7 ms·

This appears to be an aspect of the anti-corruption drive that has been holding billionaires and politically connected people high up in the Chinese government

This appears to be an aspect of the anti-corruption drive that has been holding billionaires and politically connected people high up in the Chinese government to account of the law, with Xiao Jianhua caught in financial fraud. The controversy here isn't that China took Xiao Jianhua in to face the law, but that he was taken from Hong Kong, where an agreement with Britain gives its former colony de facto autonomy within its small borders until 2047 - which disallows Chinese police from entering there on their own until that time. I haven't seen any reports yet about whether there has been cooperation with the Hong Kong provisional government (which would make his capture legal). Then, it's hard to determine exactly what happened as the source linked here hasn't done that investigation yet - and is reporting on rumors that there was a small (but notable if true) sovereignty violation.

sparky_z 10y ago
It's not clear to me whether the anti-corruption drive arises out of a genuine antipathy towards corruption or as a means for Xi Jinping to consolidate personal power. This is especially hard because it seems likely that every Chinese bigwig is at least somewhat corrupt, and high-level Chinese power politics is opaque enough that it's not clear if only Xi's rivals are being targeted. I really don't know how to unpick that knot, but I don't think it's an angle that should be ignored.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  It seems to me that it's an actual genuine effort, given that the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government (high profile corruption is often featured in the news) and because many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle and have represented for him a loss of personal power in the party. I haven't read much about Xi's personal power growing all particularly much during the anti-corruption drive, and there is a legitimate question whether he will be revoted to lead the party during the congress next year (though it is expected to continue). Definitely this angle on understanding the drive should not be ignored. An attempt to corroborate it - to unpick the knot - would require a great amount of study of the Chinese People's Party, of Xi Jinping's constituency, and both the consistency of and the timing of charges brought to bring in the high level fraud. Documents and communications from Jinping or his circle discussing "who to go after" would represent a smoking gun (of course we haven't even smelled anything like this). I read an expose from Foreign Policy where they tried to build a case that Xi Jinping has been using it to consolidate power, but it was very clumsy and as its predictions and information came into question the investigative direction taken by the expose has been abandoned (as far as I can tell). The way the anti-corruption drive has proceeded, as I understand, has been in tracking how government finances are being used and that the Chinese Government tends to find - using traditional accounting audits - rings of people who are enriching themselves using various schemes (though many times really obvious transfers into personal accounts). So far it has appeared that the anti-corruption effort has both been making an actual positive effect on government efficiency and that it has been primarily non-political and untargetted, focusing more on finding abuse of public funds than in chasing after any officials in particular.
  - sparky_z 10y ago
    I'm not trying to claim that I'm more well versed on the subject than you. Almost certainly the opposite! But I would like to push back a little on a couple of the points you made. > the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government If Mr. Xi's goal were to stay on past the customary 10-year term, wouldn't he need to discredit the current institutions of government and portray himself as the antidote? > many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle My overly-simplistic model of China's government is that it is basically a one-party system with a veneer of formality over back-room intra-party struggles (along with a regular calendar of leadership replacement to prevent too much consolidation of power around an individual, as happened to an extent with Deng Xiaoping in the aftermath of Mao's death). Under this model, official political power tends to correspond directly to internal party clout. So wouldn't anybody with enough clout to be a threat to Xi be likely to be found within his own circle (AKA, higher ups in the current government)? I admit I could be way off base in my analysis here, as I haven't studied China's government in depth. > Documents and communications from Jinping or his circle discussing "who to go after" would represent a smoking gun (of course we haven't even smelled anything like this). Just out of curiosity, have we seen any such documents or communications (on any subject) that weren't intended for public consumption? That seems like important context as to whether absence of evidence can realistically be considered evidence of absence. Again, since you seem to have studied this in more detail than I have, I'm interested in your thoughts on these questions.
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      The quick response to these concerns is that they very highly speculative. They are the sort of thing that - like medieval models of the solar system - seem to predict the the movement of the planets, except that you keep needing to explain away all the inconsistencies and that there are much simpler explanations available, which don't suffer from the exhaustion of the requirement to constantly tweak and reinterpret. If Xi Jinping were to try to purge the Chinese Government (a highly paranoid organization, with military, intelligence and national security communities that far outlast his particular inter-party alignment) that would be incredible, shocking and enormous news. > If Mr. Xi's goal were to stay on past the customary 10-year term, wouldn't he need to discredit the current institutions of government and portray himself as the antidote? Maybe? Generally, the party is the face (you used the word veneer) of the government and its institutions. Weakening public opinion of the party only makes sense if Xi Jinping were pushing to replace the party system with a cult of personality. In the mind of the Chinese, Xi merely runs the party, and any damaged public opinion about the party reflects directly on public opinion about how Jinping is running it. The kind of steps to become a cult of personality necessary to replace the party system just aren't being