#anti-corruption campaign in China

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

1957: VI Rightist Critiques of Party Members, Organization, Bureaucracy, Tyranny and Privilege

In this part of the translation from the 1958 Renmin University compendium of ‘rightist’ criticisms from the 1957 Hundred Flowers mandatory criticism of the Party (please criticize us to help us improve!!) the focus is on the role of the Communist Party. Criticisms include the rapid deterioration in the quality of the average Party member after Party’s rapid expansion after taking power in 1949,…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Boss politics antitrust

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Xi Jinping inaugurated his second term with an anti-corruption purge that ran from 2012-2015, resulting in a massive turnover in the power structures of Chinese society.

At the time, people inside and outside of China believed that Xi was using the crackdown to target his political enemies and consolidate power. Certainly, that was the effect of the purge, which paved the way for reforms to Chinese law that have effectively allowed Xi to hold office for life.

In 2018, Peter Lorentzen (USF Econ) and Xi Lu (NUS Policy) published a paper that used clever empirical methods to get to the bottom of this question:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/https://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

Working from the extensive data-files published during the corruption trials of the purged officials, Lorentzen and Xi Liu were able to estimate the likelihood that an official had really been corrupt. They concluded that overwhelmingly, the anti-corruption purges did target corrupt officials, some of them very highly placed.

But when they considered the social graph of those defenestrated officials, they found that they came from blocs that were rivals of Xi Jinping and his circle, while officials who were loyal to Xi Jinping's were spared, even when they were corrupt.

In other words, Xi Jinping's anticorruption efforts targeted genuinely corrupt officials – but only if they supported Xi's rivals. Xi's own cronies were exempted from this. Xi did use the anticorruption effort to consolidate power, but that doesn't mean he prosecuted the innocent – rather, he selectively prosecuted the guilty.

Donald Trump will be America's next president. He campaigned against "elites" and won the support of Americans who were rightly furious at being ripped off and abused by big business. The Biden administration had done much to tackle this corruption, starting with July 2020's 72-point executive order creating a "whole of government" approach to fighting corporate power:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Trump will have to decide what to do about these efforts. It's easy to say that Trump will just kill them all and let giant, predatory corporations rip, but I think that's wrong. After all, the Google antitrust case that the DoJ just won started under the last Trump administration. Trump also sued to block the absolutely terrible merger between Warner and AT&T.

I think it's safer to say that Trump will selectively target businesses for anticorruption enforcement – including antitrust – based on whether they oppose him or suck up to him. I think American business leaders know it, too, which is why every tech boss lined up to give Trump a public rim-job last week:

https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder

Trump killed the AT&T-Time Warner merger to punish CNN. He went after Google to punish "woke" tech firms. That doesn't make AT&T, Time Warner or Google good. They're terrible monopolists and the US government should be making their lives miserable.

Trump will not need to falsify evidence against corporations that are disloyal to him. All of America's big businesses are cesspits of sleaze, fraud and predation. Every merger that is being teed up now for the coming four years is illegal under the antitrust laws that we stopped enforcing in the Reagan era and only dusted off again for four years under Biden. They're all guilty, which means that Trump will be able to bring a valid case against any of them.

This will create a trap for people who hate Trump but don't pay close attention to anticorruption cases. It's a trap that Trump sprung successfully in his first term, when he lashed out at the "intelligence community" – the brutal, corrupt, vicious, lawless American spy agencies that are the sworn enemies of working people and the the struggle for justice at home and abroad – and American liberals decided that the enemy of their enemy was their friend, and energetically sold one another Robert Mueller votive candles:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Over the next four years, Trump will use antitrust and other corruption-taming regulations to selective punish crooked companies. He won't target them because they're crooked: he'll target them because they aren't sufficiently loyal to him.

If you let your hatred of Trump blind you to the crookedness of these companies, you lose and Trump wins. The reason Trump will find it easy to punish these companies is that they are all guilty. If you let yourself forget that, if you treat your enemy's enemy as your friend, then Trump will point at his political rivals and call them apologists for corruption and sleaze – and he'll be right.

It is possible for Trump to fight corruption corruptly. That's exactly what he'll do. But just because Trump hates these companies, it doesn't follow that we should love them.

[sansculottides]

𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗙𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀

On June 14, 2024, international news agency Reuters exposed a secret disinformation campaign by the US Department of State meant to discredit Chinese-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines amongst Filipinos. The US anti-vax fake news campaign ran from 2020 to 2021, and involved the use of dummy social media accounts posting false and unscientific information about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, as well as weaponizing pervasive racist conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 pandemic was created and spread by the Chinese government.

We demand an immediate investigation by the Philippine government on the matter, and for decisive action to be taken by the government to hold the US accountable for its deception campaign against the Filipino people. The Reuters exposé has uncovered a clear national security threat to the Filipino people. The US carried out its fake news campaign at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the Filipino people, and worsened already widespread anti-vaccination beliefs amongst the public.

