of the Henan Province delegation to China’s National People’s Congress, was disclosed from the database as setting up a British Virgin Islands company in 2016 to invest in U.S. stocks.

In 2019, news reports were published revealing that officials of the German bank Deutsche Bank promoted their business interests in China through expensive gifts to senior CCP leaders, hiring CCP leaders’ relatives and investing in leaders’ businesses.

Those linked to the corruption included Jiang Zemin, Chinese leader from 1989 to 2002, Wang Qishan a member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee from 2012 to 2017 and Wen Jiabao.

Deutsche Bank also hired the children of politburo standing committee member Li Zhanshu, and Wang Yang also on the standing committee member.

The standing committee is the CCP’s highest political body that is regarded as a collective dictatorship that oversees the government.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.