China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west.

But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?

What happens to the money in these cases? I could imagine the official taking solace knowing the money he amassed over the years would eventually go his family.

I wonder if he could have lived if it was just one $325M bribe and not 30 years of bribery.

the reason i dislike seeing these articles on HN is that:

1. strong defensive positions float to the top... which could be astroturfing.

2. the merits of the concept aren't discussed; the convo falls back to whataboutism.

maybe it's all fair, but on a site where everyone's ~anonymous, it's hard to take the discussion at face value.

A relatively low level official can't take this much bribes. More like a scapegoat.

I don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.

It's a shame we relabelled corruption as lobbying. The damage it has done is untold.

One thing that China does should be adopted in the West.

Imagine if the US punished its corrupt officials. It might have to kill its own president.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Corruption is the most significant threat China has left now that Western capitalism has surrendered.

Tariffs on all things Chinese is pretty much an open admission that the West can't compete.

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Main difference between death penalty in US and China, is in US police officers easily sentence subjects to death and the courts do it with great difficulty. In China the inverse.

For instance, high level executive Bryan Malinowski was executed by the ATF and barely anyone noticed, but if the courts had sentenced him in such way, there would be great outrage.

US president: I can take more and die quicker than the China guy!

Wonder who this guy pissed off in the CCP.