6 ms·
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.
by TrackerFF 3mo ago
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?
- mittensc 3mo agoYou can ask the same about inner circle of current US leadership It will have the same answer, no who would be able to prosecute them and how? who would even investigate them
- MattDamonSpace 3mo agoYeah but that’s bad right
- mittensc 3mo agoof course
- glenstein 3mo agoThe Achilles heel of all whataboutism is assuming someone can't consistently criticize the new thing in addition to the original thing.
- mittensc 3mo agoIt's not whataboutism if you point out question was naive. (answer is the same everywhere and has always been the same) Inner circle leadership won't be prosecuted anywhere as long as their group holds some power. So, then, question is, how can this be improved?, can it be improved?
- matthewdgreen 3mo agoWe improve it by ensuring the same people don't dominate the justice system and that prosecutions still happen whenever they don't. It was Biden's and his AG's job to do something about this and he fumbled.
- mittensc 3mo agoThere's nothing Biden could have done that would have prevented the american people from voting in Trump. Trump was convicted, he still won. He probably would have won from jail as well. So original question remains, what can be done?
- glenstein 3mo agoI don't understand why you think your question in reply to theirs revealed that theirs was naive. If anything, I think it actually reduces the quality of discussion because it tries to say that dynamics in China are equivalent to the next you would find in pretty much any country which is is vague and lazy as analysis goes, and goes against the HN recommendation that conversations get more precise over time.
- NooneAtAll3 3mo agoYou're trying to approach from the wrong side it's not a question of "prosecute this one or the other person" - it's the choice between "prosecute this one or nobody" thus celebration that at least something got done
- grvbck 3mo agoI understand that perspective to some degree, but imagine a hypothetical country with say, two parties in power, where prosecutors only crack down on white collar criminals if they are supporters of one party and not the other. We would call that system corrupt, and probably not celebrate that at least some of the criminals face justice. Also, from a practical standpoint, charging some and not others is not necessarily better if the selection is made politically. That moves the needle from "at least something got done" to "law is just a tool of oppression".
- fellowniusmonk 3mo agoHow else do you propose a system that is fucked like that ever gets unfucked?
- thewebguyd 3mo agoTo unfuck a system like that you have to have a clean reset of sorts. It will feel unjust because past criminals will all go free, but you have to prioritize future stability. You offer amnesty for past crimes in exchange for absolute transparency and massive structure reforms moving forward. Or, you do what the democratic party in the US has been afraid to do: Rip the bandaid off, accusations of weaponization of the DOJ be damned. The parent's hypothetical situation is precisely what is happening in the US right now where Garland failed to prosecute, and the entire democratic party was far too afraid of appearing to weaponize the justice system meanwhile the opposition has no qualms about doing so. Yes, the public will view it as entirely partisan but there's no other path forward. But if you just do nothing at all, eventually the social contract breaks. The cost of the corruption becomes too high and the state fails, or you get a forced regime change.
- throwaway27448 3mo agoAt least they try to appear anti-corruption—that's certainly more than you can say about the west.
- lysace 3mo agoDon't confuse "the west" with the US. The US is less than half of "the west".
- throwaway27448 3mo agoAre you claiming Europe is not obviously corrupt? Or Latin America? Or Korea, or Japan? I can't speak to Australia or New Zealand, I suppose. Corruption is, of course, universal. China has a corruption problem that will be eternally difficult to tackle from the top-down—local officials are notoriously much more corrupt than central ones. But in the west, we simply pretend to not have the issue at all, or we simply make it legal. I would prefer if our politicians or popular media could at least acknowledge this.
- lysace 3mo agoYou are shifting the goalposts. You first said "at least they try to appear anti-corruption". This thing about not caring about appearances is new. (And also the only thing I commented about.)
- myrmidon 3mo ago> Corruption is, of course, universal. So is crime. But it's all about prevalence. And not just because corruption has some "indirect taxation" effect, but also because low corruption/trust is a big enabler for a society. You are never gonna get rid of clannish mentality, vigilantism, nepotism and other undesirable behavior if your citizens don't have any trust in the system. If you just look at e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Corruptio... you will see that the spread is very wide, and China/India is significantly behind most western nations.