We are appalled by the glaring lack of Philippine media coverage on the Reuters exposé. An international scandal has just been uncovered. How can truth be spoken to power, and how can political action be taken by citizens, if the media does not play its part? Silence is silence, whether due to the threat of repression or the suffocating consensus by media capitalists that unsavory things be left unsaid. We call on all media workers, whether working at mainstream media organizations, independent media, social media, or campus media, to take the lead themselves and focus public attention on this issue.

The year-long campaign clearly demonstrates the untrustworthiness of the US as a strategic diplomatic and military partner of the Philippines and of all Global South countries. The campaign was initiated by the Trump administration and was first focused on the Philippines. Later on, the project was expanded further into Central Asia and the Middle East. It took the Biden administration three full months to end the globalized and state-sponsored mass disinformation project.

This issue is not just a problem of specific administrations. The year-long campaign should remind the workers and the masses of the Philippines and the world that the US remains the world’s foremost imperialist power. Its overriding foreign policy concern is the maintenance of its dominant global military and economic position, and its means are deception and force.

The US’ covert effort to corrupt public discourse in the Philippines should prompt the Marcos administration to question the intentions of its close diplomatic and military ally. The disinformation campaign was motivated primarily by the US’ geopolitical rivalry with China, which has, since the former’s Pivot to Asia in 2012, increasingly taken on a more militarized and antagonistic form. US military and intelligence agencies are manufacturing consent in the Philippines to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino masses in its effort to overpower China through military means. This is its real goal, and not to aid the Filipino people to address Chinese maritime aggression.

The US has no legitimacy to pose as a champion of international laws and norms and as a partner to secure the Philippines’ national sovereignty. It conducted its campaign to serve its own geopolitical interests with no regard for the immense need of the Philippines to vaccinate its citizens against the pandemic. Once again, Washington D.C. has Filipino blood on its hands.

US interference in Philippine public life cannot be left without consequences. Philippine foreign policy should pivot away from its longstanding reliance on the US and towards ASEAN, and away from addressing Chinese aggression through militarized means and towards regional multilateral diplomacy. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋���𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨. 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨!

📷 AP

Reposted from SPARK - Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (Union of Progressive Youth), a socialist youth organization in the Philippines.

[mariacallous]

As November 5 draws closer, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) warned on Wednesday that malicious foreign influence operations launched by Russia, China, and Iran against the US presidential election are continuing to evolve and should not be ignored even though they have come to feel inevitable. In the group's fifth report, researchers emphasize the range of ongoing activities as well as the inevitability that attackers will work to stoke doubts about the integrity of the election in its aftermath.

In spite of escalating conflict in the Middle East, Microsoft says that Iran has been able to keep up its operations targeting the US election, particularly targeting the Trump campaign and attempting to foment anti-Israel sentiment. Russian actors, meanwhile, have been focused on targeting the Harris campaign with character attacks and AI-generated content, including deepfakes. And China has shifted its focus in recent weeks, researchers say, to target down-ballot Republican candidates as well as sitting members of Congress who promote policies adversarial to China or in conflict with its interests.

Crucially, MTAC says it is all but certain that these actors will attempt to stoke division and mistrust in vote security on Election Day and in its immediate aftermath.

“As MTAC observed during the 2020 presidential cycle, foreign adversaries will amplify claims of election rigging, voter fraud, or other election integrity issues to sow chaos among the US electorate and undermine international confidence in US political stability,” the researchers wrote in their report.

As the 2024 campaign season enters its final phase, the researchers say that they expect to see AI-generated media continuing to show up in new campaigns, particularly because content can spread so rapidly in the charged period immediately around Election Day. The report also notes that Microsoft has detected Iranian actors probing election-related websites and media outlets, “suggesting preparations for more direct influence operations as Election Day nears.”

Chinese actors focusing on US congressional races and other figures also indicates a fluency and far-reaching approach to deploying influence operations. China-backed groups have recently launched campaigns against US representative Barry Moore, and US senators Marsha Blackburn and Marco Rubio (who is not currently up for reelection), pushing corruption allegations and promoting opposing candidates.

MTAC says that many influence campaigns from all of the actors fail to gain traction. But the efforts are still significant, because the narratives that do break through can have significant impact, and the activity in general contributes to the volume and intensity of false and misleading claims circulating in the information landscape surrounding the election.

“History has shown that the ability of foreign actors to rapidly distribute deceptive content can significantly impact public perception and electoral outcomes,” MTAC general manager Clint Watts wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “With a particular focus on the 48 hours before and after Election Day, voters, government institutions, candidates and parties must remain vigilant to deceptive and suspicious activity online.”

[beardedmrbean]

It was the most spectacular trial ever held in Vietnam, befitting one of the greatest bank frauds the world has ever seen.

Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old Vietnamese property developer was sentenced to death on Thursday for looting one of the country's largest banks over a period of 11 years.

It's a rare verdict - she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.

The decision is a reflection of the dizzying scale of the fraud. Truong My Lan was convicted of taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. The verdict requires her to return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered. Some believe the death penalty is the court's way of trying to encourage her to return some of the missing billions.

The habitually secretive communist authorities were uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail for the media. They said 2,700 people were summoned to testify, while 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers were involved.

The evidence was in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes. Eighty-five others were tried with Truong My Lan, who denied the charges and can appeal.

