[nekusar]

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.

[trhway]

>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, corruption is just the easiest one.

Also note that corruption is for the officials, state treason is for regular citizens. Same as in Russia. The regime wouldn't want to create impression of political disunity among the officials.

>Violating the public trust should be extremely harsh.

definitely. The only question why the comrade Xi is still not executed?

[ToucanLoucan]

> 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.

[trhway]

You really don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t you? You’re from a Western country, right?

>White collar criminals often get caught later in their "careers" precisely because they do it for years and years and years without being caught.

You’ve definitely never seen the castles and fleets of exotic cars that government officials in those countries manage to get on their meager government salaries. Yet you post such authoritative comments …

[ToucanLoucan]

If you have evidence as to any of the wild conjecture you're posting, you're more than free to provide it instead of just lobbing out accusations as though they change anything substantive about the arguments being made.

[nekusar]

Yep, this is the usual common response from Americans. Its just Sinophobic whataboutism.

China has laws especially regarding significant financial crimes like embezzlement, theft, money laundering. And most governments also have rules against breaching public trust, corruption by favoritism, bribery, and more.

This guy was in multiple public servant roles, and exfiltrated $325M. This isn't a 'possible smell of impropriety ' in taking a supper with a potential vendor. This is basically highly illegal anywhere in the world.

But the Americans go back to their 'but communist China!' howls. The punishment's harsh, sure. But I think its a great standard to hold leaders and public servants to.

[bit-anarchist]

Reminder that complaining about the PRC's governance isn't Sinophobia anymore than complaing about Putin is Russophobia.

[libertine]

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 reframe this: how do we tell the difference between a genuine tackle on corruption, from a weed out of the system with a public display?

You have plenty of cases in other corrupt regimes when they want to seize assets from someone the regime wants to push away: it's corruption.

Which again, they could be very well be corrupt, but they are corrupt because they're part of the regime.

You'll probably say: "Oh but the USS!!!" Yes, there's some level of systemic corruption there, just not an institution - yet!

[ClumsyPilot]

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.

[libertine]

I'm not being unable to separate crime from policy, you're the one trying to dilute both as showing a signal to policy change.

If this was just a political action to take down just another corrupt official enabled by the government, how is this a good thing?

Well for a lot of countries protecting inventions with patents was a major trigger for development, so much so it became a cornerstone and you can even say an institution. So of course it would be viewed as corruption by any country with such institutions.

And it's not like China says it would never abide by IP, else they would have never got the investment that made them into what they are today.

But look further from IP theft, what about seizing assets from companies, or whole companies?

[nekusar]

Im assuming youre likrly from the USA.

Go look up the history of the USA and creation of copyright/patent/trademark was done, and how we dis-recognized all European claims. They were howling similarly.

Go look at how extreme patent law perverted and kept airplanes locked to the Wright brothers, and held down an industry, while other countries (many European as well) were at the forefront of avionics. Patents held the USA back until the US GOV eminent domained the patent freeing it for WW1 armament.

Or go look up why Hollywood was a thing. Again, patent laws on cameras, and eacaping to California was all about screwing over patrnt holders over royalties.

And sure, China didnt recognize our copyrights. Ok. And? We dont recognize theirs either.

[ClumsyPilot]

> So of course it would be viewed as corruption by any country with such institutions

It’s not viewed as corruption. US gov made numerous public statements condemning IP theft, and never even once classified it as corruption - it’s simply a different crime.

Furthermore, you suggested a benchmark is: “How wealthy are the ruling elites”

Well let’s see - the richest man in the world is American, 70% of 100 richest people are American, American has higher inequality than China.

By what robust quantitative measurement does this effort look less genuine than American one?

Are you accessing any objective facts or you simply are unable to accept that a country you are opposed to is making genuine progress?