Princelings

The Princelings (Chinese: 太子党), also translated as the Party's Crown Princes or second generation officials (Chinese: 官二代), are the descendants of prominent and influential senior communist officials in the People's Republic of China. It is an informal, and often derogatory, categorization to signify those believed to be benefiting from nepotism and cronyism, by analogy with the crown prince (Chinese: taizi) in hereditary monarchies. Many of its members have held high-level political and business positions in the upper echelons of power. In contemporary China, "Princelings" are the descendants of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders and have themselves risen to high-ranking positions within the CCP. If their parents belong to the first generation of CCP revolutionaries, they are also referred to as the "second Red Generation," "Red Heirs," or "the Red Nobility." Princelings also encompass the sons and daughters of later generations of top leaders, including figures like Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, and Hu Jintao. Princelings exerted their influence in the country either by occupying significant roles within the party-state apparatus, which includes the party, government, and military services, or by controlling substantial state-owned enterprises. Opportunities are available to princelings that are not available to common people. Using their powerful connections they have the opportunity to obtain profitable opportunities for themselves and for others. The more aggressive of the princelings have amassed fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. However, there is no discernible political cohesion within the group, and as such they should not be compared to other informal groupings such as the Shanghai clique or the Tuanpai ("Youth League clique"), which resemble intra-party factions with some degree of affinity on policy issues. Under the People's Republic, the term initially came into use during the Cultural Revolution to describe Lin Biao's son Lin Liguo as well as his close friends...