seen. You aren't seeing the government under Jinping trying to mass mobilize a change of public opinion to value his leadership over and above the party system. Rather than discredit the current institutions of government he'd need to purge the institutions and norms which facilitate the cap on leadership and the interior modes for leadership to be replaced, as well as top brass in the People's Army that would enforce that - while pushing for the citizens of China to support such a transition. I have yet to read anything that makes a case that that's happening (much less a compelling one). > Just out of curiosity, have we seen any such documents or communications (on any subject) that weren't intended for public consumption? That seems like important context as to whether absence of evidence can realistically be considered evidence of absence. Yup. Take "Document Number 9" or the leaks regarding Ling Jihua or the leaks from the public diplomacy and strategic communication (propaganda) centers in China or the so called "50 Cent Party" - their version of the US's "Global Engagement Center". Documents are leaked in China the same as they are leaked anywhere else. In any case, I'm just suggesting the type of really strong evidence you'd want to be able to reference to support a really strong claim. Unfortunately not enough leaks from any government are available to always have a "smoking gun" (though incredibly in the case of Brazil we got them, not that it mattered). I agree with you that absence of a leaked smoking gun is not evidence that it doesn't exist. My point was that there's nothing even close - so either the conspiracy is incredibly underground, has thought 15 moves ahead, and is going to manage to capture a government with a billion people even without taking the steps you'd expect to see - or it's a rumor similar to those about President Trump's, President Obama's, and President Putin's ambitions to overthrow their governments that were/are popular during their respective eras. Color me really skeptical. I'm willing to believe it though - I would just need to see the right set of circumstances or the right set of leaked documents for it to make enough sense. Overall I'm much more interested in current affairs, geopolitics, and the potential ouster of Najib Razak in Malaysia and the workings of the next China party congress than these kinds of highly speculative and underevidenced theories.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  And this is the exact same argument that is made by oligarchs everywhere... Oligarchs pillage their own countries and people, then when it goes south they escape to the west, claiming they're political refugees, and perpetuate the cycle of corruption.
- LiweiZ 10y ago
  You know China very well. There is no genuine antipathy towards corruption in Chinese ruling group. However, there is genuine antipathy towards corruption benefiting opponents in Chinese ruling group.
- btilly 10y ago
  I would be inclined towards genuine antipathy towards corruption. I have a brother that at one point regularly dealt with top levels of Chinese government. His summary was, "China is a country of crooks ruled by honest men; the USA is a country of honest men ruled by crooks." He's not sure which is worse in the end. Based on that, I would bet on the top levels of the Chinese government being basically ethical (albeit within an ethical system that values life and liberty a lot less than we would).
  - vxNsr 10y ago
    This sounds eerily like something a Chinese government propaganda person would say.
    - jpatokal 10y ago
      The Chinese government values stability above all else. This is why they will also not hesitate to detain lawyers asking tough questions or steamroller physically protesting activists with tanks, because their calculus is that it's the lesser evil compared to the tens of millions of dead in the various revolutions and upheavals of the past 100 years. Of course, stability is also quite useful for preserving power and enjoying the fruits of dubious wealth, so here the moral imperative dovetails neatly with the personal interests of party cadres.
    - btilly 10y ago
      Feel free to look through my comment history and make your own opinion on whether I'm likely to be a Chinese government propaganda person.
      - timthelion 10y ago
        You look realish enough. But your brother might be a propoganda person...
        btilly 10y ago
        You will just have to decide whether to take my word that the prospect of him being a propaganda person is laughable. For one thing this comment of his was something that he came to after moving back to the US and establishing a business here. For another, a Chinese propaganda person would be unlikely to criticize the Chinese people in a way that his comment did. For the record, the extent to which Americans can be trusted to be honest and trustworthy on a daily basis came as a shock to him after living in China for many years.
rbcgerard 10y ago
I have to imagine it's pretty easy for the PRC to have a public (i.e. regular type) arrest and extradition carried out in HK? Makes me wonder if the real purpose the objective here was to keep him from naming names in public/open court?
- timthelion 10y ago
  They probably just want to instill fear. If they are powerfull enough to get away with this, then who would ever oppose them?
erikb 10y ago
The anti-corruption campaign is the official reasoning to clean up high positions of competing groups to the current leadership. Common practice when a new leader starts. Thus, if people think the reason is not yet known, then they are probably correct.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  To consolidate the similar threads of discussion, another comment mentioned this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
> to account of the law This is a fairly generous interpretation. The more realistic view is that this is part of an on-going purge of Xi Jinping's foes. I don't think history is going to see this as anything other and this kind of thing is fairly common in China. The strict "anti-corruption" legislation gives the PRC leadership quite the leeway to punish those who they deem their enemies. This is a typical ploy in autocratic regimes.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  To consolidate the similar threads of discussion, another comment mentioned this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
As with the bookstore employees, there won't be a thorough investigation and the "truth" will always be in doubt because that is how China likes it. Instead, we have to rely on rumors and such, again, because China. It is pretty obvious what happened, and again, HK has been going in this direction now for a couple of years.

