[Barrin92]

>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.

[lordgilman]

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.

[nonethewiser]

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.

[lordgilman]

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.

[seanmcdirmid]

> 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.

[losvedir]

I mean, Trump was prosecuted as well and plenty of people want to put him in jail. My point is these kinds of things can't really be argued purely from a meta-level, the actual specifics matter. And in the case of China and Xi, I certainly don't know the specifics and I doubt most people here do either.

[seanmcdirmid]

Trump was actually convicted of a felony in New York even though he wasn't put in jail. Trump wants to throw his political enemies in jail without due process, very different thing.

[fragmede]

Trump's trying to put Comey in jail.