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If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. You can’t buy your way out if you do something so spectacular that you cause the government to lose face.
You might as well go jump off a building or a bridge cause you’re done for.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/china-executes-ex...
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/uvm7oy/i...
I think this is more about punishing political grafting than white-collar crime.
Not with money.
on edit: In the U.S obviously, in Western European nations I would assume better conditions than that even.
If any of those people were politically connected, they probably just got a new identity and shoved off to somewhere else in the country.
Connection works both ways. You can be your superior's lapdog on Monday and jailed for being so cordial that he thinks you are trying to take over his position — I mean, taking bribes — by Wednesday.
Given how this man stayed out of trouble for 30 straight years before finally being apprehended, I feel this could be exactly what happened. He probably had some political leverage to keep the prosecutors looking the other way. And the moment he lost his leverage — maybe his superiors changed their minds about him, maybe he stepped on the toes of someone, who knows — they went after him.
Some may be innocent (framed) or only partially guilty (scapegoat.) Other may have been known to be guilty all along and has only recently fallen out of favor.
FTFY
But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?
Almost certainly. But it's not simple to understand because four things are simultaneously true:
1. Corruption is a serious problem Xi is genuinely focused on reducing through high-profile prosecutions with extreme sentences.
2. Xi and his party lieutenants have certainly used corruption charges to eliminate central party 'Titans' because they got too powerful, got too greedy, or were deemed insufficiently 'loyal'.
3. Corruption is pervasive at almost every level and there's no way most of it can be eliminated anytime soon. In fact, the system relies on it to function as well as it does. The purpose of these high-profile prosecutions is only to reduce the size and frequency of corruption. It reminds officials that stealing half the money half the time can be bad for their health. So they stick closer to taking 10-20% only 10-20% of the time.
4. The sub-1% of corrupt officials who are prosecuted, likely end up being busted because they got 'too greedy' and were made a sacrificial lamb by their corrupt peers to fill the system's need for a few high-profile examples. The 'too greedy' isn't from taking too much, it's usually from not greasing enough palms with enough money (including the provincial corruption investigators themselves). When there's tens of millions of dollars of illicit money at stake, the dynamics become like de facto organized crime mobs and there's always competition between factions. This guy probably knows exactly which rival played the game better and beat him.
He sees it as a challenge to his legitimacy and China’s power, which, as you’d expect are the most important things to him; even if you take the most cynical view.
Another timely example, because it is the World Cup, is the Chinese football programs. They’ve been decimated because of corruption prosecutions, both executives and players. It’s a major reason why China isn’t competitive on the global stage, which much smaller countries with significantly smaller budgets can compete. And, yes, Xi does care about competing in the World Cup. Prestige is very important to his concept of China’s honor and global standing.
This right here is why “corruption” should be looked on with great skepticism. In an authoritarian government basic liberties we take for granted in the West are considered corruption. You know, like having a say in how people are governed. This is a high crime in a state with 1 party that cannot be replaced.
In that way, “corruption” can mean “not being loyal to the dictator.”
Could you list some of those basic liberties? Are they the sort of liberties whose exercise involves taking half a billion in bribes?
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Generally, basic liberties like showing up to a protest aren't considered corruption, they get called terrorism, or somesuch. A Texas judge just sentenced a dozen people to 30-70 years in prison for exercising them, by the way. Some of the people given 30 weren't even at the protest. Half this forum looked at that, and saw nothing wrong with it. I can only imagine that if they were born on the other side of the Pacific ocean, they would be card-carrying party members.
Like insider trading by congress?
Jokes aside, this is not how dictatorships normally deal with democratic activists? I don’t see how you can come to this conclusion u less you believe that corporations are people, election spending is a form of legally protected free speech, and corporations should vote in elections:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/delaware-court-upho...
The point of totalitarian regime is that nobody should feel safe, nobody should have an agency. In particular the people shouldn't be able to obtain safety themselves even by the way of being totally loyal.
I have no doubt that that guy was corrupt like any other official there. Yet, he isn't punished for the corruption. The show needed another star, and he was chosen to be that star.
Or his sinocentricity and even racism (as in superiority of chinese people). There's been a long standing view in China about their own superiority of others, including all the way into the way they view their national pride as extending back further than any other civilization, even though external historians might view it more like several disjoint civilizations in a similar region... Kinda like how we don't call American history as starting when previous groups from contemporary russian crossed ice bridges to the Americas... We say it started in 1776 because it was a new major iteration of the regime.
Xi is also fantastically corrupt. He wasn’t born a billionaire.
This is a person who invites war criminals to his country and rolls out the red carpet...then again...
