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Comment by g42gregory | Hacker News Reader

There is a saying that, in China, the top political career starts at 70.

I don't think the age is the problem. It's corruption.

To be fair, corruption is also a problem in China. But still the consequences are much higher, if you think of province-level book-cooking and what happened to their leaders.

The incentives for policy making are much different in both countries.

Luckily there’s no corruption in China

At least corruption is sometimes punished in China. The agriculture minister was just given what's essentially a life sentence for corruption.

Even the punishing of corruption in China is corrupt. The corruption is baked into to every level. Such that if an upper power is unhappy with a lower level for whatever reason, they can just push the punish switch and have them done away with.

The US is rapidly catching up here; already in the US if a higher power wants a lesser figure punished they can simply order an indictment, should anyone be foolish enough to resist such an order for lack of evidence of any actual serious crime, they can be replaced immediately with someone willing to bend and break the law with a straight face.

Sometimes isn't good enough. That's just selective enforcement, which is arguably worse than no enforcement at all.

No law is enforced absolutely on every offender. That's impossible. Selective enforcement is a problem, but I would never say it's worse than no enforcement unless the law is bad in the first place.

It is when it is mostly used as a weapon rather than as a law. And China, unfortunately, has quite a lot of that.

“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

Life sentence or death sentence? "China's former agriculture minister Tang Renjian sentenced to death with reprieve for bribery", https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-former-minister-a...

From what I was reading, it sounded like the "with reprieve" essentially transforms the death sentence into a life sentence unless there's another crime committed. I may have misunderstood though.

Yeah, I think you're right according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve

> Death sentence with reprieve is a criminal punishment found in chapter 5 (death penalty), sections 48, 50 and 51 of the criminal law of the People's Republic of China. It is a two-year suspended sentence where the execution is only carried out if the convicted commits further crimes during the suspension period. After the period the sentence is automatically reduced to life imprisonment, or to a fixed-term based on meritorious behavior. The reprieve is integrated into the sentence, unlike a pardon which occurs after the sentence.

So during that 2 year period are you in prison?

Pretty hard to commit many crimes from there...

Or are you free, which seems a little odd...

This was common in Victorian England as well, I believe. I remember reading about it in the context of consensual “sodomy.”

That must be thanks to abundance of freedom.

And somehow sentence from "The good, the bad and ugly" movie (state by Italy born actor) fit on that subject: "If you want freedom you become a priest or a bandit"...

And remember to all the time stick a smile to your face and, internet even, conversations. That is sure fire way to have everything look positive.

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