The antifreeze toothpaste people didn’t get away with it, nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant that was one of the largest industrial catastrophes in the world let alone China.
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.
I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west.
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?
Xi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption. As others have noted, some of the highest civilian and military officials have been removed for it. Some sentenced to death.
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.
>He sees it as a challenge to his legitimacy and China’s power
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.”
>> basic liberties we take for granted in the West are considered corruption
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:
As Stalin demonstrated even when you're totally loyal, you're still frequently made victim of the terror.
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 themselves safety 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.
tbh my take as someone who follows sports heavily: China is just not good at team sports. If we consider the most relevant ones (part of the Olympics games):
- 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.
China will probably be a contender in like 20 years for basketball. Basketball is incredibly popular, and the average male height has grown significantly as they embraced Capitalism.
Xi Jinping rose to power on a message of anti-corruption, and part of the reason he remains in power on an indefinite term is by presenting himself as the "only trusted" person to maintain anti-corruption amongst all the factions.
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.
All presidents rise to power on a message of anti-corruption, they all clean house when they start in office but usually it falls off until the next president takes over. The problem Xi has is that now that he is now president for life, the house isn't getting cleaned in the usual way every 10 years; he has to do a corruption purge every so often or things will get grimey.
Inner circle members of the CCP are the first to fall because their competitors wouldn't dare not use it against them. The whole Bo Xilai mess a decade and a half ago is a good example of that.
I think the way to determine how real this is: is the corruption allowed to damage the real economy? Most of the problems of Africa and South America are linked to that answer being "yes".
Are you claiming Europe is not obviously corrupt? Or Latin America? Or Korea, or Japan? I can't speak to Australia or New Zealand, I suppose.
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.
And not just because corruption has some "indirect taxation" effect, but also because low corruption/trust is a big enabler for a society.
You are never gonna get rid of clannish mentality, vigilantism, nepotism and other undesirable behavior if your citizens don't have any trust in the system.
Europe is prosecuting the Epstein Pedos. Trump is protecting his friends
Corruption is everywhere and varies in degree. The US likes to claim a mantle of superiority when it seems quite the opposite. We have a bully/greatest conman ever in the white house
Price Andrew got a name change, but hasn’t had any real penalty to date. He had the Queen protecting him.
Mandelson probably will end up in court but it won’t be for anything related to child abuse.
Probably not but it's hard to really pin this down. On the one hand, China's rise has in the recent past has been phenomenal but that kind of rapid cleanup has always been accompanied by repression and destruction of political rivals. So. perhaps a bit of both.
Even if it's politically motivated, it's still punishment for a real and serious crime. Compare to prosecuting someone for touching a pool that the president happens to really care about for no good reason.
These are mainly political purges dressed up as “anti corruption drives”. Not ideal, but at least someone high up is getting punished compared to slaps on the wrist in the West.
Not everything that Chinese leadership does is perfect, they have made mistakes, but overall, leadership that is openly like "we need to maintain a tight control over the population for stability" is generally more trustworthy than that campaigns on freedom and small government only to get in power and make themselves richer.
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.
This often gets missed. Of course, it can be repulsive. But I sort of appreciate how honest other societies are about their social problems. In the United States there is a lot of doublespeak. The current president is actually quite refreshing in this regard, or at least was for a time.
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.'"
>Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing
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.
The Zhou Yongkang incident happened over a decade ago, it happened in roughly the first year of Xi Jinping's tenure, Zhou Yongkang was a supporter of the also-purged Bo Xilai, and while he was still in power he ran the department responsible for internal security. I don't doubt the guy was corrupt but this is exactly the sort of target you go after if you want to maintain your own grip on power.
Trump definitely thought about doing that, but even the judges he appointed wouldn't go for it. He still talks about putting Obama in jail for reasons.
We improve it by ensuring the same people don't dominate the justice system and that prosecutions still happen whenever they don't. It was Biden's and his AG's job to do something about this and he fumbled.
