Corruption | Wandering China

June 10, 2013 • 9:33 am 0

China’s former railways minister stands trial for corruption [Xinhua] #RisingChina #Corruption #Transport

Doing what has to be done to demonstrate that no ivory tower exists in the management of Rising China’s arteries, at least for now at the ministerial level. Liu Zhijun 劉志軍, despite being head of China’s second most powerful ministry capable of some level of unilateral decision making (arguably, after the military )

Interesting his fact-file is still available on the Chinese government official portal.

For more, please see:

- Former railways minister seeks leniency on corruption charges (South China Morning Post, June 10, 2013)

- Chinese former minister Liu Zhijun’s trial on corruption charges begins (Guardian, June 10, 2013)

And a blast from the past – two years ago

- China’s railway minister under investigation over “disciplinary violation” (Xinhua, Feb 12, 2011)

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China’s former railways minister stands trial for corruption
Source – Xinhua, published June 9, 2013

Video grab shows China’s former railways minister Liu Zhijun being brought into the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, capital of China, June 9, 2013. Liu stood trial in the court on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse o

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) — China’s former railways minister Liu Zhijun stood trial in a court in Beijing on Sunday on charges of bribery and abuse of power.

According to the indictment by the Second Branch of the Beijing People’s Procuratorate, Liu took advantage of his position and helped 11 people win promotions and project contracts, and accepted 64.6 million yuan (10.53 million U.S. dollars) in bribes from them between 1986 to 2011.

During his tenure as the railways minister, Liu is suspected of helping Ding Yuxin and her relatives to win cargo transportation and railway construction contracts. He also helped them in the acquisition of shares in a bullet train wheel set company and with enterprise financing, by breaking regulations and applying favoritism, which allowed Ding and her family to reap huge profits, according to the indictment.

Please click here to read the full article at Xinhua. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Communications, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Greater China, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, New Leadership, Politics, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Resources, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Technology, The Chinese Identity, Transport, xinhua

June 3, 2013 • 9:50 am 1

Why China’s Current Anti-Corruption Campaign is Different [Wall Street Journal] #RisingChina #Corruption #NewLeadership

By hook or by crook, this systemic dent has always impeded China’s full potential.

It has been one of its major Achilles heels since antiquity. That said and I argue again, it is not corruption that troubles, but the means of facilitating one’s ascent in contemporary Chinese society. One need to be a an increasingly big spender to afford an entourage. The entourage too has mouths to feed and the mouths are real. Desires are at a all fine high with advertising texts robbing Chinese skylines of their natural harmony with the environment – today feeding consumerism is the name of the game.

The one seeking ascendancy is no longer feeding an entourage of farmers from the village. The downstream effect that you have to be generous too their family to gain utmost trust is an expensive one in today’s terms.

A study of the major Chinese narratives and works of literature, right down to contemporary state sponsored Chinese-made TV today reveals much. It is an inherently deep Chinese lament. In the past when the Chinese echelons got corrupt and softened, foreign powers sat on their throne as recent as living memory.

Wang Qishan – man for the job to prevent this negative slide?

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Why China’s Current Anti-Corruption Campaign is Different
By Russell Leigh Moses
Dean of Academics and Faculty at The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies
Source – Wall Street Journal China Realtime Report, published May 30, 2013

After witnessing previous campaigns against corruption fizzle out, or turn into an excuse for political backstabbing, the Chinese public might well be skeptical about President Xi Jinping’s latest attempt to rectify the Communist Party.

This present campaign, however, is beginning to look very different from the usual side-stepping that is done largely to impress the public.

And if reform-minded party cadres throw their support Mr. Xi’s way, it could turn into a broader effort to make the party more accountable.

Please click here to read the full article at the Wall Street Journal.

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Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Communications, Corruption, Domestic Growth, Education, Finance, Fu Er Dai 富二代, Government & Policy, Human Rights, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Politics, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, Wall Street Journal

June 1, 2013 • 12:59 pm 0

China Update: Corruption crackdown, slower growth and Singapore [An Abundant World] #RisingChina #Corruption

China bull James White on the prospect of transiting into a mixed model – Singapore style.