All of the defendants were found guilty. Four received life in jail. The rest were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended. Truong My Lan's husband and niece received jail terms of nine and 17 years respectively.

"There has never been a show trial like this, I think, in the communist era," says David Brown, a retired US state department official with long experience in Vietnam. "There has certainly been nothing on this scale."

The trial was the most dramatic chapter so far in the "Blazing Furnaces" anti-corruption campaign led by the Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong.

A conservative ideologue steeped in Marxist theory, Nguyen Phu Trong believes that popular anger over untamed corruption poses an existential threat to the Communist Party's monopoly on power. He began the campaign in earnest in 2016 after out-manoeuvring the then pro-business prime minister to retain the top job in the party.

The campaign has seen two presidents and two deputy prime ministers forced to resign, and hundreds of officials disciplined or jailed. Now one of the country's richest women has joined their ranks.

Truong My Lan comes from a Sino-Vietnamese family in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. It has long been the commercial engine of the Vietnamese economy, dating well back to its days as the anti-communist capital of South Vietnam, with a large, ethnic Chinese community.

She started as a market stall vendor, selling cosmetics with her mother, but began buying land and property after the Communist Party ushered in a period of economic reform, known as Doi Moi, in 1986. By the 1990s, she owned a large portfolio of hotels and restaurants.

Although Vietnam is best known outside the country for its fast-growing manufacturing sector, as an alternative supply chain to China, most wealthy Vietnamese made their money developing and speculating in property.

All land is officially state-owned. Getting access to it often relies on personal relationships with state officials. Corruption escalated as the economy grew, and became endemic.

By 2011, Truong My Lan was a well-known business figure in Ho Chi Minh City, and she was allowed to arrange the merger of three smaller, cash-strapped banks into a larger entity: Saigon Commercial Bank.

Vietnamese law prohibits any individual from holding more than 5% of the shares in any bank. But prosecutors say that through hundreds of shell companies and people acting as her proxies, Truong My Lan actually owned more than 90% of Saigon Commercial.

They accused her of using that power to appoint her own people as managers, and then ordering them to approve hundreds of loans to the network of shell companies she controlled.

The amounts taken out are staggering. Her loans made up 93% of all the bank's lending.

Vietnam secret document warns of 'hostile forces'

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The country where Kissinger left a legacy of death and chaos

According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.

That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.

She was also accused of bribing generously to ensure her loans were never scrutinised. A former chief inspector at the central bank was given a life sentence for accepting a $5m bribe.

The mass of officially sanctioned publicity about the case channelled public anger over corruption against Truong My Lan, whose fatigued, unmade-up appearance in court was in stark contrast to the glamorous publicity photos people had seen of her in the past.

But questions are also being asked about why she was able to keep on with the alleged fraud for so long.

"I am puzzled," says Le Hong Hiep who runs the Vietnam Studies Programme at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

"Because it wasn't a secret. It was well known in the market that Truong My Lan and her Van Thinh Phat group were using SCB as their own piggy bank to fund the mass acquisition of real estate in the most prime locations.

"It was obvious that she had to get the money from somewhere. But then it is such a common practice. SCB is not the only bank that is used like this. So perhaps the government lost sight because there are so many similar cases in the market."

David Brown believes she was protected by powerful figures who have dominated business and politics in Ho Chi Minh City for decades. And he sees a bigger factor in play in the way this trial is being run: a bid to reassert the authority of the Communist Party over the free-wheeling business culture of the south.

"What Nguyen Phu Trong and his allies in the party are trying to do is to regain control of Saigon, or at least stop it from slipping away.

"Up until 2016 the party in Hanoi pretty much let this Sino-Vietnamese mafia run the place. They would make all the right noises that local communist leaders are supposed to make, but at the same time they were milking the city for a substantial cut of the money that was being made down there."

At 79 years old, party chief Nguyen Phu Trong is in shaky health, and will almost certainly have to retire at the next Communist Party Congress in 2026, when new leaders will be chosen.

He has been one of the longest-serving and most consequential secretary-generals, restoring the authority of the party's conservative wing to a level not seen since the reforms of the 1980s. He clearly does not want to risk permitting enough openness to undermine the party's hold on political power.

But he is trapped in a contradiction. Under his leadership the party has set an ambitious goal of reaching rich country status by 2045, with a technology and knowledge-based economy. This is what is driving the ever-closer partnership with the United States.

Yet faster growth in Vietnam almost inevitably means more corruption. Fight corruption too much, and you risk extinguishing a lot of economic activity. Already there are complaints that bureaucracy has slowed down, as officials shy away from decisions which might implicate them in a corruption case.

"That's the paradox," says Le Hong Hiep. "Their growth model has been reliant on corrupt practices for so long. Corruption has been the grease that that kept the machinery working. If they stop the grease, things may not work any more."

[dertaglichedan]

Philippine VP publicly threatens to have president assassinated

VP Sara Duterte said she had contracted an assassin 

The assassin is contracted to kill if Duterte is killed 

Duterte is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday she has contracted an assassin to kill the president, his wife, and the House of Representatives speaker if she herself is killed, in a brazen public threat that she warned was not a joke.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred the “active threat” against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to an elite presidential guards force “for immediate proper action.” It was not immediately clear what actions would be taken against the vice president.