sparky_z 10y ago

It's not clear to me whether the anti-corruption drive arises out of a genuine antipathy towards corruption or as a means for Xi Jinping to consolidate personal power. This is especially hard because it seems likely that every Chinese bigwig is at least somewhat corrupt, and high-level Chinese power politics is opaque enough that it's not clear if only Xi's rivals are being targeted. I really don't know how to unpick that knot, but I don't think it's an angle that should be ignored.

jwtadvice 10y ago
It seems to me that it's an actual genuine effort, given that the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government (high profile corruption is often featured in the news) and because many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle and have represented for him a loss of personal power in the party. I haven't read much about Xi's personal power growing all particularly much during the anti-corruption drive, and there is a legitimate question whether he will be revoted to lead the party during the congress next year (though it is expected to continue). Definitely this angle on understanding the drive should not be ignored. An attempt to corroborate it - to unpick the knot - would require a great amount of study of the Chinese People's Party, of Xi Jinping's constituency, and both the consistency of and the timing of charges brought to bring in the high level fraud. Documents and communications from Jinping or his circle discussing "who to go after" would represent a smoking gun (of course we haven't even smelled anything like this). I read an expose from Foreign Policy where they tried to build a case that Xi Jinping has been using it to consolidate power, but it was very clumsy and as its predictions and information came into question the investigative direction taken by the expose has been abandoned (as far as I can tell). The way the anti-corruption drive has proceeded, as I understand, has been in tracking how government finances are being used and that the Chinese Government tends to find - using traditional accounting audits - rings of people who are enriching themselves using various schemes (though many times really obvious transfers into personal accounts). So far it has appeared that the anti-corruption effort has both been making an actual positive effect on government efficiency and that it has been primarily non-political and untargetted, focusing more on finding abuse of public funds than in chasing after any officials in particular.
- sparky_z 10y ago
  I'm not trying to claim that I'm more well versed on the subject than you. Almost certainly the opposite! But I would like to push back a little on a couple of the points you made. > the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government If Mr. Xi's goal were to stay on past the customary 10-year term, wouldn't he need to discredit the current institutions of government and portray himself as the antidote? > many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle My overly-simplistic model of China's government is that it is basically a one-party system with a veneer of formality over back-room intra-party struggles (along with a regular calendar of leadership replacement to prevent too much consolidation of power around an individual, as happened to an extent with Deng Xiaoping in the aftermath of Mao's death). Under this model, official political power tends to correspond directly to internal party clout. So wouldn't anybody with enough clout to be a threat to Xi be likely to be found within his own circle (AKA, higher ups in the current government)? I admit I could be way off base in my analysis here, as I haven't studied China's government in depth. > Documents and communications from Jinping or his circle discussing "who to go after" would represent a smoking gun (of course we haven't even smelled anything like this). Just out of curiosity, have we seen any such documents or communications (on any subject) that weren't intended for public consumption? That seems like important context as to whether absence of evidence can realistically be considered evidence of absence. Again, since you seem to have studied this in more detail than I have, I'm interested in your thoughts on these questions.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    The quick response to these concerns is that they very highly speculative. They are the sort of thing that - like medieval models of the solar system - seem to predict the the movement of the planets, except that you keep needing to explain away all the inconsistencies and that there are much simpler explanations available, which don't suffer from the exhaustion of the requirement to constantly tweak and reinterpret. If Xi Jinping were to try to purge the Chinese Government (a highly paranoid organization, with military, intelligence and national security communities that far outlast his particular inter-party alignment) that would be incredible, shocking and enormous news. > If Mr. Xi's goal were to stay on past the customary 10-year term, wouldn't he need to discredit the current institutions of government and portray himself as the antidote? Maybe? Generally, the party is the face (you used the word veneer) of the government and its institutions. Weakening public opinion of the party only makes sense if Xi Jinping were pushing to replace the party system with a cult of personality. In the mind of the Chinese, Xi merely runs the party, and any damaged public opinion about the party reflects directly on public opinion about how Jinping is running it. The kind of steps to become a cult of personality necessary to replace the party system just aren't being seen. You aren't seeing the government under Jinping trying to mass mobilize a change of public opinion to value his leadership over and above the party system. Rather than discredit the current institutions of government he'd need to purge the institutions and norms which facilitate the cap on leadership and the interior modes for leadership to be replaced, as well as top brass in the People's Army that would enforce that - while pushing for the citizens of China to support such a transition. I have yet to read anything that makes a case that that's happening (much less a compelling one). > Just out of curiosity, have we seen any such documents or communications (on any subject) that weren't intended for public consumption? That seems like important context as to whether absence of evidence can realistically be considered evidence of absence. Yup. Take "Document Number 9" or the leaks regarding Ling Jihua or the leaks from the public diplomacy and strategic communication (propaganda) centers in China or the so called "50 Cent Party" - their version of the US's "Global Engagement Center". Documents are leaked in China the same as they are leaked anywhere else. In any case, I'm just suggesting the type of really strong evidence you'd want to be able to reference to support a really strong claim. Unfortunately not enough leaks from any government are available to always have a "smoking gun" (though incredibly in the case of Brazil we got them, not that it mattered). I agree with you that absence of a leaked smoking gun is not evidence that it doesn't exist. My point was that there's nothing even close - so either the conspiracy is incredibly underground, has thought 15 moves ahead, and is going to manage to capture a government with a billion people even without taking the steps you'd expect to see - or it's a rumor similar to those about President Trump's, President Obama's, and President Putin's ambitions to overthrow their governments that were/are popular during their respective eras. Color me really skeptical. I'm willing to believe it though - I would just need to see the right set of circumstances or the right set of leaked documents for it to make enough sense. Overall I'm much more interested in current affairs, geopolitics, and the potential ouster of Najib Razak in Malaysia and the workings of the next China party congress than these kinds of highly speculative and underevidenced theories.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Mikeb85 10y ago
And this is the exact same argument that is made by oligarchs everywhere... Oligarchs pillage their own countries and people, then when it goes south they escape to the west, claiming they're political refugees, and perpetuate the cycle of corruption.
LiweiZ 10y ago
You know China very well. There is no genuine antipathy towards corruption in Chinese ruling group. However, there is genuine antipathy towards corruption benefiting opponents in Chinese ruling group.
btilly 10y ago
I would be inclined towards genuine antipathy towards corruption. I have a brother that at one point regularly dealt with top levels of Chinese government. His summary was, "China is a country of crooks ruled by honest men; the USA is a country of honest men ruled by crooks." He's not sure which is worse in the end. Based on that, I would bet on the top levels of the Chinese government being basically ethical (albeit within an ethical system that values life and liberty a lot less than we would).
- vxNsr 10y ago
  This sounds eerily like something a Chinese government propaganda person would say.
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    The Chinese government values stability above all else. This is why they will also not hesitate to detain lawyers asking tough questions or steamroller physically protesting activists with tanks, because their calculus is that it's the lesser evil compared to the tens of millions of dead in the various revolutions and upheavals of the past 100 years. Of course, stability is also quite useful for preserving power and enjoying the fruits of dubious wealth, so here the moral imperative dovetails neatly with the personal interests of party cadres.
  - btilly 10y ago
    Feel free to look through my comment history and make your own opinion on whether I'm likely to be a Chinese government propaganda person.
    - timthelion 10y ago
      You look realish enough. But your brother might be a propoganda person...
      - btilly 10y ago
        You will just have to decide whether to take my word that the prospect of him being a propaganda person is laughable. For one thing this comment of his was something that he came to after moving back to the US and establishing a business here. For another, a Chinese propaganda person would be unlikely to criticize the Chinese people in a way that his comment did. For the record, the extent to which Americans can be trusted to be honest and trustworthy on a daily basis came as a shock to him after living in China for many years.

