China food safety head executed

[metalman]

Zheng Xiaoyu headed the food and drug agency for seven years

The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.

The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.

China has been criticised over a number of recent cases involving tainted goods, and correspondents say Zheng had become a symbol of the crisis.

Zheng had appealed against his sentence, arguing that it was "too severe" and saying he had confessed his crimes and co-operated with police.

But his appeal, heard in mid-June, was rejected shortly afterwards.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6286698.stm?lsm

well, that should take care of that.

[Sapiens]

Re: China food safety head executed

well, that should take care of that.

Gotta love the Chinese, they have a flair for drama.

http://www.theatrehistory.com/asian/chinese004.html
Theory of Chinese drama. The ideal of the Chinese stage was that every play should have a moral. An article in the penal code of the Empire requires every dramatist to have "a virtuous aim." Both prose and verse are often used in the same play. The best plots satisfy the rule regarding unity of action, and many of them also observe the unities of time and place, although the Chinese knew nothing of Aristotle's theories concerning the elements of structure. Many of the plays are short, a half-hour or so in length; and the longer ones are divided into acts and scenes. It is the custom in many places to give a series of short plays without any intermission, so that a performance sometimes lasts for several hours. In such a case of course there is no attempt at maintaining a single unified action. The second play may take up the career of a new hero after the first one has been killed or defeated, thus carrying the spectator over long distances and through many years. In order to keep the thread of the action clear, each important character pauses occasionally to announce his name and lineage, and perhaps to rehearse the course of the plot. A singular feature of the Chinese play is the singing actor, to whom are given the most poetic and beautiful passages. Like the Greek chorus, he sometimes repeats the chief events of the play, and moralizes upon the conduct of the characters.

[metalman]

Re: China food safety head executed

Gotta love the Chinese, they have a flair for drama.

no, not dramatic. mundane.


Death Bus

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-7-2/43479.html

[Tet]

Re: China food safety head executed

The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

I wonder if they charged his family for the bullet they used.



China is the only place where they still hang banksters.

[DemonD]

Re: China food safety head executed

Tet, I would almost have respect for china for making banking fraud a capital offense, however it is my belief that this guy was just made a scapegoat, and there are hundreds if not thousands of other crooked communist chinese out there that are just as bad if not worse. To me it's like China saying "See, we are doing something about this problem you can trust us!" My guess is that this execution changes absolutely nothing about the safety and efficacy of food and drug regulation in china.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: China food safety head executed

Tet, I would almost have respect for china for making banking fraud a capital offense, however it is my belief that this guy was just made a scapegoat, and there are hundreds if not thousands of other crooked communist chinese out there that are just as bad if not worse. To me it's like China saying "See, we are doing something about this problem you can trust us!" My guess is that this execution changes absolutely nothing about the safety and efficacy of food and drug regulation in china.

Well, it is too bad we can't make at least one person in the US a similar scapegoat. Scooter Libby almost got to do it, but then Dubya weaseled him out of harm's way. Since we are so "civilized" here in the US with "good laws" governing our markets, it's easy to see why we tell the rest of the world, they should be light us. Barf!

[zoog]

Re: China food safety head executed

...it is my belief that this guy was just made a scapegoat, and there are hundreds if not thousands of other crooked communist chinese out there that are just as bad if not worse.

I think others here know more about China than I do, but it is my understanding that the bureaucracy in China feeds on bribes and special favors, and has done so since imperial times. (I'm withholding any snarky remarks about comparisons to our own government.) Fail to offer the proper gifts to someone further up the food chain, you become the scapegoat.

To me it's like China saying "See, we are doing something about this problem you can trust us!" My guess is that this execution changes absolutely nothing about the safety and efficacy of food and drug regulation in china.

In China and most of the Far East, the value of a human life is not as high as it is here in the West. I suppose when you have 1.3 Billion people, executing one is a very small cost compared to potential lost revenue from this food contamination publicity fiasco.

