Special Report: Fear And Retribution In Xi's Corruption Purge -- David Lague , Benjamin Kang Lim and Charlie Zhu, Reuters
(Reuters) - Chen Zhenggao, a member of the Communist Party's elite Central Committee, clearly has enemies.
While Chen was visiting Hong Kong last year, his adversaries were preparing a detailed dossier on his travel and entertainment spending. Soon after the visit, mainland businessmen passed the documents to Reuters.
Among the materials was video surveillance footage of the powerful politician, then the governor of China’s Liaoning province, stepping out of the plush Conrad Hotel in Hong Kong on the evening of April 24, 2013.
Chen was leading a large delegation of Liaoning officials seeking to drum up investment. A surveillance team in a car outside the hotel filmed him setting off for a stroll in the direction of nearby Hong Kong Park and returning about 20 minutes later. Chen was also under surveillance inside the hotel’s function rooms. Footage of him entering a suite with aides hovering around appears to have been shot with a concealed camera.
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My Comment: Corruption in China has always been endemic .... and a sore point with almost everyone. My guess is that President Xi knew that this perception of widespread corruption tolerated by the state was something that needed to be changed .... because he probably knew better than any one else that if it was to continue .... you would end up with a a lot of dissatisfied Chinese citizens who would be demanding change .... even revolutionary change. The key is to now find a balance .... but the genie is now out of the bottle, and who knows where this may end up going.
I have seen people huddled in a burnt out 2 or 3 story building in Shanghai on the road from the airport to the city center.
ReplyDeleteWe are not talking about the outskirts of the city. They had no roof and it was raining hard.
I have seen people with very hard looks on their faces. They were in a shell of an unfinished 2 story bodega (which you see with the roll top security door in Latin America). This was on the west side between the 2nd and 3rd ring roads. It looked like they did not know where their next meal was going to come from. there were about a 1/2 dozen hanging out the window looking forlorn. I would not want to meet them in an alley.
What is better is that they save energy in China. the hallways are dark. The have timers on them. That is a fun time.