Off with their heads...

The ugly side of China has reemerged this week with news of the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former Drug and Food Minister of the People’s Republic.
Zheng had been convicted of taking $800,000 + worth of bribes during his tenure in office from 1998 to 2005. It represents the government’s attempt to minimize the problem as of late of various unhealthy substances finding their way into products the Chinese sell worldwide. By eliminating the person at the top of that area of the culture the problem is instantly solved, so their thinking goes. Normally someone in China having committed public bribery on that scale would be denounced, forced to make restitution and given a two year prison sentence.China has been trying for the last decade to fashion it’s own brand of capitalism, something somewhere between the “Singapore economic model” and a Marxist command economy. The opportunity to show itself to the world through the 2008 Olympics is a matter of immense pride to its leaders. Now a rush is on to bring off that event with a minimal amount of dysfunction, as the report of the execution was accompanied by the proclamation that the food to be served at the Olympics would be contamination free.There are plenty of other problems to be solved in the next 12 months, traffic, air pollution in the host city and the logistics of properly providing hospitality to its Olympic guests. Let’s hope that no more people will be killed in the name of putting China’s best foot forward.