- 3mo ago
- ozgrakkurt 3mo agoKilling people in any context is barbaric because it is not possible to bring someone back from the dead. I’m not a law expert but it seems pretty basic that there shouldn’t be irreversible punishment. Also there should be equity which means everyone that does the same crime should face the same consequence, which doesn’t happen anywhere in the world as far as I can understand. So harsher punishment means people with less power will get shafted harder
- luqtas 3mo agobarbaric is society which has half of the worlwide population living with less than 6 USD per day in borderline slavery
- khazhoux 3mo agoObjection: relevance
- klaff 3mo agobarbaric is society which has 1% of its adult population living behind bars
- ImJamal 3mo agoIf 1% of its adult population have committed crimes then it would not be barbaric if they were in jail?
- anepoitilivam 3mo agoThe funny thing you really believe that, american m..n
- fragmede 3mo agoThe problem with putting a dollar number on it is it's devoid of context. Lunch from McDonald's is going to cost me $15 in the US, so $6 is not enough to live off of here. But the actual number is irrelevant. Is it enough to get food for the day or the week. How about housing? $6 doesn't sound like a lot, but if lunch is $0.50 and a roof over your head is $1.00 for the night, $6 goes a lot further!
- casey2 3mo agoThe top is already pushed with prisoner for life. In a tiered society a well functioning country focuses on the tier that is current bottleneck.
- toomuchtodo 3mo agoA win is a win. Could there be more wins? Glass is half full.
- ianm218 3mo ago5 of the 7 highest ranking officials have been purged in recent years [1]. It’s not totally clear what the consequences were for those purged or if their crimes were legit but seems like they are all in prison. [1]. https://www.afpc.org/publications/articles/the-inevitability-of-chinese-military-purges https://www.afpc.org/publications/articles/the-inevitability...
- axus 3mo agoRussia is even tougher on corrupt oligarchs
- malfist 3mo agoNo, Russia is tough on oligarchs that split from Putin. There is no non-corrupt oligarch.
- Sammi 3mo agoYes and that's also exactly how Xi deals with illoyal people in China - just accuse them of "corruption". It's the authoritarian playbook.
- zamadatix 3mo agoI think they are meaning "the measure seems meaningless as it would imply Russia is even tougher on corruption" rather than "Russian leadership cares deeply about corruption". It's a risky play to try to communicate over the internet to a bunch of us literalist nerds :p.
- jandrese 3mo agoI'm not saying that those guys weren't corrupt, but that's a classic authoritarian pattern. Purging anybody who might potentially in the future be a threat to your rule is step two in any authoritarian playbook. Were they perchance replaced with unambitious yes men?
- ianm218 3mo ago
- Barrin92 3mo ago>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 3mo agoThe 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 3mo agoIsnt 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 3mo agoI 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 3mo ago> 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 3mo ago
- lyu07282 3mo ago> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same? The west is inundated with simplistic anti-chinese propaganda, so you would never perceive it as such, the way it would be presented to you in the west is as the evil dictator Xi Jingping purging his opposition, for instance: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41670162 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41670162
- dirck-norman 3mo agoCorrect, so long as there is a state controlled media and no independent media and we can only speculate on where people who have “disappeared” from public view are, this is exactly the position everyone should hold. This is single party autocracy, no matter how much people cry about propaganda.
- lyu07282 3mo agoIt's a complex system of layers of representatives being elected on the local level, various institutions and levels of governance that you know literally nothing about and yet has been incredibly successful at uplifting it's people. In the simple mind of the western chauvinist this rich five thousand year old culture and complex society with good and bad, gets flattened into antagonistic slogans like "single party autocracy". You don't understand how calling you a victim of propaganda is me being charitable, I could've also called you a typical western ignorant sinophobe.
- dirck-norman 3mo agoAh yes, the old - it’s too complex to understand by outsiders argument. And claims of racism to boot. Taiwan is Chinese, they don’t have this system. So spare me the crocodile tears. Single party rule and state controlled media with one of the most sophisticated censorship infrastructure in the world has exactly one simple goal.
- fragmede 3mo ago
- noufalibrahim 3mo agoProbably not but it's hard to really pin this down. On the one hand, China's rise has in the recent past has been phenomenal but that kind of rapid cleanup has always been accompanied by repression and destruction of political rivals. So. perhaps a bit of both.
- pjc50 3mo agoI think the way to determine how real this is: is the corruption allowed to damage the real economy? Most of the problems of Africa and South America are linked to that answer being "yes".