I understand that perspective to some degree, but imagine a hypothetical country with say, two parties in power, where prosecutors only crack down on white collar criminals if they are supporters of one party and not the other. We would call that system corrupt, and probably not celebrate that at least some of the criminals face justice.
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".
To unfuck a system like that you have to have a clean reset of sorts. It will feel unjust because past criminals will all go free, but you have to prioritize future stability. You offer amnesty for past crimes in exchange for absolute transparency and massive structure reforms moving forward.
Or, you do what the democratic party in the US has been afraid to do: Rip the bandaid off, accusations of weaponization of the DOJ be damned. The parent's hypothetical situation is precisely what is happening in the US right now where Garland failed to prosecute, and the entire democratic party was far too afraid of appearing to weaponize the justice system meanwhile the opposition has no qualms about doing so. Yes, the public will view it as entirely partisan but there's no other path forward.
But if you just do nothing at all, eventually the social contract breaks. The cost of the corruption becomes too high and the state fails, or you get a forced regime change.
> 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?
> 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.?
>it's the choice between "prosecute this one or nobody"
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.
Killing people in any context is barbaric because it is not possible to bring someone back from the dead.
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
Just to be clear - you can't really "reverse" most things. The arrow of time only moves in one direction. People who are jailed and then exonerated do not have their lives "reversed". Their future circumstances are changed. Maybe they are compensated. But they still suffered in jail. You cannot erase that part of their reality anymore than you can raise the dead. This is not to discount your point that making amends while someone is still alive is seen as preferable.
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 pass, 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.
> I am not convinced. "You can no longer hold office" is a permanent punishment. Why should that not be allowed?
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.
Le sigh. Fine, the punishment was you forfeit your chickens to your neighbor. Should those chickens be inedible by the new legal owner? What if they have to return them later if new evidence comes to light?
Chickens are basically fungible and interchangeable with money.
You can't select some random person and do a bit of bureaucracy and then tell a family whose member you killed that this rando is now part of their family as restitution for your mistake. You can give them money but in general it is considered somewhat distasteful to put an immediate pecuniary value on human life.
So what is the alternative punishment for folks like this who have destroyed the lives of countless people ? Hard labour for life in a mine until death ?
> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?
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:
Correct, so long as there is a state controlled media and no independent media and we can only speculate on where people who have “disappeared” from public view are, this is exactly the position everyone should hold.
This is single party autocracy, no matter how much people cry about propaganda.
It's a complex system of layers of representatives being elected on the local level, various institutions and levels of governance that you know literally nothing about and yet has been incredibly successful at uplifting it's people. In the simple mind of the western chauvinist this rich five thousand year old culture and complex society with good and bad, gets flattened into antagonistic slogans like "single party autocracy".
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.
It's fascinating to see the effects of anti-China propaganda. There are plenty of stories about China cracking down on corruptiojn yet people need to do contortions to make this anti-China somehow.
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.
What happens to the money in these cases? I could imagine the official taking solace knowing the money he amassed over the years would eventually go his family.
Hang on. City level officials play an incredibly important role in China. While Nanjing is not in the same tier as Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen, it is in the tier just below them. It is the provincial capital of one of China's most important provinces -- GDP similar to Texas. Many large Chinese companies are often tied to specific cities -- they get grants and subsidies via the city they are located in.
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.
That's not how this works. It really depends on how close you are to a position, where people might want to bribe you. Low provincial officials with direct ties to local land development might e.g. be able to take many more bribes than a highly ranked official in an office that is far removed from economic activity.
Nah he took the bribes and probably paid 90% upward/laterally. Being the guy that actually takes the bribe is likely part of how he got promoted to where he is, in a way, like a soldier who gets promoted for being a calculated risk taker.
I don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality. Everyone who enabled you wants more and you have a semi-permanent metaphorical sword hanging over your head.
This kind of crime means you develop a network around you that won't stop having expectations of you just because you think you have enough for your eventual retirement.
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.