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China Update: Corruption crackdown, slower growth and Singapore
By James White
Source – An Abundant World, published May 30, 2013

Back at the start of the year I wrote a bullish synopsis of the outlook for China in 2013 and 2014. It seemed to me that growth would accelerate in 2013 from the lows of August 2012 to towards 9%. It also seemed, to me, that inflation would be very subdued and allow growth to be robust for a 24 month period before any move to aggressive tightening was made. Three or four months later I remain confident about subdued prices and the outlook for 2014. But clearly the outlook for the current year has weakened dramatically. The question is why?

Obviously, I don’t fall into the China bear camp. There’s still substantial growth to come in China. But undoubtedly, activity is not as robust as I suspected it would be.

The answer for me is the corruption crackdown and it’s fallout.

Please click here to read the full article at An Abundant World.

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Filed under: International Relations, Politics, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), Mapping Feelings, Singapore, Strategy, Economics, Social, Finance, Charm Offensive, Domestic Growth, Soft Power, Influence, Population, Corruption, 52 Unacceptable Practices, Chinese Model, Public Diplomacy, Beijing Consensus, Trade, Government & Policy, Reform, New Leadership, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Ideology

May 11, 2013 • 4:06 am 1

Why China Executes So Many People [The Atalantic] #RisingChina #Ideology #CapitalPunishment

The title might provoke as it fails to provide a wider sense of reference to execution rates per capita to qualify ‘so many people’. Portraying China with such negative headline bias is not the smartest trick in the book.

China has six times more people at least. Social stability perhaps does not carry much semantic weight until one has visited and stepped foot into China. Managing people on such a scale requires a firmer hand in some areas, with a lighter touch on other areas.

Yet, it simply shows the song remains the same.

Through antiquity, the elite class functioned above the law – reform here will remain difficult, but policies are set in the right direction. The challenge remains in eliminating the culture of downstream beneficiaries to support one’s own ascension in modern Chinese society.

And just like the old days the everyday people have to wait their turn outside petition areas or outside the gates of official walls if they want to express their claims the old way – many times they do this with critical mass and with notable effect. Of course, social media is the new public opinion outlet today.

However its approach of getting to the root is time-tested, and goes some way to explain the numbers. This usually means eliminating a whole chain as far as possible.

In 2011, China made efforts to amend the number of capital crimes from 68-55.

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Why China Executes So Many People
by Zi Heng Lim
Source – The Atlantic, published May 10,2013

Suspects listen to their verdicts at a court in Kunming, Yunnan province, November 6, 2012. Photo source (Reuters)

Zhang Jing has only seen her husband four times in the past four years. This Thursday, it will have been be exactly two years since they last met.

And she may never see him again.

That’s because Zhang’s husband, Xia Junfeng, a former street vendor in the northeastern city of Shenyang, was sentenced to death in 2011 for stabbing to death two chengguan, who are much-maligned city management inspectors responsible for enforcing law and order.

The sentence is now under final review by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing. If approved, Xia will not be able to appeal and will be executed.

Please click here to read the full article at the Atlantic Mobile.

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Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Corruption, Crime, Domestic Growth, Government & Policy, Human Rights, Ideology, Mapping Feelings, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Population, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Atlantic, The Chinese Identity

May 4, 2013 • 10:25 am 0

Rat Meat Sold as Lamb Highlights Fear in China [New York Times] #RisingChina #FoodSafety

Evidence not all Chinese are positioned to participate in China’s rise as part of a collective leap.

“Food safety and environmental protection face the same problem that although regulatory capacity has expanded, there’s been no fundamental change for the better… The fact that the police have become involved shows how serious the problems still are.” Mao Shoulong, professor of public policy at Renmin University in Beijing

To read the actual Ministry of Public Security report please go here (In Chinese)
公安机关集中打击肉制品犯罪保卫餐桌安全

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Rat Meat Sold as Lamb Highlights Fear in China
By Chris Buckley
Source – New York Times, published May 3, 2013

HONG KONG — Even for China’s scandal-numbed diners, inured to endless outrages about food hazards, news that the lamb simmering in the pot may actually be rat tested new depths of disgust.

In an announcement intended to show that the government is serious about improving food safety, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that the police had caught a gang of traders in eastern China who bought rat, fox and mink flesh and sold it as mutton. But that and other cases of meat smuggling, faking and adulteration featured in Chinese newspapers and Web sites on Friday were unlikely to instill confidence in consumers already queasy over many reports about meat, fruit and vegetables laden with disease, toxins, banned dyes and preservatives.

