July 27, 2012
Translated by Tang Xiangyang

Wu Zhiwen (伍志文), former general manager of Jinmailong Asset Management Co. Ltd (金麦龙资产管理有限公司), was handed a five and half year sentence by Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday after being found guilty of the crime of illegally obtaining state secrets.

From January to December 2010, Wu Zhiwen gained access to 19 items of yet-to-be-released macroeconomic data from Wu Chaoming (伍超明), who at the time was an official at China's central bank.

Of the 30 items that Wu was given, 19 items were categorised as "secret" state secrets (秘密级国家秘密).

Additionally, Wu Zhiwen also gained access to another 11 items of unpublished macroeconomic data from another source at the central bank, of which, six were categorised as "highly secret" state secrets (机密级国家秘密).

China categorises sensitive information into three broad categories, top-secret, highly secret and secret.

Both Wu Zhiwen and Wu Chaoming are graduates of Tianjin's well-respected Nankai University.

According to details revealed in court, after gaining the above data, Wu Zhiwen shared the information with 13 people via text message. Eight of the 13 people were also former classmates of his at Nankai University.

The above state secrets include unpublished GDP, CPI, investment and other macroeconomic data.

This is the first case of someone in China being sentenced for illegally obtaining CPI data.

Eight financial institutions and one important domestic research institute have been embroiled in the data leak scandal which saw two officials sentenced to lengthy jail terms for leaking sensitive macroeconomic data in late 2011.

Sun Zhen(孙振), a former high-level official in the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was sentenced to a 5-year prison term in October on charges of leaking 27 pieces of information to 3 people working in financial institutions. Sun was found guilty of leaking the data between June 2009 and January 2011, and 13 of the 27 items that he leaked were, prior to their official release date, officially classified as confidential state secrets. The economic data that Sun shared with others inlcuded industrial value-added data along with GDP, CPI and PPI figures.

Wu Chaoming, a former official with China's central bank, was sentenced to 6 years in prison for leaking 25 items of data to 15 people working in the stock market industry. Wu is said to have illegally shared 224 pieces of information from Jan 2010.

According to reports, Huatai United Securities (华泰联合证券), Orient Securities (东方证券), China Securities (中信建投证券), Fortune Securities (财富证券), Founder Securities (方正证券), a certain unnamed Department within the Industrial and Construction Bank of China (工行某部门), Sun-Life Everbright-Life Insurance (光大永明保险) and Jin Mailong Asset Management Company (金麦龙资产管理公司) were all caught up in the scandal.

At a press conference held by the press office of the State Council on Oct 24, Li Zhongcheng (李忠诚), an official from the Supreme People's Court, announced that six cases against six people had already been launched.

Links and Sources
The Beijing News: 一公司原老总泄露CPI数据获刑
Economic Observer Online: Financial Institutions Embroiled in Economic Data Leak
Economic Observer Online: China to Announce Economic Data Early in Bid to Avoid Leaks