[WilliamofCarmichael]

"[China's] factory owners are mostly privileged children of party officials – 90 per cent of China's billionaires are the children of senior cadres – who have a reputation for spending more time in karaoke lounges than boardrooms. They are ill-equipped to act as innovators and entrepreneurs." The Daily Mail 9 February 2008
here

Is this article a PR plant to make the "princelings" look good?

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Most are “princelings”, but many are not - I know several who built up their business themselves, and came from pretty humble beginnings...

Most of the Chinese businessmen looking to expand overseas are actually those of the latter, not the former. The former tend to be happy to just sit at home, letting things stay stagnant. The ones pushing expansion are those who started it themselves and see the value in expansion.

[cmdjing]

From last year.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_The-Worlds-Billionaires_CountryOfCitizen_3.html

The claim that 90% of China’s billionaires are the children of senior cadres is not even closely true. Unless of course one chooses to define a senior cadre as pretty much any member of the Communist Party. Almost all of China’s billionaires are actually self made, with the exceptions being those few who inherited and only one of them inherited from a former Vice-President (ceremonial role) who was already wealthy to begin with.

The term red princeling is really meant to describe just a few families who come from the political elite. Such as the children of Deng Xiaoping or Jiang Zhemin or Hu Jintao.