I think your logic makes sense, if this was both logical and about the money. But it seems to be more about greed, discontentment, and "more". There is no limit to "more".
Yup, it's called greed. It's a part of human nature. That's one reason societies create laws and penalties: to discourage harmful behavior and keep that instinct in check.
Main difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse.
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.
The US is very good if you're very rich or extremely poor. It's bad for everyone else. China appears to be somewhat bad or critical of the superrich, which is why they want to come to the US, but good if you're middle class or poor.
If we actually punished corrupt officials and we had some kind of truth serum that forced people to admit yes/no as to whether they are corrupt, I would not be surprised if the majority of officials in the federal government would be culled. Its practically a breeding ground for corruption.
The topic comment at the time I’m writing this is asking fair questions, in my opinion.
- 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.
> 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.
The antifreeze toothpaste people didn’t get away with it, nor did the 3000 pigs in the river people, and nor did that one group of executives who were in charge of a fertilizer/chemical plant that was one of the largest industrial catastrophes in the world let alone China.
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...
> You can’t buy your way out if you do something
Not with money.
You're only hearing about the ones caught and punished. You have no proof of "Zero tolerance", or of what percentage of people are caught.
"Zero tolerance" and "we catch every criminal" are two unrelated ideas.
I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west.
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?
5 of the 7 highest ranking officials have been purged in recent years [1].
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...
Russia is even tougher on corrupt oligarchs
No, Russia is tough on oligarchs that split from Putin. There is no non-corrupt oligarch.
Yes and that's also exactly how Xi deals with illoyal people in China - just accuse them of "corruption". It's the authoritarian playbook.
[delayed]
Xi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption. As others have noted, some of the highest civilian and military officials have been removed for it. Some sentenced to death.
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.
>He sees it as a challenge to his legitimacy and China’s power
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.”
That may well be true, but that hardly applies to the current case of taking $325M in bribes
>> basic liberties we take for granted in the West are considered corruption
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...
As Stalin demonstrated even when you're totally loyal, you're still frequently made victim of the terror.
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 themselves safety 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.
tbh my take as someone who follows sports heavily: China is just not good at team sports. If we consider the most relevant ones (part of the Olympics games):
- 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.
China will probably be a contender in like 20 years for basketball. Basketball is incredibly popular, and the average male height has grown significantly as they embraced Capitalism.
Xi Jinping rose to power on a message of anti-corruption, and part of the reason he remains in power on an indefinite term is by presenting himself as the "only trusted" person to maintain anti-corruption amongst all the factions.
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.
All presidents rise to power on a message of anti-corruption, they all clean house when they start in office but usually it falls off until the next president takes over. The problem Xi has is that now that he is now president for life, the house isn't getting cleaned in the usual way every 10 years; he has to do a corruption purge every so often or things will get grimey.
You seem to be circling the issue. Corruption can mean anything from taking bribes to exerting influence that is outside Xi’s interests.
Inner circle members of the CCP are the first to fall because their competitors wouldn't dare not use it against them. The whole Bo Xilai mess a decade and a half ago is a good example of that.
I think the way to determine how real this is: is the corruption allowed to damage the real economy? Most of the problems of Africa and South America are linked to that answer being "yes".
At least they try to appear anti-corruption—that's certainly more than you can say about the west.
Don't confuse "the west" with the US. The US is less than half of "the west".
Are you claiming Europe is not obviously corrupt? Or Latin America? Or Korea, or Japan? I can't speak to Australia or New Zealand, I suppose.
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.
> Corruption is, of course, universal.
So is crime. But it's all about prevalence.
And not just because corruption has some "indirect taxation" effect, but also because low corruption/trust is a big enabler for a society.
You are never gonna get rid of clannish mentality, vigilantism, nepotism and other undesirable behavior if your citizens don't have any trust in the system.
If you just look at e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Corruptio...
you will see that the spread is very wide, and China/India is significantly behind most western nations.
