Chinese official given death penalty for corruption

[DeuceKicker]

Sorry if this has been discussed already, or would be better suited to the politics forum.
Details

Summary: Former head of State Food and Drug Administration in China sentenced to death for accepting bribes to approve scores of useless/dangerous drugs.

I'm not really sure what my take is (I don't even have a strong stance for/against the DP). The cynic inside me says this is a PR move by the Chinese government after the recent pet food disaster, and that this wouldn't happen solely if it killed some of their citizens--but some US citizens lost their pets so it's important to appear to be doing something. It's possible it will get whittled down to a long prison term. I'm not sure how common the death penalty is in China.

[ QUOTE ]
Thirteen babies died of malnutrition in 2005 after being fed powdered milk that contained no nutritional value.

[/ QUOTE ] Kinda pissed me off. It seems pretty hard to produce a food item and not accidentally have some nutritional value to it.

Should he get the death penalty for this? What about the manufacturers of all the drugs/food/toothpaste?

[mason55]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure how common the death penalty is in China.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
In 2005, it carried out an estimated 1,770 executions and sentenced nearly 4,000 people to death, human rights group Amnesty International says.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6101380.stm

In 2005 the United States executed 60 people. Per capita, China's execution rate is about 90x higher than the US's.

[kickpushcoast]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure how common the death penalty is in China.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
In 2005, it carried out an estimated 1,770 executions and sentenced nearly 4,000 people to death, human rights group Amnesty International says.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6101380.stm

In 2005 the United States executed 60 people. Per capita, China's execution rate is about 90x higher than the US's.

[/ QUOTE ]

also, i would wager that most of the executions arent for murder

[APXG]

Given his position and the fact that there is 0% chance that he is "innocent", he is a better candidate for death penalty than most death convicts in the US. Its easy to go around condemning the actions of foreign governments when the US is 100 yrs. ahead of China in terms of corruption war(think Gilded Age). Current levels of trust and general stability in USA were not built overnight, and certainly not with the help of Amnesty International.

If you laugh at any notion of "trust and general stability" in the US, you haven't lived in China or Russia.

[imitation]

China has terrible human rights violations relating to the treatment of prisoners and the death penalty. This also includes allegations of live harvesting of prisoners for organ transplants. That is prisoners not convicted of the death penalty but in labour camps for political crimes or crimes of organisation (large % are falungong) who are taken to military hospitals have there organs removed then are cremated. This is because they refuse to identify themselves so they don't implicate their families.

There is a lot of corruption in the prison system, not so much in the legal system though.

I just read a pretty interesting report about all this but it was mostly just about falungong and I think it exagerated the problem as specific to them rather than extensive human rights abuses that are entrenched with in the military and prisons.

[imitation]

With all that said I often find myself wondering if these human rights abuses don't hold together what could otherwise be a very fragmented and implosive region of the world with a quarter of the entire worlds population. So is this justification?? Would China be better left to the wolves like Africa or Arabia?? These are the most difficult questions I think, what level of acceptance can the west have of human rights abuse if it believes the alternative costs could be significantly greater.

[DeuceKicker]

Imitation,

What are you seeing as the result if we could magically stop the human rights abuses? I guess Taiwan would be in trouble, but what "alternative cost" do you think there will be?

[By-Tor]

wifes reaction: "lol, happens all the time."

[nyc999]

[ QUOTE ]
The cynic inside me says this is a PR move by the Chinese government after the recent pet food disaster, and that this wouldn't happen solely if it killed some of their citizens--but some US citizens lost their pets so it's important to appear to be doing something.

[/ QUOTE ]

100 people in Panama recently died from cough syrup made in China. I would think that had an equal or bigger effect than the pet food incident.

[DeuceKicker]

[ QUOTE ]
100 people in Panama recently died from cough syrup made in China. I would think that had an equal or bigger effect than the pet food incident.

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, and a number of people in China also died from bad antibiotics, baby formula, etc... Unfortunately, the pet food incident is the bigger deal because it happened to people in the US. This gets to the crux of my question. If those people in China, Panama, and wherever else died in part because of this guy's corruption, but no pets or people in the US were affected, would he be getting the death penalty?

I guess By-Tor's wife answered that. Ms By-Tor: Is it normal for a death penalty to be changed to life in prison or whatever after an appeal, or is he pretty much done for?