- volleyball. Probably their best team sport. Men's team have nothing to show but the women's team won the competition 3 times (1984, 2004, 2016) and the World Cup twice (1982, 1986)
- basketball. Women's team are usually there at the Olympic games and they won a silver medal in 1992 and a bronze in 1984 but nothing ever since. They were the runner ups in the last World Cup final (2022) against the US. Men's team have 0 results.
- football, irrelevant. Men's team only qualified to the World Cup once in 2002. Women's team is slightly better being the runner up once in 1999, and they also won silver medal in the 1996 Olympic games. But that was a one generation thing, nothing to show ever since.
- water polo, irrelevant. Women's team is slightly better usually qualifying for the Olympic games but 0 results. Same at the World Cup.
- baseball/softball, irrelevant.
- field hockey, irrelevant.
- handball, irrelevant.
- rugby sevens, irrelevant.
China is good at group sports where everyone have to do the same thing together (artistic swimming and diving) but team sports needs individuals working together where everyone have to be good at their given position, in their own little world, so almost the exact opposite.
One thing we know is important for a country to be globally competitive in team athletics is having pervasive grass roots youth leagues developing talent from an early age. My sense is the Chinese have a structured selection system where they try out kids in key sports and select the best for special development.
Compare this with Western democracies where kids of most skill levels are generally able to keep playing club sports through high school as long as they have an interest and any aptitude at all. In America, pee wee football, girl's soccer leagues, etc are part of the social fabric of communities. It's considered worthwhile to let kids practice, play and develop even when they show no professional or collegiate potential.
The deep reach and years of development of kids with no clear aptitude matter because it's about identifying outliers. I suspect it comes down to chaotic but pervasive casual development beating central planning.
It’s not totally clear what the consequences were for those purged or if their crimes were legit but seems like they are all in prison.
[1]. https://www.afpc.org/publications/articles/the-inevitability...
Sometimes systemic, competent purge the political rivals program is gud and what you want. But IMO US too young/stubborn, doesn't have institutional memory of REAL political crisis, nor humility to learn from history.
While I'm sure he doesn't catch all corruption and the CCP overall has selective enforcement, the reason they do have measures like this is in large part because of Xi Jinping's specific reputation and positioning.
"Similarly, Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews held assets worth over $1 billion in business investments and real estate"
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Un...
Far too often when you see stories about how someone was persecuted for corruption it boils down to "he stole from rich people".
You mean in China specifically? Otherwise there are some pretty harsh counterexamples to that "all".
Maybe, but they hit the rich. All the selective prosecution in the US hits those least able to resist.
The CCP derives a significant part of its legitimacy from improving quality of life and living standards for the common Han Chinese. Waste and fraud that harms consumers is a drag on this progress; the incentives somewhat align. Real economic harm often causes real political harm.
Corruption is, of course, universal. China has a corruption problem that will be eternally difficult to tackle from the top-down—local officials are notoriously much more corrupt than central ones. But in the west, we simply pretend to not have the issue at all, or we simply make it legal. I would prefer if our politicians or popular media could at least acknowledge this.
In Iran, Gaza, Russia (no no, it is not you, it is.. "Ukraine").
You are much worse than them, actually. Though believing yourself to be the light of civilization, soulless robots..
edit: some interesting trivia. Due to the combination of America's incarceration rate, a racist justice system, and a completely wealthless and desperate class of freed slaves who were never compensated (although their owners were), Black Americans are 0.5% of the world's population but 5% of the world's prison population.
no need to speculate, it's already happened. Zhou Yongkang who was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee (the highest governing body in Chinese politics) was prosecuted, and up until that point people at the top were considered relatively untouchable. Xi also axed the last to vice chairmen of the central military commission, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, that's the commander in chief of the PLA.
Are we really heralding purging political opponents as anti corruption? Imagine if Trump won and put Harris in jail.
it's not a question of "prosecute this one or the other person" - it's the choice between "prosecute this one or nobody"
thus celebration that at least something got done
Also, from a practical standpoint, charging some and not others is not necessarily better if the selection is made politically. That moves the needle from "at least something got done" to "law is just a tool of oppression".
> thus celebration that at least something got done
Is it really something to celebrate if:
1. Someone got sentenced to death because they lost some internal power struggle, and bribery was falsely used as the public reason?
2. The guy's getting killed as a scapegoat, or because he pissed off his superiors by not sharing more of his bribes, etc.?
Even that assumes a normal of being lucky that anything is prosecuted, ever. So it's good but against a low bar rather than rising to the bar parent commenter suggested.
I’m not a law expert but it seems pretty basic that there shouldn’t be irreversible punishment.