- mushufasa 3mo agoXi Jinping rose to power on a message of anti-corruption, and part of the reason he remains in power on an indefinite term is by presenting himself as the "only trusted" person to maintain anti-corruption amongst all the factions. While I'm sure he doesn't catch all corruption and the CCP overall has selective enforcement, the reason they do have measures like this is in large part because of Xi Jinping's specific reputation and positioning.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoYou seem to be circling the issue. Corruption can mean anything from taking bribes to exerting influence that is outside Xi’s interests.
- mikeyouse 3mo agoAnd far too people are aware that Xi is extraordinarily corrupt.. "Similarly, Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews held assets worth over $1 billion in business investments and real estate" https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Unclassified-CDA-CCP-Leadership-202503.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Un...
- jandrese 3mo agoOr in authoritarian regimes it often means "stole from the party". As long as you only steal from the poor and give the proper bribes up the chain you are in no danger in most corrupt societies. Except possibly in the rare occasion where your corruption causes a disaster that embarrasses the people above you in the hierarchy. Far too often when you see stories about how someone was persecuted for corruption it boils down to "he stole from rich people".
- edot 3mo agoThis is true in any power structure ever. Kings, mafia, pick-your-dictatorship, many democracies. Hurt or steal from the poor, not other rich or elite, and always make sure to kick some up to the big guys.
- tyre 3mo agoXi has shown repeatedly that he’s serious about corruption. As others have noted, some of the highest civilian and military officials have been removed for it. Some sentenced to death. He sees it as a challenge to his legitimacy and China’s power, which, as you’d expect are the most important things to him; even if you take the most cynical view. Another timely example, because it is the World Cup, is the Chinese football programs. They’ve been decimated because of corruption prosecutions, both executives and players. It’s a major reason why China isn’t competitive on the global stage, which much smaller countries with significantly smaller budgets can compete. And, yes, Xi does care about competing in the World Cup. Prestige is very important to his concept of China’s honor and global standing.
- nonethewiser 3mo ago>He sees it as a challenge to his legitimacy and China’s power This right here is why “corruption” should be looked on with great skepticism. In an authoritarian government basic liberties we take for granted in the West are considered corruption. You know, like having a say in how people are governed. This is a high crime in a state with 1 party that cannot be replaced. In that way, “corruption” can mean “not being loyal to the dictator.”
- paytonjjones 3mo agoThat may well be true, but that hardly applies to the current case of taking $325M in bribes
- nekusar 3mo agoUS 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.
- 3mo ago
- ActorNightly 3mo agoNot everything that Chinese leadership does is perfect, they have made mistakes, but overall, leadership that is openly like "we need to maintain a tight control over the population for stability" is generally more trustworthy than that campaigns on freedom and small government only to get in power and make themselves richer.
- jychang 3mo agoOnly if society needs more security. You can’t squeeze blood from a brick. At a certain point, you need to tolerate a little messiness to optimize societal growth. Think of it as a dial you can turn clockwise or counterclockwise: Security <——> Freedom A healthy society would have good feedback mechanisms that allow it to change the dial of the government in power, to adjust to the current situation. Obviously, there’s no one optimal position; to use a historical example: Churchill was great for Britain during WW2, and immediately elected out afterwards.
- ActorNightly 3mo agoGiven how China is doing, Id say they have the knob in a more optimal place.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoYes. The Chinese people trade freedom for good governance. The problem is, if they dont like their governance they cant trade it back for their freedom.
- ceejayoz 3mo agoSure they can. That's how they got this government.
- ActorNightly 3mo agoFreedom is not one dimensional. In some ways Chinese are more "free" than Americans.
- 3mo ago
- chaostheory 3mo agoThese are mainly political purges dressed up as “anti corruption drives”. Not ideal, but at least someone high up is getting punished compared to slaps on the wrist in the West.
- expedition32 3mo agoCorruption endangers the CCP rule and weakens China why would they not self purge? Everyone in China knows how dynasties end.
- ncruces 3mo agoHas the dictator been removed for it? Someone cherished by them? Or are we to assume those are impollute?
- jmyeet 3mo agoIt's fascinating to see the effects of anti-China propaganda. There are plenty of stories about China cracking down on corruptiojn yet people need to do contortions to make this anti-China somehow. There's no evidence that Xi Jinping is like Putin (who has enriched himself to abe unknown but expectedly high dgree), no evidence the military generals have enriched themselves with corruption (again, like Russia) or really anything else. Instead there's evidence that the likes of Jack Ma, a billionaire, are brought to heel, China has cracked down on so-called yin-yang contracts, sentenced to death people who messed with the baby formula supply chain and so on. People really should reflect on why they're so willing to seek confirmation bias and why they have that bias at all. Here's a tip: if you take anything China says or does at face value you will be more correct than 95% of the China "experts" that have entrenched themselves in the media and Western policy circles.