You are shifting the goalposts. You first said "at least they try to appear anti-corruption".
This thing about not caring about appearances is new. (And also the only thing I commented about.)
Europe is prosecuting the Epstein Pedos. Trump is protecting his friends
Corruption is everywhere and varies in degree. The US likes to claim a mantle of superiority when it seems quite the opposite. We have a bully/greatest conman ever in the white house
> Europe is prosecuting the Epstein Pedos.
Are they?
Price Andrew got a name change, but hasn’t had any real penalty to date. He had the Queen protecting him. Mandelson probably will end up in court but it won’t be for anything related to child abuse.
> Price Andrew got a name change, but hasn’t had any real penalty to date.
For the British Royals, I suspect becoming persona non grata is more impactful than a jail sentence.
More impactful than prison? Nah. Why not both?
> More impactful than prison?
Class-based systems get pretty weird at the top.
They're not wrong. It's definitely spread throughout EU too.
Probably not but it's hard to really pin this down. On the one hand, China's rise has in the recent past has been phenomenal but that kind of rapid cleanup has always been accompanied by repression and destruction of political rivals. So. perhaps a bit of both.
Corruption endangers the CCP rule and weakens China why would they not self purge?
Everyone in China knows how dynasties end.
Has the dictator been removed for it? Someone cherished by them? Or are we to assume those are impollute?
Even if it's politically motivated, it's still punishment for a real and serious crime. Compare to prosecuting someone for touching a pool that the president happens to really care about for no good reason.
These are mainly political purges dressed up as “anti corruption drives”. Not ideal, but at least someone high up is getting punished compared to slaps on the wrist in the West.
Not everything that Chinese leadership does is perfect, they have made mistakes, but overall, leadership that is openly like "we need to maintain a tight control over the population for stability" is generally more trustworthy than that campaigns on freedom and small government only to get in power and make themselves richer.
Only if society needs more security.
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.
Yes. The Chinese people trade freedom for good governance.
The problem is, if they dont like their governance they cant trade it back for their freedom.
Sure they can. That's how they got this government.
This often gets missed. Of course, it can be repulsive. But I sort of appreciate how honest other societies are about their social problems. In the United States there is a lot of doublespeak. The current president is actually quite refreshing in this regard, or at least was for a time.
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.'"
>Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing
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.
The Zhou Yongkang incident happened over a decade ago, it happened in roughly the first year of Xi Jinping's tenure, Zhou Yongkang was a supporter of the also-purged Bo Xilai, and while he was still in power he ran the department responsible for internal security. I don't doubt the guy was corrupt but this is exactly the sort of target you go after if you want to maintain your own grip on power.
Isnt that just the winning end of corruption?
Are we really heralding purging political opponents as anti corruption? Imagine if Trump won and put Harris in jail.
I think we're in agreement, I was trying to dispute the GP's portrayal of the purges but maybe my intent was not clear.
> Imagine if Trump won and put Harris in jail.
Trump definitely thought about doing that, but even the judges he appointed wouldn't go for it. He still talks about putting Obama in jail for reasons.
A win is a win. Could there be more wins? Glass is half full.
You can ask the same about inner circle of current US leadership
It will have the same answer, no
who would be able to prosecute them and how?
who would even investigate them
Yeah but that’s bad right
The Achilles heel of all whataboutism is assuming someone can't consistently criticize the new thing in addition to the original thing.
It's not whataboutism if you point out question was naive. (answer is the same everywhere and has always been the same)
Inner circle leadership won't be prosecuted anywhere as long as their group holds some power.
So, then, question is, how can this be improved?, can it be improved?
We improve it by ensuring the same people don't dominate the justice system and that prosecutions still happen whenever they don't. It was Biden's and his AG's job to do something about this and he fumbled.
of course
You're trying to approach from the wrong side
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
I understand that perspective to some degree, but imagine a hypothetical country with say, two parties in power, where prosecutors only crack down on white collar criminals if they are supporters of one party and not the other. We would call that system corrupt, and probably not celebrate that at least some of the criminals face justice.
