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

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411–420 of 523 posts

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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasnt the especially hard trial and punishment of Chelsea manning, assange, etc. not a punishment by the western establishment for losing face?

...no? Not that the answer to that question is even relevant to the comment I actually wrote.

I am pointing out the whole ‘losing face’ thing exists in the west too.

If you cause certain people to lose face, you will get China-like response.

In fact it’s a core conservative value and you can observe it in interactions with police - if a victim embarrasses the police they will prosecute the victim instead of the perpetrator

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

#412

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.

Well it isn't much contortionism when you look at the big picture you'll find that corruption is an institution in some countries. For example, you're making an effort to try legitimize the regime by framing a factual gross illegal conduct as a overarching policy. But is it like that when you observe the whole structure? How wealthy are the ruling elites? Or for example, how has IP theft policy changed? Or we can ref…

I like how you are unable to separate actual crimes from government policies you disagree with.

>> corruption is an institution

>> Or for example, how has IP theft policy changed?

Another country may decide to have no IP protections, that’s not a crime.

Furthermore Intellectual property is legal fiction, some people and countries don’t believe in it.

Apparently Anthropic don’t believe in IP either, they are stealing everything that isn’t nailed down, but cry wolf when someone does it to them. And they are asking for legal immunity on IP theft.

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? Everyone in the party is incolved in similar crimes. The only thing they are guilty off in addition is a lack of loyalty to emperor xi. Incompetence and criminal corruption, that you can edit out of history, but intrigue is unforgivable.

You're assuming that this guy was actually being prosecuted for crimes or that this guy lacked loyalty to Xi Jinping. A tremendous number of top generals and leadership has been wiped out in a short time and not necessarily refilled, and it's not because China has a huge disloyalty problem.

Does it actually have a huge disloyalty problem or are they just better at punishing people for it compared to the us

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

#414
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.

I really haven’t written anything about Uyghurs specifically. I only corrected your mistaken assumption that genocide must necessarily involve the killing or physical extermination of people. It doesn't even require to be successful at its mission - it's the intent when taking any of the specified actions that counts, such as causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing destructive conditions of life, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children. If those acts are committed with intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in part, it might be considered a genocide.

So “Uyghur restaurants still exist” or “Uyghur people still exist” does not answer the legal question. The relevant question is whether the group’s cultural, religious, familial, or biological continuity is being targeted as a group. It's enough to do this in a single village.

This may sound like a grammar nitpick, but I think it points to the actual issue: “the people still exist and are fine” does not answer the genocide question.

Genocide is not simply about whether “the people” — individual members of a group — still exist. It is about whether a people — a protected group as such — is being targeted for destruction, in whole or in part.

So the relevant question is not merely whether “the people still exist and are fine,” but whether a people still exists as a people, and whether it is fine culturally, religiously, socially, biologically, and institutionally.

In this particular case, I don’t claim to have enough information to make a final judgment. But the fact that so little independent journalism and investigation is possible must be blamed on the CCP and cannot be treated as counterevidence. Unlike individual human beings in a court of law, governments that suppress a free press and block independent investigations should not receive the benefit of the doubt in the court of public opinion.

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

#415
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"

Absolutely you can. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire thing is fabricated to just execute political opponents that don't align with Xi.

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

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fbi, nsa,.." - I dont care much about their acronyms or the organizational structure "Still struggling to legally acquire information.." I dont doubt for a single moment, and I dont think you should, that you are right there in their database, with your identity, psychological profile, and all the rest. Now whether it was acquired "legally" i dont know, but when they choose people to murder abroad, I dont think that…

> I dont care much about their acronyms or the organizational structure So I call bullshit on your argument. > dont doubt for a single moment, and I dont think you should, that you are right there in their database, with your identity, psychological profile, and all the rest. I do. Perhaps I am there. Perhaps I'm not. Perhaps my name is there, but the data is wrong and/or misleading. I'm not going to deny USA's alpha…

Just because i call them collectively KGB - since the essence is precisely that - you "call bullshit on my argument"?

Though you are right I guess in what regards the legal apparatus of PRC.

But look, here in the free west my speech is suppressed without any need for "legal apparatus".. and it is not because I was provocative (though this is eventually what you become when your mouth is being consistently shut with a big fat lap).

As regards to your efforts to ptotect privacy, your identity can be deduced without much difficulty just from the sites you visit.. and Tor's origin you should know, and here I would stop.

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

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the existence of a PR/spin industry, the fact that many Americans live way beyond their means, or the proliferation of influencers whose job is to show a specific story not evidence of a society that values appearances and will do a lot to protect face?

> a society that values appearances and will do a lot to protect face Read my comment again, carefully, and you'll understand that your response is unrelated to my point. Also: all of these things exist in large, industrialized Eastern nations too. You've clearly never lived in any of those places or even had tangential exposure to their culture. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that - just understand that you a…

What, in your estimation, is the difference between saving face in China versus keeping-up-with-the-Joneses in America?

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

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strong theme of "Chinese people are drones" when you hear about whatever the west's current propaganda issue is. I'm not sure if the poster was explicitly trying to hint at that, or just repeating derived ideas from those that really think it. Lots of posts about how the CPC isn't really doing the will of the people, they are just following and the people are too docile or subdued to resist. Chinese people…

As a Chinese-American, I feel rather ambivalent about it - dare I say even positive emotion at the West's current propaganda. Due to the quote - "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win", with the only caveat that West doesn't laugh but rather "coddle you as the savior". So in another word, I don't expect NYT (or Fox News for that matter) to "accept" or "approve" Chinese peopl…

I sincerly didn't mean to be racist with my comment so I apologize, it was just my sport loving observation

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

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, can I step back a bit and call out some big picture differences? The legacy of slavery in America is a key component of the microwave background radiation there, the story seeps into default assumptions of everything. China just.. doesn't have that. They had slavery amongst themselves in the olden days like everyone else but no master race chattel slavery period. There's definitely racism on the black/white scale…

Opinions seem varied, that's for sure. Wikipedia describes the camps more as rebranded than "over now" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps and those annoying Australians are claiming the CCP are using "powerful resources in Beijing’s ongoing efforts to reshape the global narrative on Xinjiang, influence political elites abroad" - https://www.aspi.org.au/report/cultivating-friendly-forces/ (July…

Yeah, ASPI and Adrian Zenz are the sources for basically every allegation in Xinjiang besides just quoting what the government itself said they're doing. Their evidence is typically "sources".

Meanwhile all of Ukraine and Gaza have been on youtube the whole time, everyone has a cell phone, why do we go back to the same 2 ideological think tanks with rumor-tier evidence every time on this issue? Seriously. Find any article and cite crawl, it's always either ASPI or Zenz at the bottom, citing each other or "sources".

If someone accused the US government of a secret genocide for 7 straight years with this caliber of evidence they would rightfully considered cranks. Especially if everyone was still alive.

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

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

money that is stolen from the public at a certain point is really damaging, especially when people think they can get away with it.

some non-violent offenders definitely need to be put into the same prison as violent ones

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