Lai See | Sino-Bloomberg relations remain unsettled after Xi story

We hear that the dust hasn't settled yet after Bloomberg's absorbing story two months ago about the wealth of the extended family of Xi Jinping, the man expected to be our next president. Or at least he was until his recent disappearing act.

Some Bloomberg reporters who had arranged meetings with mainland officials or companies have found they are suddenly cancelled. It's not clear whether the cancellations are a result of orders from above or whether people are taking the initiative and deciding it was best if they were not seen talking to Bloomberg. Or it may be a combination of both. Some Bloomberg reporters in China have been hauled in by security authorities and "reminded" of the limits of their licence to operate in China. These reminders have been taken as thinly veiled threats. They were told that even mentioning these meetings was an offence.

Bloomberg's story, which was worked on by nine journalists over a period of two months, said assets owned by Xi's extended family ran into hundreds of millions of US dollars and were mostly owned by his older sister, Qi Qiaoqiao, her husband, Deng Jiagui, and Qi's daughter, Zhang Yannan. None of the assets were linked to Xi, his wife or his daughter.

Following the publication of the story, sales of Bloomberg's data services to mainland financial institutions has virtually dried up, and in some cases they have not been renewed.

Bloomberg had informed the mainland authorities some two weeks before the story's publication. This triggered intense behind-the-scenes pressure on the news agency. At one stage, the mainland's ambassador to the United States met with Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, in Washington. In an unusual move, Daniel Doctoroff, Bloomberg's chief executive, vetted the story. It had originally been intended to launch a video package to accompany the story, but the idea was abandoned.

Not many companies are prepared to stand up to pressure from Beijing. Google did for a while before deciding to pull out of the mainland altogether. Bloomberg has about 3,000 terminals on the mainland, compared with about 7,000 in Singapore, 10,000 in Hong Kong, and 100,000 in the US. Some Bloomberg salespeople are apparently not well pleased by the recent turn of events.