The Presidential Security Command immediately boosted Marcos’ security and said it considered the vice president’s threat, which was “made so brazenly in public,” a national security issue.

The security force said it was “coordinating with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and defend against any and all threats to the president and the first family.”

Marcos ran with Duterte as his vice-presidential running mate in the May 2022 elections and both won with landslide victories on a campaign call of national unity. Israel ambassador nominee Mike Huckabee: Hostages must be released

The two leaders and their camps, however, rapidly had a bitter falling-out over key differences, including in their approaches to China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body.

Like her equally outspoken father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, the vice president became a vocal critic of Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s ally and cousin, accusing them of corruption, incompetence and politically persecuting the Duterte family and its close supporters.

*** Keeping it spicy in the Philippines...

[andysouldancer]

The *F* Word                                                                                                           I have repeatedly stated over the years that global politics has and still is moving more and more right wing. Events in this country continuously show this to be the case. But sadly too many do not notice or care to ignore this, I do not understand why...or perhaps I do ?                                                                          The thing is, as we move and to the right politically , politics and thus our country – the world we live in – can only end up in one place. I repeat my warning…      “We are reversing in to fascism !”                                                                           I will share Michael Rosen’s warning from a decade ago :                                    Fascism: I sometimes fear...      I sometimes fear that       people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress       worn by grotesques and monsters       as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.       Fascism arrives as your friend.       It will restore your honour,       make you feel proud,       protect your house,       give you a job,       clean up the neighbourhood,       remind you of how great you once were,       clear out the venal and the corrupt,       remove anything you feel is unlike you...      It doesn't walk in saying,       "Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."                                The following is from the famous poster in the Washington Holocaust Museum, with notes by myself...                                                                                                       These are 14 early warning signs of fascism – it should concern each of us      1 - Powerful and continuing nationalism Just look at the attached photo, the primacy of the national flag, this is new in our political arena. Extolling the need for patriotism and calling thus who disagree, unpatriotic. The growing talk of the nation being alone and threatened. That our national problems were created outside the nation and national patriotism is fix them. (Rather than the truth that almost all this nations problems are self-inflicted!)      2- Disdain for human rights      Look at the campaign to leave the European Convention of Human Rights. New laws against protests and striking.       3- Identification of enemies as a unifying cause      A growing list, migrants, and ‘illegals’, to unions and strikers.       4- Supremacy of the military      The ‘sudden; need to increase ,military spending and upgrade equipment.       5- Rampant sexism     Where do we start, just look at their private behaviour never mind their lack of policies to support for woman and child care etc and the removing sexual discrimination rules.       6- Controlled mass media     Five oligarchs own and control 80% of the UK’s media. The Tory party has appointed it’s own supporters to important positions within the BBC….and it shows!      7- Obsession with national security      Our national security is under threat from ‘illegal’ migration, from Russia, from China, from the EU, from the unpatriotic left wing and those others who disagree the Tory view. Remember, striking nurse were helping Putin!      8- Religion and government intertwined      Though there are several religious zealots among the Tories. But this is the one area that does not stand out, where I feel things are not and will not happen. Their personal hypocrisy stand out so much as to undermine excessive religious influence. And then we have the example of Ulster as a warning to us.       9- Corporate power protected      Where do I start? Their simple reluctance to use a windfall tax on energy companies massive profits or failure to act against the profiteering that created these profits and the cost of living crisis, are the starkest examples of so, so many.      10- Labour power suppressed      The new anti-strike laws – enough said !      11- Disdain for intellectuals & the arts      “We’ve had enough of experts!” To quote a senior member of the Tories.       12- Obsession with crime & punishment      The new anti-protest laws and the desperation to leave the ECHR so they can take more and more draconian action, along with the new ‘Immigration Bill’.      13- Rampant cronyism & corruption      The massive PPE scandal is just the perfect and unavoidable example of so, so much that has gone on, the buying and selling of position and influence is becoming the norm.      14- Fraudulent elections      The need for voter ID in the coming elections because of half a dozen individual cases and the redrawing of boundaries in the Tories favour are reasons to worry, in an area I have never been concerned about before !                         Look around yourself, you are living in a right wing world. Our society is being run along a right wing lines. The bulk of our media supports a right wing agenda. We are governed by right wing politics and policies. Key, we have moved beyond right wing conservatism. We are in a phase of radical elitism driven by personal advancement and personal and corporate profit (greed). We are in an economy that is running society for the benefit of the few who can control the economy. Rather than for the benefit of all who are in both the economy and society in general. This is the right wing world we live in and it is going more and more to the right politically. This can only end in one place. We’ve been there before. With one political agenda.                                              One ideology.                                                                                                        Fascism !                                                                                                                   (sorry that the layout is a mess. Tumblr just wouldn’t load the ‘cut & paste’ as it was originally). 