rbcgerard 10y ago

I have to imagine it's pretty easy for the PRC to have a public (i.e. regular type) arrest and extradition carried out in HK? Makes me wonder if the real purpose the objective here was to keep him from naming names in public/open court?

timthelion 10y ago
They probably just want to instill fear. If they are powerfull enough to get away with this, then who would ever oppose them?

erikb 10y ago

The anti-corruption campaign is the official reasoning to clean up high positions of competing groups to the current leadership. Common practice when a new leader starts. Thus, if people think the reason is not yet known, then they are probably correct.

jwtadvice 10y ago
To consolidate the similar threads of discussion, another comment mentioned this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

> to account of the law This is a fairly generous interpretation. The more realistic view is that this is part of an on-going purge of Xi Jinping's foes. I don't think history is going to see this as anything other and this kind of thing is fairly common in China. The strict "anti-corruption" legislation gives the PRC leadership quite the leeway to punish those who they deem their enemies. This is a typical ploy in autocratic regimes.

jwtadvice 10y ago
To consolidate the similar threads of discussion, another comment mentioned this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13533864

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

As with the bookstore employees, there won't be a thorough investigation and the "truth" will always be in doubt because that is how China likes it. Instead, we have to rely on rumors and such, again, because China. It is pretty obvious what happened, and again, HK has been going in this direction now for a couple of years.