law - On banning illegal stuff

Every now and then I stumble into observations of foreigners in China that really make my day. Imagethief discovered an already older contribution by ESWN on illegal practises in the media. After quoting ESWN Imagethief ponders:

There are perfectly reasonable ways of dealing with these situations. I'm sure fraud is a crime in China, and can be punished as such, if the government so chooses. As someone who is friends with several Chinese reporters, I would be worried were the entire legitimate media to be scapegoated for the behavior of a few con-artists, or even a few bent journalists.

Really, very funny, since when you look around aabout half of China itself is illegal, when you look at it in the very rigid way like some foreigners tend to do. Banning all illegal stuff would actually undermine the state and be illegal in itself.