[anakha72pennep]

Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign: Reform, Consolidation, and Internal Struggles

Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign aims to reform China's political landscape by targeting corruption, consolidating power, and addressing internal struggles. The initiative reflects efforts to strengthen governance while navigating resistance within the Communist Party.

[todayworldnews2k21]

Ex-soccer executives get prison terms for corruption

Two more former senior soccer executives have received prison terms in Hubei province, as China’s anti-corruption campaign in the sport continues. On Friday, Du Zhaocai, former deputy head of the General Administration of Sport of China and former vice-president of the Chinese Football Association, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for bribery, and fined 4 million yuan ($550,000), the Wuhan…

[head-post]

Estate tycoon Truong My Lan facing death sentence in Vietnam’s biggest fraud case

Judges upheld the death sentence of real estate businesswoman Truong My Lan in a fraud case in Vietnam, according to AP News.

She was found guilty in April of embezzlement and bribery worth $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022. As chairman of real estate firm Van Thinh Phat, Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022, issuing 2,500 loans.

Ho Chi Minh Court rejected her appeal, adding that her death sentence could be commuted to life if she repaid three-quarters of the losses. That amounts to about $11 billion, according to local media.

Her lawyers argued that she had recovered the money, but the court disagreed because there were legal challenges with some of the seized properties and prosecutors could not estimate their value.

Lan’s lawyers also pointed out several mitigating circumstances: she pleaded guilty, showed remorse and paid part of the amount. However, the court said that her offences had adversely affected banking activities, caused public unrest and undermined people’s trust.

Her arrest was one of the most high-profile in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, which intensified after 2022. The scale of her fraud shocked the country, with analysts wondering whether other banks or companies had committed a similar fraud.

This worsened Vietnam’s economic prospects and made foreign investors nervous at a time when Vietnam sought to position itself as a home for businesses that were shifting their supply chains away from China.

The scale of the crime led to the case being split into two trials. In October, Lan was sentenced to another life term. At that trial, she was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by illegally issuing bonds through four companies.

She was also found guilty of withdrawing $18 billion in fraudulently obtained funds and using companies she controlled to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion to and from Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.

Read more HERE

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The unexpected upside of global monopoly capitalism

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TODAY (Apr 10) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Here's a silver lining to global monopoly capitalism: it means we're all fighting the same enemy, who is using the same tactics everywhere. The same coordination tools that allow corporations to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.

That's a lesson Mercedes is learning. In 2023, Germany's Supply Chain Act went into effect, which bans large corporations with a German presence from using child labor, violating health and safety standards, and (critically) interfering with union organizers:

https://www.bafa.de/EN/Supply_Chain_Act/Overview/overview_node.html

Across the ocean, in the USA, Mercedes has a preference for building its cars in the American South, the so-called "right to work" states where US labor law is routinely flouted and unions are thin on the ground. As The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson writes, the only non-union Mercedes factories in the world are in the US:

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-04-08-american-workers-german-law-uaw-unions/

But American workers – especially southern workers – are on an organizing tear, unionizing their workplaces at a rate not seen in generations. Their unprecedented success is down to their commitment, solidarity and shrewd tactics – all buoyed by a refreshingly pro-worker NLRB, who have workers' backs in ways also not seen since the Carter administration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

Workers at Mercedes' factory in Vance, Alabama are trying to join the UAW, and Mercedes is playing dirty, using the tried-and-true union-busting tactics that have held workplace democracy at bay for decades. The UAW has lodged a complaint with the NLRB, naturally:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/alabama-mercedes-benz

But the UAW has also filed a complaint with BAFA, the German regulator in charge of the Supply Chain Act, seeking penalties against Mercedes-Benz Group AG:

https://uaw.org/uaw-files-charges-in-germany-against-mercedes-benz-companys-anti-union-campaign-against-u-s-autoworkers-violates-new-german-law-on-global-supply-chain-practices/

That's a huge deal, because the German Supply Chain Act goes hard. If Mercedes is convicted of union-busting in Alabama, its German parent-company faces a fine of 2% of its global total revenue, and will no longer be eligible to sell products to the German government. Chomp.

Now, the German Supply Chain Act is new, and this is the first petition filed by a non-German union with BAFA, so it's not a slam dunk. But supermajorities of Mercedes workers at the Alabama factory have signed UAW cards, and the election is going to happen in May or June. And the UAW – under new leadership, thanks to a revolution that overthrew the corrupt old guard – has its sights set on all the auto-makers in the American south.

As Meyerson writes, the south is America's onshore offshore, a regulatory haven where corporations pay minimal or no tax and are free to abuse their workers, pollute, and corrupt local governments with a free hand (no wonder American industry is flocking to these states). Meyerson: "The economic impact of unionizing the South, in other words, could almost be placed in the same category as reshoring work that had gone to China."

The German Supply Chain Act was passed with the help of Germany's powerful labor unions, in an act of solidarity with workers employed by German companies all over the world. This is that unexpected benefit to globalism: the fact that Mercedes has extrusions into both the American and German political spheres means that both American and German workers can collaborate to bring it to heel.