- 1234letshaveatw 3mo agoIs reflection really necessary? On why they're so willing to seek confirmation bias on a self appointed dictator for life and why they have that bias towards a self appointed dictator for life? Isn't it self evident?
- wat10000 3mo agoEven if it's politically motivated, it's still punishment for a real and serious crime. Compare to prosecuting someone for touching a pool that the president happens to really care about for no good reason.
- seanmcdirmid 3mo agoInner circle members of the CCP are the first to fall because their competitors wouldn't dare not use it against them. The whole Bo Xilai mess a decade and a half ago is a good example of that.
- altairprime 3mo agoThe West would benefit from an increase in prosecution of $100M+ financial crimes, regardless of whether that prosecution is fair or uniform. Many will avoid such crimes, even when they might be allowed them by corruption, simply to avoid being held hostage to that same corruption. That doesn’t mean that corruption is a great thing (it’s not), but frequent and capricious enforcement is somewhat better relative to today’s infrequent and erratic enforcement.
- Aeolun 3mo ago> are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution Maybe, but they hit the rich. All the selective prosecution in the US hits those least able to resist.
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoCounter-example: Sam-Bankman Fried. Biden's second biggest donor. Sentenced to 25 years in jail. Prosecuted even though it wasn't a clear cut case so there were excuses to hang a lack of prosecution on. No pardon.
- cumshitpiss 3mo ago[dead]
- vkou 3mo agoThe case was pretty clear-cut, and as for the pardon... He clearly didn't pay the right president, Trevor Milton got one right at the start of this presidency.
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoExactly. Hopefully the contrast between the two presidencies weans people off the idea that "they're all corrupt" and "they're all liars". I'm not hopeful.
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoThe case was clear-cut, choosing to prosecute wasn't. Especially in hind-sight given FTX's holdings of Anthropic shares.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- anepoitilivam 3mo agoYou are murdering people for so much less.. In Iran, Gaza, Russia (no no, it is not you, it is.. "Ukraine"). You are much worse than them, actually. Though believing yourself to be the light of civilization, soulless robots..
- pessimizer 3mo agoThe US has four times as many prisoners per capita as China, the "police state." edit: some interesting trivia. Due to the combination of America's incarceration rate, a racist justice system, and a completely wealthless and desperate class of freed slaves who were never compensated (although their owners were), Black Americans are 0.5% of the world's population but 5% of the world's prison population.
- bit-anarchist 3mo agoAnother piece of interesting trivia: PRC can legally confiscate and search your devices without warrant nor case.
- anepoitilivam 3mo agoOh really? Your american KGB knows nearly everything about me, as well as about any other person with internet access (and also those without), without any "warrants", "judges", etc Never even imagined in Soviet Union. You are the ultimate horror.
- bit-anarchist 3mo ago"my"? I'm not even american. "american KGB"? pray tell, who would that be? FBI? NSA? ICE? Even with their tooling, they are still struggling to legally acquire information, and even more so to act on it. There's even considerations of abolishing these agencies. Try suggesting the abolition of the MSS as a mainland Chinese national and see what happens.
- 3mo ago
- christina97 3mo agoSelective prosecution and tough punishment can still be a net positive vs no punishment. (I am not saying it necessarily is nor that I would celebrate this.) The CCP derives a significant part of its legitimacy from improving quality of life and living standards for the common Han Chinese. Waste and fraud that harms consumers is a drag on this progress; the incentives somewhat align. Real economic harm often causes real political harm.
- maxglute 3mo agoXi's been anticorruption for 10+ years, CCDI has prosecuted MILLIONs, including his own faction/clique i.e. even Xi doesn't have that much enemies. Westoids just can't fathom it's simply a systematic, competent drain the swamp program designed to change culture an work through the huge backlog of illict behavior form 30+ years of under regulated development.
- nradov 3mo agoIt's a systematic, competent purge the political rivals program.
