Panama Papers: President Xi Jinping (3/7 top leaders)
Given my years covering China, I’ve been particularly interested in the fact that three of China’s top seven leaders have family members with accounts at this one law firm in Panama. It’s sort of astonishing in China: You get on the Politburo, and your family members magically become billionaires! One of those leaders tied to the Panama Papers is President Xi Jinping, who has used an anti-corruption campaign to oust his rivals and consolidate his power — even though his own family has amassed many hundreds of millions of dollars in dubious wealth. There are mutterings against Xi among Chinese elites (although he is still popular on the Chinese streets, largely because of the anti-corruption campaign), and it will be interesting to see whether his rivals try to use this scandal to undermine him.