Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 523 posts

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

#351

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Aunche wrote: post #296
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…

> If you get caught in China, Vietnam, or Singapore the penalties for white collar criminals is zero tolerance. LOL. Bribery is basically required in China for anyone with a medium sized business. Otherwise, you'll be indefinitely blocked by a bureaucrat who has no incentive to help you. Departments in municipal governments are often underfunded and bribery makes up for a significant portion of their effective payrol…

Facilitation payment are usually considered the less egregious kinds of bribery, some may be considered acceptable in a culture, and there can be a whole etiquette to it.

In some countries, doctors or surgeons are severely underpaid and it would be customary for a well off citizen to bring them a gift or a cash summ before an important surgery.

That’s quite different from Kickbacks (rampant in UK leaseholds by the way), etc.

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

#352

Post by defrost »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #336
nkmnz wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Killing people" is not required for committing a genocide: Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: 2.1 Killing memb…

Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Nobody destroyed any groups. There was a big overreaction that violated people's rights but the people still exist and are fine. If we contrast with how the West have reacted to terror attacks, its quite rich to see them throwing UN definitions at China.

> Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly.

Honest question here;

is it a traditional Uyghur owned and managed restaurant freely frequented by local Uyghurs as a living expression of past and ongoing Uyghur culture, or

is it more a Disney "themed Uyghur restaurant" with the same relationship to Uyghur culture as Outback Steakhouse has to actual IRL Australian food and culture (ie three tenths of f-all).

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

#353

Post by Jblx2 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #305
guywithahat wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your confusion comes from the fact this wasn't a protest gone awry, it was an organized domestic terrorist attack. It was a small group of armed people in body armor who privately organized a domestic terrorist attack intending to cause damage and hurt/kill federal officers in an ambush. The only reason the officer lived was because Song's gun jammed before he could kill people and get away. Certainly if this…

This guy carried out an organized domestic terrorist attack with help from others, actually killed someone as well as badly injuring another, and got only 41 years. Why the disparity? The Federal Building where he murdered the security guard is just an administrative building; at least the people in Texas were motivated by the somewhat reasonable belief that they were attacking guards at a concentration camp. https:/…

>a concentration camp

Most people at these facilities can leave at any time, right? Just so long as it isn't back into the United States? They can return to their country of origin, or another country. I'm sure someone will offer a correction if this particular facility was holding people for other crimes in addition to their unauthorized alien status.

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

#354

Post by ClumsyPilot »

reinitctxoffset wrote: post #324
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…

In the 90s and 00s when I was a kid, being a crook had real consequences here too. Not the death penalty per second, but the die in prison penalty left and right. When John Meriweather and the rest of LTCM nearly blew up the market they didn't get a bailout, and the taxpayer didn't fund the hole in the balance sheet. The New York Fed organized private money and leaned on all their counterparties to get it done, but t…

> we had shame back then

The collapse of our standards has been heartbreaking to see and I am observing that most are simply in denial.

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

#355

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mmooss wrote: post #334
reinitctxoffset wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 90s and 00s when I was a kid, being a crook had real consequences here too. Not the death penalty per second, but the die in prison penalty left and right. When John Meriweather and the rest of LTCM nearly blew up the market they didn't get a bailout, and the taxpayer didn't fund the hole in the balance sheet. The New York Fed organized private money and leaned on all their counterparties to get it done, but t…

I think your comment is valuable and insightful, but > China is demanding more. I have yet to see evidence of that beyond propaganda. Naming someone who reportedly gets a harsh sentence is not evidence.

> Naming someone who reportedly gets a harsh sentence is not evidence.

And if I show you official statistics you will say statistics out of China can’t be trusted.

Folks like yourself will only realise when it’s too late

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

#356

Post by ColdStream »

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?

I see it as being sort of like how every 6 months someone is made an example of by the media and they need their retribution. It is a means of keeping people at ease and that the narrative of the system works, 'the bad person' will be punished, just like in the movies. All is well.

Admittedly, in a lot of the western world one side of the conversation has seen Trump take this place, only without any sort of completion of the narrative arc. Good for business, bad for emotional strength for some people. Will be interesting to see what comes after him.

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

#357

Post by ColdStream »

senderista wrote: post #344

Autocracies tolerate corruption because if everyone is corrupt, anyone can be "legitimately" prosecuted for corruption. (At least I think that's how it works in Russia, but I don't know much about China.)

That makes sense. Give those under the leader enough rope to hang themselves but only when needed.

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

#358

Post by nixon_why69 »

defrost wrote: post #352
nixon_why69 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Nobody destroyed any groups. There was a big overreaction that violated people's rights but the people still exist and are fine. If we contrast with how the West have reacted to terror attacks, its quite rich to see them throwing UN definitions at China.

> Brother, I eat at a Uyghur restaurant in Wuhan pretty regularly. Honest question here; is it a traditional Uyghur owned and managed restaurant freely frequented by local Uyghurs as a living expression of past and ongoing Uyghur culture, or is it more a Disney "themed Uyghur restaurant" with the same relationship to Uyghur culture as Outback Steakhouse has to actual IRL Australian food and culture (ie three tenths o…

It's run by a family from there, they speak dialect among themselves which is very much not Wuhanhua. The food is only slightly xinjiang actually, its a stretch noodle shop with a couple of lamb dishes.

But even if it were the latter.. even that would go against the narrative of total cultural hostility?

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

#359

Post by insane_dreamer »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #350
insane_dreamer wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption. that's BS cracking down on corruption has been a common tactic for decades to get rid of people who are a threat to the top dog at the CCP, and Xi has employed this perhaps better than anyone since Mao are those people being purged corrupt? probably most are. but plenty of people who are corrupt aren't purged, it's a highly selective process. Xi started th…

Xi in particular seems to be personally offended by small scale corruption like business lunches. Huge crackdown on it for probably a negative political benefit.

there have always been ongoing crackdown on small scale corruption ("flies"); it's taking down the big "tigers", who all just happened to be from other CCP factions, that made Xi stand out among his predecessors.

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

#360

Post by jamiek88 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #342
copper-float wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever funded the laboratories in Wuhan.

>> The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided roughly $1.4 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology So.. Biden?

Came to power in 2021 - time traveler too is he? Did you mean Trump?
Post reply on HN