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

bbc.com

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

#231

Post by mothballed »

lux-lux-lux wrote: post #227
mothballed wrote: post #2

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.

> executed He was shot after opening fire, unprovoked, on federal agents performing a search of his home under a lawfully obtained warrant.

Willingly and with aforethought engineering a situation that is practically guaranteed provoke an asleep person with ~no notice in the early morning to "unprovoked" defend themselves and wife against unknown people breaking into their home in order to lawfully "defend" one's self is execution in my book.

I can understand if there's some imminent threat but there was none. He was going to wake up, and report to a secure airport full of cops and federal agents. But they couldn't resist engineering a situation that ended up with him dead, doing what anyone would do to protect their wife when given ~zero time to distinguish threats entering their home at night.

Now you can argue maybe it wasn't an execution, and only their acts were indistinguishable from what those doing an execution would do.

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

#232

Post by asdfman123 »

mrandish wrote: post #219
TrackerFF wrote: post #8

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?

> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing 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 cent…

It's like unlimited PTO. Take a reasonable amount of PTO and you're fine, but if you actually treat it as unlimited then you'll get fired.

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

#233

Post by hbd-investor »

TrackerFF wrote: post #8

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?

As opposed to the US where even if white collar criminals are caught and punished they get pardoned by Biden or Trump, Obama, etc... Every US president has pardoned white collar criminals

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

#235

Post by ajam1507 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #207
echelon wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like the appropriate place for a non-violent offender.

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

#236

Post by blaufuchs »

throw10920 wrote: post #209
observationist wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yeah it’s pretty funny how worked up the CCP get when they’re called out. “How dare you accuse us of launching a spy balloon?”. Whereas Russia hits you with the “oh those aren’t FSB agents, just lovers on vacation ;)”

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

#237

Post by jr3592 »

tyre wrote: post #78
TrackerFF wrote: post #8

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 foo…

Absolutely love it. The West could take some notes. And to those who would jump to downvote, ask yourself why one country is on the rise, and the other is in a drain spiral.

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

#239

Post by RajT88 »

Danox wrote: 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…

The smart ones quit while they are ahead and procure citizenship somewhere else (like Canada).

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

#240

Post by ToucanLoucan »

trhway wrote: post #161
nekusar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US folks will contort to the extremes about any discussion of gross illegal conduct in China. This guy took $325M in bribes, embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering. And he did this as a public servant for over 30 years. I say good on China for attacking such brazen corruption so directly. Violating the public trust should be extremely harsh.

>And he did this as a public servant for over 30 years. and it was discovered just now? May it be that he played exactly by the rules, the real rules, of the regime - corruption being among the foundational rules of it - and thus it was going for 30 years? And right now he just got his turn like it usually happens in totalitarian regimes. The regime will for show find an excuse to execute you if you got your turn, co…

> and it was discovered just now? May it be that he played exactly by the rules, the real rules, of the regime - corruption being among the foundational rules of it - and thus it was going for 30 years? And right now he just got his turn like it usually happens in totalitarian regimes. The regime will for show find an excuse to execute you if you got your turn, corruption is just the easiest one.

Yeah, that would be wild if any of that completely unsubstantiated conjecture, bordering on fan-fiction, was what actually happened.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

White collar criminals often get caught later in their "careers" precisely because they do it for years and years and years without being caught. They get complacent. They get messy. Each round of embezzlement leads to a larger body of evidence that exists somewhere that becomes more and more damning as time goes on.

> The regime wouldn't want to create impression of political disunity among the officials.

In this thread we have dozens of examples of political officials being prosecuted. I'd strongly suggest you park your McCarthyism, take a break, perhaps go for a nice walk.

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