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China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

bbc.com

201–210 of 523 posts

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#201
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

people have been making similar predictions about the US and soccer since I was a kid. Youth soccer is incredibly popular yet...

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#202
post #43

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...

I'm not saying that those guys weren't corrupt, but that's a classic authoritarian pattern. Purging anybody who might potentially in the future be a threat to your rule is step two in any authoritarian playbook. Were they perchance replaced with unambitious yes men?

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#203
post #115

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…

> If you get charged

FTFY

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#204

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's been anticorruption for 10+ years, CCDI has prosecuted MILLIONs, including his own faction/clique i.e. even Xi doesn't have that much enemies. Westoids just can't fathom it's simply a systematic, competent drain the swamp program designed to change culture an work through the huge backlog of illict behavior form 30+ years of under regulated development.

It's a systematic, competent purge the political rivals program.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#205
post #115

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…

> You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#206
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

people have been making similar predictions about the US and soccer since I was a kid. Youth soccer is incredibly popular yet...

Youth Soccer is popular, but at least in my experience, most of the top athletes in school will leave soccer for the big 3 as a focus sport Football/Basketball/Baseball. If they are very good, those are much more likely to give scholarships as well. Soccer is much more popular with the middle to upper middle class suburbia kids, who might also be playing other sports, but are not treating it as a career. Maybe theyll play soccer in college, but their Major is still Finance.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

Generally in a federal prison for non-violent offenders.

on edit: In the U.S obviously, in Western European nations I would assume better conditions than that even.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t buy your way out if you do something Not with money.

It's also not like the West doesn't impose extremely harsh punishments on the top financial crimes. You can go away for life if you steal enough money.

Right, cough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli, cough.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero tolerance" and "we catch every criminal" are two unrelated ideas.

The thing they have zero tolerance for is the embarrassment, not the corruption, pollution, crime, or other abuse. You can do whatever you can get away with so long as you don't cause embarrassment or shame.

That's one of the big cultural differences that people from the West don't really get - that "saving face" is one of the core concepts that Eastern societies are built on - not the actual things that, when discovered, cause you to lose face (e.g. corruption).
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