Sixty-three people were arrested and accused of “buying fox, mink and rat and other meat products that had not undergone inspection,” which they doused in gelatin, red pigment and nitrates, and sold as mutton in Shanghai and adjacent Jiangsu Province for about $1.6 million, according to the ministry’s statement. The report, posted on the Internet, did not explain how exactly the traders acquired the rats and other creatures.

“How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?” said one typically baffled and angry user of Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service that often acts as a forum for public venting. “Is it cheaper to raise rats than sheep?”

Please click here to read the full article at its source.

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Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, Beijing Consensus, Bird Flu, China Dream, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Government & Policy, Health, Infrastructure, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Poverty, Reform, Resources, The Chinese Identity

May 1, 2013 • 10:10 am 0

Dairy producers must reforge their identity [Global Times] #RisingChina #InfantFormula #Dilemma

A fundamental fix for otherwise China’s fourth rise simply cannot be sustained.

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OP-ED
Dairy producers must reforge their identity
By Wang Xuefeng and Zhang Jixing
Source – Global Times, published April 27, 2013

On April 10, Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs of China, said that as the importing of milk powder keeps expanding, it has become necessary to restrict and punish the illegal carrying of baby formula into the Chinese mainland. He also stressed that the punishment would be heavier to smugglers who bring in baby formula for trade.

Baby formula smugglers, more often nicknamed “baby formula hand-carriers,” convey baby formula into Chinese mainland not for self-use, but for trade or to earn commissions. From a few tins to vessels or trucks, they have made enormous profits from this under-the-table business.

Partly owing to these carriers, the huge demand for baby formula has even threatened the regulators of international markets. The concern aroused by Chinese buyers has made the purchase restrictions their only choice.

The “hand-carrying” business disturbs the order of the domestic market and the foreign trade. It also puts the domestic dairy market at a higher risk, because the quality of baby formula without an identified source cannot be guaranteed.

Please click here to read the full article at its source.

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Filed under: Chinese Model, Corruption, Domestic Growth, Government & Policy, Health, Hong Kong, Mapping Feelings, Peaceful Development, Population, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Social, The Chinese Identity, Trade

April 4, 2013 • 8:50 am 2

You Get What You Pay For’: The Hidden Price of Food from China [Spiegel Online] #China #Food

The sleeper has to awake on this one.

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‘You Get What You Pay For’: The Hidden Price of Food from China
By SPIEGEL Staff: SUSANNE AMANN, CHARLOTTE HAUNHORST, UDO LUDWIG, MAXIMILIAN POPP, SANDRA SCHULZ, ANDREAS ULRICH AND BERNHARD ZAND
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Source – Der Spiegel, published October 17, 2012

In recent years, China has become a major food supplier to Europe. But the low-cost goods are grown in an environment rife with pesticides and antibiotics, disproportionately cited for contamination and subject to an inspection regime full of holes. A recent norovirus outbreak in Germany has only heightened worries.

Qufu, the city in China’s southwestern Shandong Province where Confucius was born, isn’t exactly an attractive place. But its fields are as good as gold. A few weeks ago, a shipment of strawberries left those fields bound for Germany.

The air above the cities of the Chinese heartland is blackened with smog, as trucks barrel along freshly paved roads carrying loads of coal from the mines or iron girders from the region’s smelters. Fields stretch to the horizon, producing food to feed the world’s most populous country.
The chili pepper and cotton harvests have just ended, the rice harvest begins in two weeks, and garlic will be ready in April. Thousands of female farm workers are kneeling in the fields planting the next crop of a particularly profitable plant in the international food business.

“Garlic is eaten everywhere,” says Wu Xiuqin, 30, the sales director at an agricultural business called “Success.” “We sell garlic all over the world, and increasingly to Germany.” The going price of a ton of white garlic is currently $1,200 (€920). The Germans, says Wu, insist on “pure white” product, and they want the garlic individually packaged.

Please click here to read rest of the article at its source.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Corruption, Domestic Growth, Economics, Food, Germany, Government & Policy, Health, Influence, International Relations, Mapping Feelings, Modernisation, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Reform, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Trade

April 3, 2013 • 3:21 am 0

The other cost of doing business [The Age] #ChinaAustralia

A closer look at media coverage shaping Aussie perceptions of China ahead of visit to meet the new Chinese leadership.