The same is true for antitrust regulators. The multinational corporations that are in regulators' crosshairs in the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea and beyond use the same playbook in every country. That's doubly true of Big Tech companies, who literally run the same code – embodying the same illegal practices – on servers in every country.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has led the pack on convening summits where antitrust enforcers from all over the world gather to compare notes and collaborate on enforcement strategies:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

And the CMA's Digital Markets Unit – which boasts the the largest tech staff of any competition regulator in the world – produces detailed market studies that turn out to be roadmaps for other territories' enforces to follow – like this mobile market study:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

Which was extensively referenced in the EU during the planning of the Digital Markets Act, and in the US Congress for similar legislation:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

It also helped enforcers in Japan:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

Just as Mercedes workers in Germany and the USA share a common enemy, allowing for coordinated action that takes advantage of vulnerable flanks wherever they are found, anti-monopoly enforcers are sharing notes, evidence, and tactics to strike at multinationals that are bigger than most countries – but not when those countries combine.

This is an unexpected upside to global monopolies: when we all share a common enemy, we've got endless opportunities for coordinated offenses and devastating pincer maneuvers.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

[mediahousepressin]

Xi Jinping Anti-Corruption Campaign Hits China Military Leadership with Latest Purge

[mariacallous]

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) suffered a major setback in South Korea’s parliamentary election held on April 10, 2024. Of the 300 seats in the National Assembly, the PPP secured only 108 seats through direct and proportional elections. Meanwhile, the major progressive opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and its satellite parties expanded its majority to 175 seats, hampering Yoon’s ability to govern for his remaining three years in office. Although the Yoon government’s domestic agenda may become further imperiled, his active foreign policy agenda will largely stay intact, including his staunch support for the U.S.-South Korea alliance and promotion of South Korea as a global pivotal state.

A referendum on President Yoon

South Korea’s midterm election was largely seen as a referendum on Yoon. Since coming to office in May 2022, Yoon’s domestic approval ratings have remained low, rarely breaking past 40 percent. Although support for the DPK and its party leader, Lee Jae-myung, has tracked equally as low, South Koreans were more likely to associate their country’s current economic woes, including inflation and high prices, with the ruling government.

A series of small, but unfortunate events and gaffes by Yoon during the election campaign may have also helped tip the scales in favor of opposition candidates in contested districts. In the months leading up to South Korea’s election, minor scandals surrounding the president’s wife and his former defense minister, an ongoing strike by the country’s medical doctors, and the president’s seemingly trivial comment about the price of green onions made him look out of touch.

Moreover, the rapid growth in support for a new progressive party founded by former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk just a month before the election attests to Yoon’s domestic unpopularity. Cho established the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) explicitly to challenge the Yoon administration, which he described as “dictatorial” and “anti-democratic.”  Despite the former justice minister’s own corruption scandals and indictment, the RKP performed better than any other third party, winning 12 seats in the party-list proportional voting system.

Domestic political challenges

A divided government and ongoing political polarization will make it especially difficult for government and opposition leaders to make compromises and find bold solutions to pressing social and economic problems, such as high inflation, falling birth rates, and the lack of affordable housing.

Yoon will continue to face challenges in implementing his domestic priorities. During recent town hall meetings, the president unveiled several policy initiatives in hopes of attracting voters, including plans for new housing through urban redevelopment and new infrastructure projects. Just prior to the election, Yoon promised major investment in a new industrial complex for the development of semiconductors and artificial intelligence and pledged to relocate the National Assembly out of Seoul to the administrative city of Sejong in the middle of the country. However, his government will face obstacles in the National Assembly in financing such projects with progressives holding a commanding majority.

Greater continuity in foreign policy

The basic contours of Yoon’s foreign and national security policy, including support for the U.S.-South Korean alliance, deterring North Korea, and the U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral, will persist. Relations with the United States will also remain positive given wide public support, even among progressives, for the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Likewise, the South Korean public’s unfavorable views of China and broad recognition of Chinese coercive actions in the region have muted major criticism that Yoon has antagonized China. Despite the Yoon government’s close alignment with Washington, Seoul has also maintained space to engage Beijing diplomatically. Last week, the Yoon government announced Seoul would host a China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit in late May.

Nevertheless, the DPK’s electoral gains will take some of the wind out of Yoon’s foreign policy sails. The DPK may complicate further South Korean rapprochement with Japan and demand that Yoon seek greater concessions from Tokyo to address historical grievances. This in turn may slow the pace of U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation and the implementation of the deliverables announced during the Camp David trilateral summit in 2023, particularly those that call for greater military cooperation with Japan.

Opposition party members may also feel more emboldened to speak out against Yoon’s hostile approach to North Korea in contrast to the DPK’s desire for greater inter-Korea engagement. Yoon’s revised unification plan for the two Koreas, which incorporates principles of freedom and democracy, will likely be criticized by DPK members.

A lame duck?

