
A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs  - kungfooey
http://www.economist.com/node/18560729
======
gatsby
This Economist article paints a very different picture from the article below:

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/18/content_920158...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/18/content_9201582.htm)

Businesswoman gets death sentence for defrauding investors out of tens of
millions of dollars vs. Businesswoman gets death sentence for fundraising

~~~
tokenadult
Well, we know which of the two publications has prepublication review of
content by the Communist Party of China.

~~~
hristov
You make it sound like the Chinese source is not to be trusted, and you may be
right. But this story shows that the Economist is just as trustworthy as any
Chinese communist sources (i.e., not very trustworthy).

The Chinese source states: "The money was used for Wu's personal consumption
and in paying back the loans and operation costs of her company, said the
court."

Now this is a quote from the court which is something that should have been
available to the Economist. Nevertheless the Economist made it sound that she
was only persecuted for accepting financing from unofficial sources, not that
she was doing anything improper with the financing.

A death sentence for running a ponzi scheme sounds like a bit much (but then
again I am against most death sentences) but it is a lot less unjust than a
death sentence for only accepting financing from unofficial sources, which is
what the Economist makes it sound like.

~~~
jerf
"Nevertheless the Economist made it sound that she was only persecuted for
accepting financing from unofficial sources, not that she was doing anything
improper with the financing."

I can't agree with that. I read only the Economist article before coming to
the comments here, and I managed to figure out that she was being charged with
active fraud. I figured it out from things like mentioning a promise of an 80%
return on investment, or possibly lending out money she received at usurious
interest rates.

I think you may be missing the point of the last paragraph, which is that the
plea bargain is to plead guilty to the crime of raising funds in the way
Chinese entrepreneurs have been doing, not that she actually did it. She
didn't, which why it's a plea bargain, but it's concerning that what she
bargained to is a death-penalty crime, apparently.

To be fair, this article seems to be a little shorter than it should be; it
requires closer reading than it should. And I'd also point out that she still
appears to be getting the death penalty for that charge, which is worth
reacting to.

~~~
Chocobean
IIRC, financial fraud that makes the country (e.g., from its
citizens/organizations) lose a lot of money is a capital offense in China. And
also everything you own will be confiscated to pay back to the country.

(If you ignore the "China is Evil" bit for a minute) It kind of makes sense:
you steal money from a country, maybe go to jail for a bit, leave the country,
reunited with all your stolen money. Not so good.

~~~
dublinclontarf
Yeah, but they're going to execute her.You get that? She going to die.

~~~
cstross
Playing devil's advocate here -- I'm totally opposed to the death penalty.
However ...

From the government's point of view, why should crimes of violence like murder
or aggravated sexual assault warrant a harsh punishment, but economic crimes
that affect vastly greater numbers of people receive more lenient treatment?

Given that we can approximate a lifetime's productive labour to, say, $1M, a
fraud involving multiple millions in stolen money amounts to alienating
multiple life's worth of work. Steal $500M and you've done the equivalent of
wiping out five hundred lifetimes' work.

If your perspective is that the judicial system exists to punish crimes
against the state, then a $500M fraud is considerably worse than the actions
of a serial killer.

(That's not the judicial theory we run on here in Scotland, but it's rather
closer to the way things work in one-party states.)

~~~
varjag
Your point makes perfect sense if one is of opinion that human life can be
pegged to monetary value at some exchange rate. And this is indeed the
founding assumption at which many totalitarian regimes operate.

~~~
brazzy
_Your point makes perfect sense if one is of opinion that human life can be
pegged to monetary value at some exchange rate._

If you hold any other opinion, you are fooling yourself. A lot of people will
go to great length to deny it, but if you think about it unprejudiced, you'll
have to accept it. There are just too many instances where spending amount X
of money can save a life and people make the conscious decision not to do so
because X is more than they can or want to afford. Usually they'll rationalize
or otherwise hide this reason (or even the fact that they even made a
decision), but it's there.

 _And this is indeed the founding assumption at which many totalitarian
regimes operate._

How does this have _anything_ to do with totalitarian regimes?

~~~
varjag
> If you hold any other opinion, you are fooling yourself. A lot of people
> will go to great length to deny it, but if you think about it unprejudiced,
> you'll have to accept it.

Now this is a promising beginning. Put that Randian tone aside if you want to
be taken seriously.

> There are just too many instances where spending amount X of money can save
> a life and people make the conscious decision not to do so because X is more
> than they can or want to afford.

We're not talking about saving someone's life in varying circumstances. We are
talking about cut-off figure that makes e.g. financial crime punishable by
death. Those societies that practice it, tend to be totalitarian, with the
conversion rate to e.g. RMBs or Soviet Roubles written down in criminal law.

------
bilbo0s
I don't know.

80% returns?

Really?

She was able to get 80% returns?

GUARANTEED?

This lady kind of sounds like a potential Madoff who got caught early.

Yes, she may be totally innocent. That is one of many possibilities. Having
mentioned that... man...

80%?

guaranteed?

Trading Futures?

Maybe the punishment is a bit harsh, but it really does seem she was not
totally on the up and up.

And secondly, what kind of a person gives their money to someone promising 80%
returns risk-free? Who did she raise this money from?

I mean let's say you're listening to a financial services guy give a pitch
over Evian and roasted sweet potatoes with cumin. Right. He says, "I'll get
you 80% yearly on your money! Guaranteed! Risk-free!"

Well at that point you and I probably look at each other, and just leave. Who
would believe that?

~~~
chc
"A bit harsh" is a lot of an understatement. They're talking about _killing
her_.

~~~
Pinckney
How is execution different than 150 years in prison, aside from the chance to
be exonerated later? Madoff's life is just about as thoroughly destroyed as
Wu's. They will both die in prison.

I dislike capital punishment for several reasons, in particular the greater
potential to be applied falsely, but I do not feel that Madoff's sentence is
substantially less harsh.

