Drop and Ocean
One can only assume he didn't offer a big enough bribe to his boss, the local judge, et al.
If the chinese government locked up every corrupt official in china, there would be no government, and no administration.
A Chinese appeals court has confirmed a suspended death sentence against a corrupt official who took bribes and sent an innocent marketing executive to prison for a year in order to line his pockets. Yu Bing, a former director of the network monitoring department of the Ministry of Public Security, embezzled 4.52 million yuan …
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
"China currently uses two methods of execution. Since 1949, the most common method was execution by firing squad, which has been largely superseded by lethal injection, using the same three-drug cocktail pioneered by the United States, introduced in 1997. Execution vans are unique to China though. Lethal injection is more commonly used for "economic crimes", such as corruption, while firing squads are used for more common crimes, like murder. There is a general trend towards moving to lethal injection, though. The cost of a lethal injection is cheaper, and according to a court official in Kunming, it lessens the risk of HIV in the cleanup of the firing squad. This method is promoted by the Central People's Government as less painful and more humane, and it plans to phase out the use of firing squads by 2010."
Last I heard on the subject, they still billed the family for the cost - for shooting, the cost of the round expended, for injection, probably the cost of the chemicals.
This is something which is unique to China.
They take the "revenge is dish best served cold" gag very seriously. So you are left to live for a couple of years before you are shot and you know every minute of it that you will be shot at the end.
Almost as good as their classic methods of "hungry rat under a bucket" and "slow water drip onto your head" methods.
It seems a severe punishment and I wonder if the perp knew of the consequences beforehand.
On the other hand, UK (un)civil servants would rapidly assimilate the individual (and associated <cough, cough> benefits) into the rank and file. New blood is rapidly needed in order to offset anticipated cuts to UK mandarinry.
I should also add no disrespect to perp or his immediate family, friends and acquaintances is meant in this post however UK (un)civil servantry and madarinary is fully intended.
even for me. Having lived there for several years, it is rather apparent. But also apparent is the moderate number of people on the inside genuinely intent on fighting it. I'd recommend people look in their own backyard a bit: my backyard of local politics in this part of Australia consists of more local councils run by auditors than councilors after the councilors were sacked for corruption (in one region some time back, when it came time to vote in a new council, the people protested they preferred the auditor to stay rather than them have to choose amongst the dross of small-time political wanna-bees on offer. Sadly, the auditor was not interested in breaking the law, even by popular demand).
I was over in Shanghai a few months back, and in the news was how a local man was bullied into admitting murder a decade or two back. The supposed victim showed up in the airport and the case was immediately brought back and the wrongly jailed guy paid out for his suffering.
The US bitches about how unfair the country is, how unjust, look at how they put people to death for no reason.. blah blah. Yes, that is the past (and certainly does probably still happen to a smaller extent). But US criminal "justice" will never release a man because they were innocent, in fact more people are on death row because the judge and jury didn't give a crap than are guilty of any capital crime.
In the US, unless you are VERY wealthy, don't expect any fair shake. In China, gradually, the innocent are slowly being given back their lives. Better City, Better Life indeed.
...Until you consider that the victim of the frameup was lucky to have avoided being executed before he was exonerated. A year ago, you'd probably have been rooting for the -victim- to have a bullet put in his head.
Chinese style justice is fine - as long as you're willing to redefine 'justice' to include, 'oops, turns out this guy wasn't guilty after all. Too bad we shot him a week after his trial.'
You make a good point. If US politicians faced a slap on the wrist for corruption, instead of being rewarded by a large salary for life with a lucrative job at a lobbying firm to look forward to, they wouldn't be so overt and blatant about taking bribes. So while it would be trivially easy to administer summary justice today, tomorrow they might cover their tracks a bit better and need some sort of investigation or trial. Bummer. But at least we could make a clean sweep of the current lot. That would feel good.
As unlikely in China as anywhere else, frankly. The suspended sentence is, in effect, a stern rap on the knuckles as there doesn't appear to be any gaol time involved. Having his " illicit " gains confiscated will leave him plenty of licit gains to be going on with anyway, to be sure. Julian Assange is probably not the only person in the world with an insurance file btw.
Yes, it is true that corruption is not nearly the same over here!
Indeed, here they get a slap on the wrist, then promoted a month later when noone is talking about it anymore, as well as getting a golden handshake and an obscene pension. Hell, they even get to pay their lawyers with our tax money! I don't suppose they would get all that if they were shot.
What amazes me the most is that it doesn't seem to deter anyone, so maybe the government is right about the ineffectiveness of prison sentences in the UK (or maybe it has to do with the prisoners enjoying Sky and playing the Wii all day, something I can't afford myself).
Or money well spent?
It's 1.7 million Euros. Hardly a lot of money in the grand scheme of space travel. It costs roughly 450 million USD to launch a space shuttle.
For all the doubters out cynics 1.7, to me at least, seems like a small amount to pay to find out if this idea would work. You all remind me of a joke about the LHC: "You can't turn it on until you know for sure what will happen"
If we had that law in the USA, all of the people responsible for the crash of Wall Street would be on death row.
Suspended for two years? The judge lets Yu Bing live his life under surveillance for two years, and then they pick him up and kill him? Man, that's COLD!
Can we get Bernie Madoff tried by that same judge?