Is Chen Liangyu going to be executed?

Chen Liangyu when still in office

"He is going to be executed for corruption," said a former colleague I met yesterday for lunch when the issue of Shanghai's former party secretary Chen Liangyu came up. "Of course, they have enough proof he is corrupt himself, not only his family. I heard the first stories already eight years ago."

More than setting up yet another hapless bureaucracy to fight corruption, this upcoming court case is going to set the agenda of the fight against corruption. But whether the system will literally kill its own children? I'm sure he will get (and deserve) a heavy punishment, but I think the death penalty will be a step to far. What do you think?

The details of Chen Liangyu's case

The financial magazine Caijing explains the finer details of the wrongdoings of Chen Liangyu, Shanghai's former party secretary. The bigger political picture gets a bit lost here, but by actually including Chen's parents in the story - although they only add emotion, no facts - makes clear that we are going to see quite a lot of his very special court case.

In an apartment in the Luwan district of Shanghai, an old couple has saved a well-worn newspaper dated July 27, 2007. The headline reads, “China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Answers Reporters on Chen Liangyu’s Serious Violation of Principles.”
“We know nothing more than what was printed in the paper,” said the husband, Chen Genghua, an 86-year-old retired engineer,as his wife, Li Mouzhen, bears a look of sadness and distress.
The person mentioned in the headline is Shanghai’s disgraced former party secretary, who has been embroiled in a multi-billion yuan pension fund scandal. Chen is also the eldest of the couple’s three sons.

A way to clean up the banking sector

Victor Shih detects a path Chinese authorities are following to clean up the banking sector:

I am beginning to detect a pattern where middle level and senior regulators and officials get to rotate to a commercial bank, where they enjoy a few years of high salary. Then, they can either choose to stay or return to poverty. If this can reduce corruption, I think that would be a pretty good system.

Rounding up more unusual suspects

Du Xiangcheng

The anti-corruption fight caught a few unusual suspects. Du Xiangcheng, himself a anti-corruption fighter in Hunan province, was caught with a Russian prostitute. Of course, many - especially those with an internet connection - expect here foul play.

Zhou Liangluo, party secretary of the Haidian district in Beijing, got also entangled in corruption accusations. It seems major cleaning up time before the new political season starts after the summer.