Yes, corruption absolutely corrupts. In China it's bad because it's so easy to fly off to Australia, UK, Canada or the US with the loot, buy a permanent residency and settle down...
Well if they had earned that loot via legal means not via corruption or fraud, that's actually the better way to protect your wealth. Look at Jack Ma and Tencent, they worked so hard to create wealth, they are not running off to other countries with their "loot". Look at what's happening to them? They are getting persecuted or "cracked down".
The very moment BABA was listed in NYSE, the $$$ had gone out. Jack is in the same league as Bill, Mark, Buffet etc.
Last time I checked Jack Ma is still in China. Doesn't matter where his money is, as long as he is physically in China, his money is still in China. He is no Jeff Bezos. That will be a more appropriate counterpart of Jack Ma in the US. And that's the difference between the businessmen in the West and in autocratic regime like China, Russia, Taliban and etc. In those autocratic regimes like China, no matter how much free rein you think you have, at the end of the day, everything you own, everything you work for still belongs to the government and the government can take it away in a moment's notice. This is exactly the time that we are witnessing this. I am glad China is doing this, finally exposing its true colour so people can see what it is really like doing business in autocratic regimes and be on guard. China is not the only autocratic regime ruled by a communist party. Vietnam is another one. Its economy is booming right now being the alternative supply chain to the West. Is it going to become China one day once it becomes too big and thinks it can just kick the West to the curb to develop its own closed local economy? Only time will tell. Hopefully by that time, the West won't be so dependent on manual labour anymore as part of its production process.
There is no objective legal system, only subjective one. That is why some who committed bigger fraud got away with long jail sentence. A decentralized system in a subjective legal system is chaos.
That's the problem. The legal system is supposed to be independent (that means it's free of political influence aka somebody doesn't get special treatment just because he/she is in the inner circle of the top leader) and blind which means it's objective that is based on facts, not based on emotions like misguided nationalism.
I was told by my niece who study lay. In law, there is no fairness but only objective. I was taken aback but on deeper thought fairness is more subjective.
China is controlled by "8 Angels". If you don't know this, you have no business in China. Chairman Dan's cronies and their families. China's model of tyranny was adopted by Muscovy by the way of Mongols. And Russians love it too. They call it Vertical of Power. The same folks, just look European. The same modus operandi for a business: get the loot and get the heck out of there as soon as you can do this safely. And there is no actual safety for both in the West. Dead bodies everywhere.
JSOP loves to rant about communist dictatorships but reality is, dictatorships have no political affiliations, right wing populism or left wing populism, it's all the same. Russia is the example to prove my point, from USSR to whatever it now is, there's no difference; it's about control, of the population, the economy and the military. By the way, I have from good sources that Jack Ma was not always in China from when Xi decided to show him who had true power. It in fact took some negotiating for him to return to China. Xi doesn't care about the West as much as the West thinks. Xi cares about China and his place in history. Taiwan is China's only thorn and he wants to remove it. But he doesn't have absolute power and needs to convince enough senior members of the CCP that now is the right time to strike. Let's also remember that communism isn't anymore intrinsic to Chinese culture as democracy is. Without constant reminder to think otherwise, China is the cradle of capitalism. Literally everyone wants to create a business and wants to become wealthy, because wealth is power and power is dominance. The few able to think in abstract terms become spiritual guides while everyone else work non stop to become wealthy, either this generation or the next, or the next... single purpose culture. And it makes sense when competing with 1.2 billion others.
fitting very well in here is this article from zerohedge- china might get it's own Lehman Brothers moment just in the days ahead https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/d...nd-immediate-payment-bonds-no-longer-eligible