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".
How else do you propose a system that is fucked like that ever gets unfucked?
To unfuck a system like that you have to have a clean reset of sorts. It will feel unjust because past criminals will all go free, but you have to prioritize future stability. You offer amnesty for past crimes in exchange for absolute transparency and massive structure reforms moving forward.
Or, you do what the democratic party in the US has been afraid to do: Rip the bandaid off, accusations of weaponization of the DOJ be damned. The parent's hypothetical situation is precisely what is happening in the US right now where Garland failed to prosecute, and the entire democratic party was far too afraid of appearing to weaponize the justice system meanwhile the opposition has no qualms about doing so. Yes, the public will view it as entirely partisan but there's no other path forward.
But if you just do nothing at all, eventually the social contract breaks. The cost of the corruption becomes too high and the state fails, or you get a forced regime change.
You start with one party - doesn't matter which - getting in power, and then prosecuting corruption on both sides, not just on the other side.
> 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?
> 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.?
>it's the choice between "prosecute this one or nobody"
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.
The top is already pushed with prisoner for life. In a tiered society a well functioning country focuses on the tier that is current bottleneck.
Killing people in any context is barbaric because it is not possible to bring someone back from the dead.
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
Just to be clear - you can't really "reverse" most things. The arrow of time only moves in one direction. People who are jailed and then exonerated do not have their lives "reversed". Their future circumstances are changed. Maybe they are compensated. But they still suffered in jail. You cannot erase that part of their reality anymore than you can raise the dead. This is not to discount your point that making amends while someone is still alive is seen as preferable.
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 pass, 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.
> there shouldn’t be irreversible punishment
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.
> I am not convinced. "You can no longer hold office" is a permanent punishment. Why should that not be allowed?
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.
Le sigh. Fine, the punishment was you forfeit your chickens to your neighbor. Should those chickens be inedible by the new legal owner? What if they have to return them later if new evidence comes to light?
Chickens are basically fungible and interchangeable with money.
You can't select some random person and do a bit of bureaucracy and then tell a family whose member you killed that this rando is now part of their family as restitution for your mistake. You can give them money but in general it is considered somewhat distasteful to put an immediate pecuniary value on human life.
barbaric is society which has half of the worlwide population living with less than 6 USD per day in borderline slavery
barbaric is society which has 1% of its adult population living behind bars
Objection: relevance
So what is the alternative punishment for folks like this who have destroyed the lives of countless people ? Hard labour for life in a mine until death ?
> I’m not a law expert but it seems pretty basic that there shouldn’t be irreversible punishment.
I agree with you, but we also can't reverse entropy.
> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?
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
Correct, so long as there is a state controlled media and no independent media and we can only speculate on where people who have “disappeared” from public view are, this is exactly the position everyone should hold.
This is single party autocracy, no matter how much people cry about propaganda.
It's a complex system of layers of representatives being elected on the local level, various institutions and levels of governance that you know literally nothing about and yet has been incredibly successful at uplifting it's people. In the simple mind of the western chauvinist this rich five thousand year old culture and complex society with good and bad, gets flattened into antagonistic slogans like "single party autocracy".
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.
It's fascinating to see the effects of anti-China propaganda. There are plenty of stories about China cracking down on corruptiojn yet people need to do contortions to make this anti-China somehow.
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.
What happens to the money in these cases? I could imagine the official taking solace knowing the money he amassed over the years would eventually go his family.
Exfiltrated to Vancouver or London where the wife and kids live most likely.
Until his family receives the bill for the bullet of $325M
A relatively low level official can't take this much bribes. More like a scapegoat.
Hang on. City level officials play an incredibly important role in China. While Nanjing is not in the same tier as Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen, it is in the tier just below them. It is the provincial capital of one of China's most important provinces -- GDP similar to Texas. Many large Chinese companies are often tied to specific cities -- they get grants and subsidies via the city they are located in.