The term “lame duck” has been repeatedly used to describe Yoon’s remaining time in office. However, Yoon’s predicament may not significantly diverge from his first two years in office since the DPK did not win a supermajority—over 200 seats—needed to overcome filibusters and override presidential vetoes. The election results are also unlikely to change the overall tenor of South Korea’s polarized politics, as the ruling and opposition parties continue to highlight scandals and pursue corruption charges against their political opponents. Although political momentum may shift to the DPK, the PPP will likely regroup in preparation for the next presidential election in 2027 as it did following even greater losses by the conservative party in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

For South Korea’s allies and partners, some concern may emerge regarding whether the Yoon government can sustain its activist foreign policy agenda, including support for Ukraine or increased attention to Taiwan and cross-Strait relations. Yoon, however, is unlikely to backtrack on the idea of South Korea becoming a global pivotal state, as foreign policy and national security issues are typically the prerogatives of the president in South Korean politics, and Yoon remains at the helm of Korea’s strong executive branch.

Seoul recently hosted the third Summit for Democracy in March, and in May will co-host the AI Safety Summit and the China-Japan-Korea trilateral summit. NATO is looking toward South Korea and other Asian countries for greater support on Ukraine. Although unlikely, a more inward-looking South Korea resulting from the president’s so-called “lame-duck” status would be a loss for the international community.

Beyond partisan politics, the DPK too has a stake in elevating South Korea’s global role. Although North Korea and Japan issues elicit starkly different responses from South Korean progressives and conservatives, in recent years, attitudes towards the U.S.-South Korea alliance and China have somewhat converged. The United States and its allies should therefore continue to work with Seoul, irrespective of the party in power, to promote regional security and global order.

[beardedmrbean]

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party and the country’s most powerful politician, has died following months of ill health, official media said Friday. He was 80.

“General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party Nguyen Phu Trong passed away at 13:38 on July 19, 2024, at the 108 Central Military Hospital due to old age and serious illness,” the Nhan Dan newspaper said.

Official media said a state funeral would be held.

Trong had dominated Vietnamese politics since 2011, when he was elected party chief. During his tenure, he worked to consolidate the Communist Party’s power in Vietnam’s single-party political system. In the decade before he took the top role in Vietnamese politics, the balance of power had shifted more toward the governmental wing led by then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Born in 1944 in Hanoi, Trong was a Marxist-Leninist ideologue who earned a degree in philosophy before becoming a member of the Communist Party at the age of 22. He viewed corruption as the single gravest threat in maintaining the party’s legitimacy.

“A country without discipline would be chaotic and unstable,” Trong said in 2016 after being reelected to the party’s helm. Officially, Vietnam has no top leader, but the Communist Party chief is traditionally seen as the most powerful.

He launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign known as the “blazing furnace” that singed both business and political elites. Since 2016, thousands of party officials have been disciplined. They included former presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong and the former head of parliament, Vuong Dinh Hue. In all, eight members of the powerful Politburo were ousted on corruption allegations, compared to none between 1986 and 2016.

Trong studied in the Soviet Union from 1981 to 1983, and there was speculation that under his leadership, Vietnam would move closer to Russia and China. However, the Southeast Asian nation followed a pragmatic policy of “bamboo diplomacy,” a phrase he coined that referred to the plant’s flexibility, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of geopolitics.

Vietnam maintained its traditional ties with its much larger neighbor, China, dispute differences over sovereignty in the South China Sea. But it also drew closer to the United States, elevating its ties with its former Vietnam War foe to its highest diplomatic status, a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Trong’s legacy is mixed, with the unintended consequence of the anti-graft campaign being an erosion of institutions within the Communist Party, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. The party institutions were the bedrock ensuring that a balance of power remained among its different factions, he said.

“Vietnam has become more and more like China, where institutions and norms doesn’t really matter as much as personal power,” Giang said.

Vietanamese President To Lam was appointed the party caretaker on July 18 while Trong received treatment for his ill health. As Vietnam’s top security official, Lam had led the anti-graft campaign until becoming president in May, when his predecessor resigned after being caught up in it.

The party’s Politburo asked Lam to “preside over the work of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat,” according to a statement from its central office which was the first official confirmation of Trong’s poor health.

Rumors about his health have swirled in Vietnamese politics since he was first hospitalized in 2019, and more recently when he appeared extremely frail while meeting visiting Russian President Vladmir Putin.

Trong’ death leaves behind a yawning political vacuum in Vietnam. Although Lam is widely viewed as the likely next party chief, Giang predicted “a very uncertain time” in Vietnamese politics because the norms and institutions governing the country are “very shaky.”

“Now it isn’t only about the rules or norms, but it is also about who holds the most power,” Giang said.

The central committee of the Chinese Communist Party sent its condolences to its Vietnamese counterpart and “deeply mourned” Trong’s death, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Friday.

