Zheng Xiaoyu, the commissioner of China’s food and drug administration from 1998 until mid-2005, has been convicted of taking $850,000 in bribes to approve drug production licenses in that country. His sentence: death. Wow.
Death for taking $850,000. That’s only a little more cash than Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell had lying around in boxes and briefcases when he died in 1970.
The connection? Official corruption has long plagued China, as it has long plagued Illinois.
Now, this page no longer supports the death penalty. And most of the Prairie State pols who are on the take sell out for a lot less than $850,000. Some go for chump change. So even in China they might get off with life at hard labor.
Although a cynic would say that for some pols, that’s a fate worse than death.