[metalman]

Re: China food safety head executed

I think others here know more about China than I do, but it is my understanding that the bureaucracy in China feeds on bribes and special favors, and has done so since imperial times. (I'm withholding any snarky remarks about comparisons to our own government.) Fail to offer the proper gifts to someone further up the food chain, you become the scapegoat.

In China and most of the Far East, the value of a human life is not as high as it is here in the West. I suppose when you have 1.3 Billion people, executing one is a very small cost compared to potential lost revenue from this food contamination publicity fiasco.

check out the death bus article i linked to above...

"In China now there are 320 offences that carry the death penalty, including many non-violent "white-collar" crimes. The exact number of executions in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a "state secret" but Amnesty International reports that at least 1770 executions are definitely known to have been carried out last year with a further 3400 being put on death row. The general view among China watchers is that these figures are only the tip of the iceberg, with estimates of the real annual number of executions ranging from 8000 to 15,000."

still, that's an improvement over the old days. a few thou is better than tens of millions. progress!

"Nonetheless, the inescapable fact is that this regime has been responsible for the unnatural deaths of as many as 80 million of its own citizens in little more than half a century, yet it is now being universally treated like a "normal" government. But the CCP is not "normal". It has not acknowledged international human rights standards, claiming that it or (in its words China) is "different". What is clear is that the ethical standards of the CCP are indeed very different from those of Western political parties."

[zoog]

Chinese Food Fear: Classic Bear Market Starting Point

Thought this statement was interesting:

“For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with melamine, a cheap additive.” The key phrase here is “for years.” Its presence reveals that the news is not the use melamine in dog food, but the emergence of a new fearful mood, one that closely resembles similar mass fears about food that hit in the early stage of bear markets.

[DemonD]

Re: China food safety head executed

Well, it is too bad we can't make at least one person in the US a similar scapegoat. Scooter Libby almost got to do it, but then Dubya weaseled him out of harm's way. Since we are so "civilized" here in the US with "good laws" governing our markets, it's easy to see why we tell the rest of the world, they should be light us. Barf!

The difference in the US is that there are term limits and we can vote people out of office. I'm not going to sit here and say it's perfect, or that it works fast. But because we do have a system of checks and balances, those things do happen. Look at Richard Nixon for example. Because of a free press, and the power of Congress to impeach, a standing head-of-state was removed without a single bullet being fired, without a single riot, without tanks rolling in the streets, without the military having to take sides. In China, a Richard Nixon-like figure would just imprison woodward and bernstein and maybe have them killed.

I think others here know more about China than I do, but it is my understanding that the bureaucracy in China feeds on bribes and special favors, and has done so since imperial times. (I'm withholding any snarky remarks about comparisons to our own government.) Fail to offer the proper gifts to someone further up the food chain, you become the scapegoat.

It appears to me that this is so also, however no matter how many bribes you give, if you are ousted by the international press as causing massive harm that involves trade and wealth, you are going to die. That's the message I get here. "We (China) will kill anyone that the AP or Reuters finds was directly responsible for messing up our reputation for trade products."

I appreciate the withholding of snarky remarks too. Our government is not perfect, but no where near as bad as China's is to it's people.

[Tet]

Re: Chinese Food Fear: Classic Bear Market Starting Point

Thought this statement was interesting:
closely resembles similar mass fears about food that hit in the early stage of bear markets.

I've noticed that Mad Cow breakouts never occur with the price of feeder cattle at a low, only at very high tops. From a statistical point of view the probability of Mad Cow always occuring with the price of feeder cattle well over it's 200-day moving average is zero. Maybe China is handling food and consumer goods pricing just like Wall Steet and our bennevolent Free Press handle these types of things here. All these items I'm sure are selling at bargain prices today.

[Spartacus]

the original article didn't list when his arrest and conviction happened

so it may not have had anything to do with trade pressure.

Or maybe I'm just racist - not willing to believe the Chinese are just as evil and politically underhanded and money-grubbing as Westerners.