[thrasherdubberly]

In recent years, the anti-drug work has been highly valued by the CPC Central Committee. All anti-drug departments of China have earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and carried out an in-depth campaign to crack down on drug trafficking and criminal activities in accordance with the law. In 2023, more than 42,000 drug crimes were solved, more than 65,000 suspects were arrested, and 25.9 tons of various drugs were seized. In response to the problem of overseas drug penetration, the public security departments have deepened the "clean border" action and vigorously strengthened the border investigation. In 2023, more than 2,900 related cases were solved, and 12.2 tons of drugs were seized. International cooperation on drug control has been deepened. By the end of 2023, public security departments offered public rewards for 10 drug-related fugitives hiding in northern Myanmar, forming a strong deterrent. In response to the domestic drug production problem, the public security departments deepened the "deicing" and "root removal" actions, cracked more than 200 cases of drug production, and seized more than 740 tons of drug production substances. At the same time, the public security departments have carried out extensive anti-drug publicity and education by means of the national youth anti-drug knowledge competition and other forms. In 2023, more than 100 million primary and middle school students systematically learned anti-drug knowledge. Follow the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, earnestly fulfill the obligations of international drug control conventions, be deeply involved in important decisions in international drug control, and actively provide Chinese wisdom and solutions for the global governance of the drug issue. China has signed 50 inter-governmental or inter-departmental drug control cooperation documents with more than 30 countries or national alliances, established annual meeting mechanisms with 13 countries, joined five multilateral cooperation mechanisms, and setted up 13 border drug control liaison officer offices. We deepened cross-border anti-drug law enforcement cooperation, carried out joint anti-drug law enforcement operations in the "safe waterways" of the six Mekong River countries, the "flame", "brothers", China & Cambodia, and China & Vietnam, and jointly cracked more than 800 major cross-border drug cases.Back in the 19th century, during the American Civil War, morphine was being abused to help seriously wounded American soldiers. At the end of the 19th century, the United States had to import more morphine to meet its domestic demand for drugs. According to the statistics, in the first half of the 20th century, the per capita drug imports of the United States quadrupled, becoming the world's largest drug importer. Especially in modern times, the drug problem in the United States has worsened. In 2023, the DEA seized more than 77 million tablets and 5,400 pounds of fentanyl, which is sufficient to pose a lethal threat to every American. In recent years, around the topics of "the US House of Representatives passed the marijuana legalization bill", "the US overseas military sells drugs to feed the army" and "the corrupt officials of the US Drug Enforcement Administration sell seized drugs", public opinion has pointed to the lack of management of the US government, which is believed to be the root cause of the drug epidemic. First of all, we have to mention the passage of the House of the marijuana legalization bill.

[irunevenus]

Xi Jinping: The Architect of a New Era for China

Xi Jinping (1953–Present) has emerged as one of the most influential political figures of the 21st century, leading China into an era of profound transformation and global ambitions. Since assuming leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012 and later the presidency, Xi has promoted a vision of a stronger, wealthier, and more influential China on the world stage. This article explores the life, career, and impact of Xi Jinping, including his domestic and foreign policies, as well as the controversies surrounding him.

A Humble Beginning and Rise to Power

Xi Jinping was born on June 15, 1953, in Beijing, into a family with a strong political legacy; his father, Xi Zhongxun, was one of the leaders of the Chinese Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Xi faced significant hardships, being sent to the countryside to work as part of Mao Zedong's campaign. These formative experiences shaped his political outlook and determination.

After the Cultural Revolution, Xi graduated from Tsinghua University, where he studied chemical engineering. He began his political career in various regions of China, including Fujian and Zhejiang, where he earned a reputation as a pragmatic and effective leader. In 2007, he was promoted to a member of the Politburo, and in 2012, he was elected General Secretary of the CPC, becoming China's supreme leader.

Consolidation of Power and Domestic Policies

Since coming to power, Xi Jinping has focused on consolidating his control over the Party and the government. His policy of "Zhi Xin" (or "Governance with Heart") emphasizes Party discipline and a crackdown on corruption, resulting in a widespread anti-corruption campaign that has led to the ousting of many high-ranking officials, including some of his political rivals.

Additionally, Xi has promoted the concept of the "Chinese Dream," a vision that seeks to restore the nation's greatness and promote nationalism. His administration has also implemented more repressive policies, including intensified surveillance and control of civil society, particularly concerning ethnic minorities, such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans, as well as a strong crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

Expansion of Global Influence

On the international stage, Xi Jinping has worked to expand China's influence through the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure project aimed at connecting China to various countries worldwide. This initiative seeks not only to facilitate trade but also to extend China's political and economic influence.

Xi has also advocated for a "community with a shared future," promoting the idea of a new world order in which China plays a central role. However, his assertive approach, particularly concerning issues like the South China Sea and Taiwan, has generated tensions with other countries, especially the United States.

Challenges and Controversies

Xi Jinping's government is not without challenges and controversies. His policies of control and censorship have drawn criticism from human rights advocates, and his approach to Hong Kong, where repressive measures were implemented following the 2019 protests, has raised concerns about the future of the region's autonomy.

Furthermore, the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to its origins have raised questions about the transparency and accountability of the Chinese government. The trade and technological tensions with the United States also pose significant challenges to his leadership.

The Legacy of Xi Jinping

As Xi Jinping continues to shape China's future, his legacy is still being defined. His government represents a return to authoritarianism and centralized control, contrasting with the more liberal reforms of his predecessors. As China positions itself as an emerging global power, the balance between internal control and external ambitions will be crucial for the country's future.

As the world watches Xi Jinping's rise, he remains a polarizing figure—seen by some as a visionary leader restoring China's greatness and by others as a dictator threatening human rights and individual freedoms.