‘This is the first of a series examining the personal perils that impede closer business ties.’

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The other cost of doing business
By John Garnaut
Source – The Age, published March 31, 2013

Carl Mather lifted his four-year-old girl into his large tattooed forearms as he walked along the corridor of his Nanjing apartment and peered through the eye hole in the door.

The 53-year-old Australian teacher opened it to a man he knew, Gao Long, but three others sprang from hiding places and forced their way in.

They were demanding to see his wife, Xie Qun, in a language he couldn’t understand, and he feared they would abduct their daughter for leverage in an ongoing dispute over Ms Xie’s candy trading business.

Please click here to read article at its source.

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Filed under: Australia, Beijing Consensus, Chinese Model, Corruption, Domestic Growth, Human Rights, Mapping Feelings, Media, Peaceful Development, Public Diplomacy, Social, The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities

February 24, 2013 • 12:10 am 2

Support for Bo grows before China’s ‘trial of the century’ [The Age] #China #BoXilai

The Age from Australia does an update on the Chinese leadership’s most high level purge in recent years.

This may digress, but a visit to Chongqing earlier this year was most useful to get a feel of Bo Xilai’s work – it was a largely cultured and sophisticated city where for once, crossing roads were not matters of life and death. Motorists did not ignore traffic signals. And people queued for cabs, food, anything, in an orderly fashion. It sure was different from the dozen over cities visited prior. Alas, it is hard to tell from an endless stream of secondary sources claiming to understand the dramatics of this high level purge.

Though the source is unnamed – the quote does give some semblance of a useful point – ‘‘A dead pig has no fear of boiling soup,” said the associate, who grew up close to the Bo family in Zhongnanhai. ”It is the party that has a very hot potato in its hands.”

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Support for Bo grows before China’s ‘trial of the century’
By John Garnaut
China correspondent for Fairfax Media
Source – The Age, published February 13, 2013

BEIJING: The purge of Bo Xilai is in danger of losing momentum as the maverick political star remains defiant and associates question the fairness of keeping him in jail while other tainted leaders remain free.

Support for the charismatic and polarising leader has grown over the Spring Festival break as powerful princelings visit one another’s families and gather to share opinions and information, several princelings and close observers have told Fairfax Media.

One lifelong associate of Mr Bo said the handling of the case was a challenge for the Communist Party rather than Mr Bo, whose political execution was not in doubt.

”A dead pig has no fear of boiling soup,” said the associate, who grew up close to the Bo family in Zhongnanhai. ”It is the party that has a very hot potato in its hands.”

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source.

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Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Bo Xilai, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Corruption, Government & Policy, Media, New Leadership, Politics, Reform, Strategy, The Age, The Chinese Identity

February 5, 2013 • 8:58 pm 0

China corruption: Policeman ‘bought 192 homes with fake ID’ #BBC #China #Corruption

This sheds light on China’s primary challenge when it comes to corruption. The rise up the power ladder is well laden with habits inhabited from long past. Problem is, there is never just one benefactor in these things. This is interwoven with good stuff flowing downstream for one’s social status to rise.

This case also comes along a series of other top down updates announcing its recent anti corruption triumphs.

For more, please check out

South China Morning Post
http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1143565/chinas-new-most-corrupt-official-has-been-found-guangdong-and-he-owns

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China corruption: Policeman ‘bought 192 homes with fake ID’
BBC
Source – BBC, published February 5, 2013

A senior policeman in the southern Chinese city of Lufeng is alleged to have bought 192 houses with fake identity papers, state media report.

Zhao Haibin is no longer a police chief, but he is still a senior figure in the local Communist Party.

There is widespread anger over similar cases where officials used fake identities to buy multiple properties.

Please click here to read the rest of the article at its source

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Filed under: 52 Unacceptable Practices, BBC, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, Chinese Model, Corruption, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Influence, Lifestyle, New Leadership, Politics, Public Diplomacy, Social, The Chinese Identity

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Wandering China

Why China Executes So Many People [The Atalantic] #RisingChina #Ideology #CapitalPunishment

Rat Meat Sold as Lamb Highlights Fear in China [New York Times] #RisingChina #FoodSafety

You Get What You Pay For’: The Hidden Price of Food from China [Spiegel Online] #China #Food

Support for Bo grows before China’s ‘trial of the century’ [The Age] #China #BoXilai

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