China "fires" a bureaucrat

I've thought for a long time that the government is way behind the private sector in the USA regarding the efficiency with which it rewards and disciplines employees.  Getting rid of a government employee for incompetence, poor performance, or corruption is difficult to impossible.  Meanwhile, China demonstrated yesterday their way of doing it.  Go see the article titled Chinese food watchdog executed.

[Thanks to Kevin for the tip.]

Comments

[Kevin F]

I am in favor of making it a capital offense for congressmen to accept bribes. Yes I am saying we should fry Duke Cunningham and that Jefferson scumbag from Louisiana. Sadly, it's those bribe-taking congressmen themselves who pass the laws and so they'd never do it -- quite a conundrum there.

[pawnking]

Scapegoating in this flavor went out of style in the western world after Queen Elizabeth. In a desperate attempt to restore public confidence in their products, China has killed one rather than address any underlying problems in the system.

Would the world have taken it so lightly if we executed Ken Lay and then did nothing about the conditions in which what he did was possible? China has proven itself to be what it is, a backward thinking thugocracy.

[Ariah]

pawnking -
Agreed. I have no actual statistics to support this (and I doubt that the Chinese government would allow them to be published if they existed) but I strongly suspect that Chinese politicians who take bribes outnumber those who don't. This guy was dishonest, but the real reason he died was to deflect attention from the fact that Chinese food & drug quality is managed by a swarm of corrupt, ineffective and frequently redundant governmental agencies.

Unfortunately for them, I think the Chinese government severely miscalculated the American response to this. This isn't going to sate a theoretical American desire for vengeance, it's just going to draw more attention to their corrupt bureaucracies.

[Aaron]

People were dying because of a drug he passed, no? Its a bit more serious than taking a bribe.

Of course, in China simple smuggling can result in a death penalty.

[Aaron]

Oh, and by the way, the quality of Chinese products is surely affected by the type of customers we get...price price price price price price price.

Though the big companies do all sorts of CYA, such as factory audits and product testing, these can also be faked or be fixed with bribes. They really shouldn't use local companies for that stuff, but its cheaper, again: price is king.

[patrick]

Ariah- well said. My reading illustrates to me that coruption seems to be the key skill in china.

did anyone else see that article (I think on cnn.com or yahoo) that broke down one of the main ingredients in some chinese biscuits as CARDBOARD.. unbleiveable.