Also there should be equity which means everyone that does the same crime should face the same consequence, which doesn’t happen anywhere in the world as far as I can understand.
So harsher punishment means people with less power will get shafted harder
Of course, attempts are made to "reverse" even after someone had been put to death. Posthumous pardons are a thing. It may not bring anything to the person who has passed, but it could give somewhat similar benefits to living descendants.
It's just to say we shouldn't undermine how impactful something like incarceration is on the theory that it is "reversible". Evidence suggests such experiences mess people up in pretty severe ways. Lets also remember thinking of death in these distinct terms may be very cultural. Few penal systems escape barbarity. There are worse things than death. There are many instances or societies were it is preferable or expected people kill themselves rather than go through something like the ignominy of incarceration.
As to the last line, I'm also not sure. Brutal societies have a way of turning on themselves. Nations that accord more protections to their people are generally a better place for their rulers, even if the reverse is not always true. Personally I would love a legal system that baked into its norms higher punishments for people with more power. I think these have existed in the past, even if enforced through less modern mechanisms.
It is also the case that people in power do things that people with less power are incapable of. Getting rid of notions of executive privilege or qualified immunity would be a good start. The way the law is written currently, people in power won't simply not be punished - they won't even be charged. Take George Bush. Did he ever even just have to testify under oath about the rationale for the Iraq War once? Would the United States really descend into a banana republic if he had been charged for perjury or war crimes? It seems like the push in that direction can instead trace its genesis to the fact that in America, we evidently make our leaders untouchable.
I am not convinced. "You can no longer hold office" is a permanent punishment. Why should that not be allowed?
> Also there should be equity which means everyone that does the same crime should face the same consequence
I am also unconvinced. I don't think it is fair to treat a child like an adult and I think those in power should have more stringent standards and larger consequences for violating them.
Let's say that some new evidence comes out that exonerates the person. You can indeed reverse the "no longer hold office" punishment. You can't bring someone back from the dead.
I agree with you, but we also can't reverse entropy.
Everyone in China knows how dynasties end.
You can’t squeeze blood from a brick. At a certain point, you need to tolerate a little messiness to optimize societal growth.
Think of it as a dial you can turn clockwise or counterclockwise:
Security <——> Freedom
A healthy society would have good feedback mechanisms that allow it to change the dial of the government in power, to adjust to the current situation. Obviously, there’s no one optimal position; to use a historical example: Churchill was great for Britain during WW2, and immediately elected out afterwards.
The problem is, if they dont like their governance they cant trade it back for their freedom.
The way the mainstream media freaked out about him asking Bill O'Reilly, "what, you think our country is so innocent?" is a good example. Or saying we're in Venezuela for oil at the outset. Or talking about how they killed so many Iranians they don't even know who they are negotiating with anymore. I mean at least we didn't have to suffer through fumbling Bushisms about freedom. If the day ever comes when presidents are held to the same standards as the people, then ironically in many regards we will have to at least give him some points for honesty... it is quite sad how he is the only person to succeed to such an extent on such an "outsider", really anticorruption message ("drain the swamp"), then turn around and do the same thing. I think it is probably related to the core problem of American society - the doublespeak, the dual consciousness, the resistance to self reflection. People don't want honest answers - including to their own complicity (who elected these people anyway?). They want slogans. The results are sad, but predictable. A society that elects (and then worse, reelects) someone like Trump to end corruption is clearly a society that cannot look itself in the mirror. The same goes for the other side of the aisle. The "democracy" party that has no primaries and says it's either "fascism" or geriatric grandpa. We take this election very seriously that is why we have nominated a corpse. Don't mention it or you're a fascist. No you don't get another choice. Vote for us or democracy dies...
Sad... maybe if politics was a venue where people weren't punished for being honest we wouldn't have such low quality politicians. Brings to mind the George Carlin line:
That would be a nice realistic campaign slogan for somebody: 'The public sucks. Elect me.'"
The west is inundated with simplistic anti-chinese propaganda, so you would never perceive it as such, the way it would be presented to you in the west is as the evil dictator Xi Jingping purging his opposition, for instance:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41670162
This is single party autocracy, no matter how much people cry about propaganda.
You don't understand how calling you a victim of propaganda is me being charitable, I could've also called you a typical western ignorant sinophobe.
There's no evidence that Xi Jinping is like Putin (who has enriched himself to abe unknown but expectedly high dgree), no evidence the military generals have enriched themselves with corruption (again, like Russia) or really anything else. Instead there's evidence that the likes of Jack Ma, a billionaire, are brought to heel, China has cracked down on so-called yin-yang contracts, sentenced to death people who messed with the baby formula supply chain and so on.
People really should reflect on why they're so willing to seek confirmation bias and why they have that bias at all.