- maxglute 3mo agoCan't it be both? Xi doesn't have 7m+ rivals, and you know... rivals can be corrupt and should be purged. There's reason wikileaks / CIA analysis on Xi insinuates he's incorruptible by $$$, so who better to lead. Sometimes swamp is filthy and needs cleaning, and sweeping out legacy clique/faction level power structure that CCP had to "put up with" as part of ascendancy, aka power consolidation, is just good 101 good old power politics. Doing it right is how China gets 300+ year stable/rising dynamitic cycles. American wanks about 250 while swamp filthier than ever, and forget power consolidation has built many 250+ year civilizations. Sometimes systemic, competent purge the political rivals program is gud and what you want. But IMO US too young/stubborn, doesn't have institutional memory of REAL political crisis, nor humility to learn from history.
- mrandish 3mo ago> Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing Almost certainly. But it's not simple to understand because four things are simultaneously true: 1. Corruption is a serious problem Xi is genuinely focused on reducing through high-profile prosecutions with extreme sentences. 2. Xi and his party lieutenants have certainly used corruption charges to eliminate central party 'Titans' because they got too powerful, got too greedy, or were deemed insufficiently 'loyal'. 3. Corruption is pervasive at almost every level and there's no way most of it can be eliminated anytime soon. In fact, the system relies on it to function as well as it does. The purpose of these high-profile prosecutions is only to reduce the size and frequency of corruption. It reminds officials that stealing half the money half the time can be bad for their health. So they stick closer to taking 10-20% only 10-20% of the time. 4. The sub-1% of corrupt officials who are prosecuted, likely end up being busted because they got 'too greedy' and were made a sacrificial lamb by their corrupt peers to fill the system's need for a few high-profile examples. The 'too greedy' isn't from taking too much, it's usually from not greasing enough palms with enough money (including the provincial corruption investigators themselves). When there's tens of millions of dollars of illicit money at stake, the dynamics become like de facto organized crime mobs and there's always competition between factions. This guy probably knows exactly which rival played the game better and beat him.
- asdfman123 3mo agoIt's like unlimited PTO. Take a reasonable amount of PTO and you're fine, but if you actually treat it as unlimited then you'll get fired.
- hbd-investor 3mo agoAs opposed to the US where even if white collar criminals are caught and punished they get pardoned by Biden or Trump, Obama, etc... Every US president has pardoned white collar criminals
- fragmede 3mo agoBiden didn't pardon SBF.
- hbd-investor 3mo agoChina executes their criminals, in the US criminals get pardoned All of these white collar criminals were pardoned by Biden Nina Simona Allen (December 2024): Convicted of conspiracy to defraud financial institutions. Duran Arthur Brown (December 2024): Convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a mortgage fraud scheme. Ravidath Ragbir (January 2025): Convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Jerry Donald Manning (December 2024): Convicted of two counts of mail fraud. Marcus Mosiah Garvey (January 2025 - Posthumous): Convicted of mail fraud in 1923. Alex Nain Saab Moran (December 2023): Convicted of money laundering conspiracy (released as part of a U.S.–Venezuela prisoner swap). Abraham W. Bolden Sr. (April 2022): Former Secret Service agent convicted of bribery attempts, fraud, and obstruction. Kim Douglas Haman (December 2024): Convicted of making false claims against the government. Vadim Konoshchenok (July 2024): Convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., smuggling goods, and export control law violations (released as part of a multi-national prisoner swap). Paul John Garcia (December 2024): Convicted of signing false documents with intent to deceive and theft/sale of government property while serving in the Navy. Hunter Biden (December 2024): Convicted of federal tax offenses (alongside separate firearm charges). The pardon broadly covers any federal offenses committed or taken part in between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. Gerald Glenn Lundergan (January 2025): Convicted of unlawful campaign contributions, making false statements, and falsifying documents. Ernest William Cromartie (January 2025): Convicted of attempting to evade or defeat tax, as well as structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements.
- ColdStream 3mo agoI 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.
- goobatrooba 3mo agoWhile other commenters take the lesson that Xi goes after corruption, I would restate it: * he goes after corrupt officials, in both minor roles and very public big cases; and * he also accused inconvenient people (mostly potential contenders) of corruption to get rid of them (see the list of party leaders purged since Xi came to power, with some even led off stage at the main CCP Congress in a show of power). * How many corrupt officials are not persecuted due to political favouritism is by definition impossible to know from the outside.
- lofaszvanitt 3mo agoJust look what corruption does to russia. Total brainfuck, kleptocracy, subhuman idiots everywhere.