Over the many decades of Western news coverage of China, the year 2012 was a watershed. In the space of just a few months, a Bloomberg News team headed by correspondent Michael Forsythe published a sweeping expose of how relatives of China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, had earned vast fortunes in a variety of often disguised business deals. Soon after, David Barboza of the New York Times published his own revelations of the wealth accumulated by the relatives of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.
The behind-the-scenes story of the journalists who conducted the investigations—and faced the dramatic, controversial, and often frightening consequences—is the subject of the documentary “Follow the Money.”
“Follow the Money” is the final episode of Assignment China, a 12-part series chronicling the history of American correspondents in China from the 1940s to the present day, produced by the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California.
The lead reporter is Mike Chinoy, a Senior Fellow at the Institute and former CNN Beijing bureau chief and Senior Asia Correspondent.
Adapted from the press release Assignment China: Follow the Money.