Here's a tip: if you take anything China says or does at face value you will be more correct than 95% of the China "experts" that have entrenched themselves in the media and Western policy circles.
It will have the same answer, no
who would be able to prosecute them and how?
who would even investigate them
Is he dumb? Surely he is smart enough to know he committed a capital crime and yet he kept doing it. Perhaps he only kept doing it because he believed he could somehow get away with it? Perhaps he saw others pull off the same stunt? Or perhaps he had the political capital to keep himself out of trouble and is now facing justice because he rubbed someone higher up the wrong way?
Is the prosecution dumb? 300 million is no small money are they really so incompetent that over the course of 30 years they could not find anything wrong with this guy? Perhaps they had a reason to keep him around? Perhaps he had them in his pocket? Perhaps he had the connection to fuck up anyone who dares investigating him? Perhaps they never meant to care about corruption anyway and only went after him because someone somewhere issued an order and they are just charging him for corruption because the true reason is less convenient?
China has invested a lot in whitewashing its public image these days. Every young left leaning westerner is salivating at the idea of a Chinese century because they somehow convinced themselves that the Chinese has the solution to everything that went wrong in the west. It's sad to see it spreading even to this website.
This guy did it over 30 years so it is feasible.
Scapegoat isn't the right term but I think it is very possible he is being executed to essentially send a message. I think your bigger point that there are way more corrupt officials than just this guy involved seems very plausible.
The GDP of the city was 278.9 billion USD in 2025.
One thing that China does should be adopted in the West.
is it prone to abuse by those who yield power - Yes!
however - the alternative - where corruption goes unchecked is even worse!! if you come from a poor country e.g in Africa - you would've experienced the effects of corruption.
American are now experiencing it now - & the country is already worse off. though before corruption in American was used as an incentive mechanism - now it's just pure grift.
so yeah sentencing one or two people to death explicitly is the humane outcome vs sentencing thousands to death implicitly.
We don't need death sentence, we just need, like, any regular sentence
He got away with it for 30 years. That shows at least some level of craftiness.
And once you've taken the first bribe, they now have leverage.
You should come to [insert your favourite EU country here].
They'll basically be your friends, partners and coworkers. Making a sudden change in how you associate with each other can have rather negative consequences, ranging from anxiety to them trying to murder you.
It's a mentality where you can't stop.
And that’s if they’re ever charged at all, which is rare.
For instance, high level executive Bryan Malinowski was executed by the ATF and barely anyone noticed, but if the courts had sentenced him in such way, there would be great outrage.
He was shot after opening fire, unprovoked, on federal agents performing a search of his home under a lawfully obtained warrant.
* the ATF decided not to raid his home when he was out of town but early in the morning when he was at home
* the ATF gave him 28 seconds to comply with their announcement after which they battered the door down
Given the fact that the agents weren't wearing body cameras, the guy had a normal day job that he'd go to, and that 28 seconds is certainly too short to dispose of firearms it does seem a lot like execution served by way of search warrant. Certainly, I wouldn't be able to let anyone in 28 s after waking up to pounding on my door.
Tariffs on all things Chinese is pretty much an open admission that the West can't compete.
1. strong defensive positions float to the top... which could be astroturfing.
2. the merits of the concept aren't discussed; the convo falls back to whataboutism.
maybe it's all fair, but on a site where everyone's ~anonymous, it's hard to take the discussion at face value.
- Many people feel the death penalty is wrong in every case.
- Some have a general familiarity with high-level politics of elites and wonder about selective enforcement.
These don’t feel like they’re in bad faith. The merits are difficult to know from the outside, so there will always be speculation based on someone’s lived experience and perceptions. Better to have those aired with a chance to respond, in my opinion.
Especially for China, since it is a global power that operates differently from others. In my own country (United States), for example, we have brazenly open corruption with no consequences.
then, re-read my comment:
> the merits of the concept aren't discussed; the convo falls back to whataboutism.
…juxtaposed to your conclusion:
> In my own country (United States), for example, we have brazenly open corruption with no consequences.
fwiw, i too feel that the death penalty is wrong. but, that's answering an off topic survey question.
i should also note that you've gotten pushback on your comment above declaring that "Xi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption". my issue is that there's a narrative that forms based on up/downvotes and thus these political threads are gamed. kinda like how my concerns about legitimacy are being downvoted – that's to be expected.
Society cannot work with too many corrupt civil servants. Yes, "autocrats", "civil liberties", and yet - the guy slurped up $325M to put his finger on the scale, not to change the model of governance.
I wish we in the west took corruption more seriously, but I suppose we're more interested in cage fights on the lawn these days.