~~~
stretchwithme
I think the convicted can answer this question better than I. They almost
always prefer to keep living.

~~~
_delirium
It'd be interesting to see numbers on how many people serving a life sentence
would choose to commit suicide if materials for a painless suicide were
readily available. Prisons actively attempt to keep people from doing so, and
it's apparently frequent enough to be a major problem at some prisons.

~~~
rbanffy
Depression can be a factor here.

~~~
bartonfink
I think depression comes with the punishment of life imprisonment, so the ?
about the availability of suicide is still valid.

------
protomyth
Does this mean angel investing is illegal in China. I am not sure what
"raising and pooling money outside the official system" really means.

~~~
kungfooey
That's a good question. That seems like important context. What does the
"official system" consist of, exactly, and why do so many entrepreneurs
apparently raise funds outside of it?

~~~
ww520
Think of it as the wild west of financial system. People can skew the rules or
laws by setting up saving and loan "banks" with promise of high return. Of
course these are Ponzi scheme with the latecomers paying off the earlier ones,
and eventually the "bank" collapses and the "entrepreneurs" simply disappear
while many people lose their money.

So many "entrepreneurs" raising funds outside of the rule and law because they
can't satisfy the financial regulations that protect the lay investors. And
financial scams are lucrative?

She has "raised" hundreds of millions in this case. People losing the their
life savings are furious. I'm sure in this case, these people have asked for
her head. People who have had millions to start with are usually in the
position of power, and they seem to get their wish this time.

------
rbanffy
What strikes me as odd is that she pleaded guilty and helped broaden the
investigations and still got a death penalty. This pretty much removes any
incentive for a guilty plea and for helping an investigation.

I think it's fairly reasonable to consider whether she is facing capital
punishment for financial fraud or for having helped broaden the investigation
in the wrong direction.

~~~
GregBuchholz
>and still got a death penalty.

The death penalty alone is better than execution of you and your kids, or
better than torture and execution, etc..

~~~
rbanffy
I don't think those are options under the Chinese penal code.

~~~
GregBuchholz

      I'd be surprised if there wasn't some form of prosecutetorial discression that couldn't overlook your children's involvment in your business dealings.  Think of Madoff's kids.

------
aptsurdist
This is horrifying and I don't even know where to start examining the problem.
Firstly, how do we trust any news source on a case like this when the press is
controlled by the accuser? Second, even if the sentence is 'legally correct,'
when does the threat of a human rights violation become too important to
ignore - should countries be pressured to abolish death sentences (at least)
for non-violent crimes? Even if the death penalty is the 'official' punishment
to fit the crime, certainly it's a big problem if the actual delivery of that
sentence is relegated to a minority of cases in which the government is
motivated to prosecute. Of course selective prosecution is a problem with any
legal system, but when the sentence is death it is all the more important to
monitor cases through a transparent system. It doesn't seem that this kind of
transparency is in place.
[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/23/business/main67982...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/23/business/main6798205.shtml)
see: "...the judicial system is overly secretive in deciding on death penalty
cases."
[http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2014070,00.htm...](http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2014070,00.html)
see: "...opaqueness of its legal system."

~~~
aptsurdist
[@PG and the hacker news team: I think it's pretty important to see some
indication of supporting votes on these comments. Please keep considering if
you want to bring back that feature in some form. Thanks!]

------
PakG1
_Ultimately, she was convicted of “illegal fund-raising” for, the court
concluded, raising 773m yuan from illicit sources._

What does this MEAN, I wonder? Money laundering? Or?

------
cheez
Hey guys, try and follow the laws of the country in which you live.

Even if you think it's unjust, you can't change it if you're dead.

~~~
dublinclontarf
What if the laws make criminals of ordinary, innocent things. This is pretty
much the case in China(and many countries actually) its impossible to live
without commiting some kind of crime. Thats how they get you.

~~~
billswift
_Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent_

[http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302971110&sr=8-1)

Also read any of James Bovard's books; _Lost Rights_ , _Freedom in Chains_ ,
_Feeling Your Pain_ , _Terrorism and Tyranny_ , _The Bush Betrayal_ ,
_Attention Deficit Democracy_ , or Vin Suprynowicz books _Send in the Waco
Killers_ and _Ballad of Carl Drega_ or his column on the Las Vegas Review-
Journal, <http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Vin_Suprynowicz.html>

------
pan69
China. So close, yet so far away.

~~~
pan69
Off-topic:

The new comment system where votes next to comment aren't shown anymore is
quite interesting. Over the course of a day my comment received about 10 up-
votes and now an equal amount of down-votes.

My comment was the first to comment made on this post and in the first two
hours or so my comment received all it's up-votes. Then, slowly over the next
24 hours it began to sink.

I think the reason my comment received the down votes is because over time
more elaborate comments where made that made my comment look more and more
insignificant and out of place.

Now I don't think my comment was great and deserved any up-votes what so ever,
but it's interesting to see how not showing the votes next to a comment makes
such a huge difference and I don't believe my comment would have been down-
voted if the 10 up-votes would have been shown next to it.

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jrockway
Wow, and just when I thought death for mass murderers was a bit too cruel...

------
lisperforlife
Please correct me if I am wrong. Basically she is dying because she defrauded
a bunch of rich dudes and created employment opportunities. The rich dudes are
pissed and so she is now facing a death sentence? This is pretty screwed.

Sending her to jail is one thing but death sentence. That is just idiotic.

------
BasDirks
Barbaria.

Edit: I shouldn't attempt irony on the interwebz. Barbaria was said with a
wink at history.