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.
Just to add more context to this - he accepted ~$10 million a year while managing a city that has a population larger than New York City.
The GDP of the city was 278.9 billion USD in 2025.
It's not outside the realm of possibility for the positions he occupied. But yes, corruption is selectively cracked down upon in China
That's not how this works. It really depends on how close you are to a position, where people might want to bribe you. Low provincial officials with direct ties to local land development might e.g. be able to take many more bribes than a highly ranked official in an office that is far removed from economic activity.
Over thirty years? I am surprised he didn't take more.
Nah he took the bribes and probably paid 90% upward/laterally. Being the guy that actually takes the bribe is likely part of how he got promoted to where he is, in a way, like a soldier who gets promoted for being a calculated risk taker.
I wonder if he could have lived if it was just one $325M bribe and not 30 years of bribery.
It's a shame we relabelled corruption as lobbying. The damage it has done is untold.
One thing that China does should be adopted in the West.
I don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality. Everyone who enabled you wants more and you have a semi-permanent metaphorical sword hanging over your head.
Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality.
He got away with it for 30 years. That shows at least some level of craftiness.
Or you use your single digit millions of currency to buy an island and retire for a decade or two while everyone forgets you exist
One does not simply move money out of China
The options increase when you’re already breaking the law.
They will send people after you at some point like they did to Vadym Yermolaiev
Cryptocurrency or GPUs. Both are fairly easy to obtain and even easier to move out.
> Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality.
You should come to [insert your favourite EU country here].
People get away with this all the time—you just only hear about the stupid ones.
$2 million in cash flushed down the toilet, manually, that clogged the sanitation system was a very stupid funny one.
The culture of bribes is a bit different in China. 'Mutually assured corruption' describes the situation better.
This kind of crime means you develop a network around you that won't stop having expectations of you just because you think you have enough for your eventual retirement.
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.
I think your logic makes sense, if this was both logical and about the money. But it seems to be more about greed, discontentment, and "more". There is no limit to "more".
It's the wielding of power which is intoxicating, the monetary amount just illustrates how many decisions he could personally influence.
It's called greed, as you aptly pointed out.
This is load bearing guanxi
Once you start high-profile criminal activity you have to keep doing it to pay off the right people, as soon as you retire you're fucked.
Think of Breaking Bad. His wife literally asked him this same question. When is it enough?
It's a mentality where you can't stop.
Yup, it's called greed. It's a part of human nature. That's one reason societies create laws and penalties: to discourage harmful behavior and keep that instinct in check.
Breaking Bad is a work of fiction.
We should do this in USA
Main difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse.
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.
The US is very good if you're very rich or extremely poor. It's bad for everyone else. China appears to be somewhat bad or critical of the superrich, which is why they want to come to the US, but good if you're middle class or poor.
please elaborate on how the US is very good for those who are extremely poor? social safety net?
This is so true
Imagine if the US punished its corrupt officials. It might have to kill its own president.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
If we actually punished corrupt officials and we had some kind of truth serum that forced people to admit yes/no as to whether they are corrupt, I would not be surprised if the majority of officials in the federal government would be culled. Its practically a breeding ground for corruption.
What do you count as "officials"? I doubt some random manager at the FAA or CFPB took bribes. The rank and file tend to take this stuff seriously.
The high-level appointees? Yeah, I'd believe it if most of them had to go. And good riddance to them if they did.
That's a bit harsh. It's not like he took a $400 million jet.
Corruption is the most significant threat China has left now that Western capitalism has surrendered.
Tariffs on all things Chinese is pretty much an open admission that the West can't compete.
the reason i dislike seeing these articles on HN is that:
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.
The topic comment at the time I’m writing this is asking fair questions, in my opinion.
- 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.
first, look beyond the top comment.
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.
Most people here are anonymous, for all the discussions. Either trust that your fellow HNers are legitimate, or… ?
Good for China.
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.
Wonder who this guy pissed off in the CCP.