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June 24, 2003
This comes straight from
Reuters:
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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese police officer named a
national hero for relentless campaigns against drug trafficking gangs
faces prosecution for smuggling heroin, the official Xinhua news agency
said Tuesday.
Three years ago, Zhou Kun, head of an anti-drug brigade in
the southwestern province of Guizhou, was an "anti-drug hero" who had
captured more than 1,000 drug smugglers and more than 50 kg (110 pounds)
of narcotics, it said.
In 2000, he was rewarded the title of 'National Advanced
Worker' for his remarkable contributions in the nationwide fight against
drug trafficking.
But in November railway police caught two members of a
trafficking ring on a train in the neighboring province of Kunming - and
they said they were working for Zhou.
Zhou was arrested in January and he confessed to drug
smuggling narcotics with other traffickers on repeated occasions, Xinhua
reported.
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Being Asian and quite interested in and intrigued by the
lack of progress in mainland China in terms of political reforms (but
still full-steam ahead with the typical communist propaganda and slogans),
this just about the what I'd expect...
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June
24, 2003
Being in a single party state (the single party being
communist party), it is quite easy for the People's Republic of China
government to control the media and to let its people know that the party
want them to. Even in such a position, the PRC admits drugs is a problem
for the country. So you'd thought the government would do something about
it. Well, on the surface, it has - a drug-busting cop was named a
'national hero'.
However, if the state/government/party can't control a high-ranking
official working on an 'important state problem', what hope is there for
the rest of the 'less important problems'. And these 'less important
problems' are not exactly small fries. Thanks to the PRC's signature to
the World Trade Organization (which is a good thing), the PRC is obliged
to open up a significant portion of its economy to foreign competition.
No-one will be awarded the title of a 'national hero' for lower the
barriers to foreign competition, which, if implemented, will be equivalent
to ringing the bell that signals the end of trading for thousands of
Chinese state-owned companies!
So the PRC can't keep its officials for drug busting under control, do you
think they give half a thought to really opening up its markets to
foreign competition?
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June 25, 2003
In a way, I'm surprised but in
another, it is completely in line with my expectation.
I recognized that there're bent cops all over the place - pick a country,
there'd be a long history of police malpractice. However, being a
single-party state that the PRC is, all news is used as propaganda for the
party - some cop just happen to bust a few drug smugglers and he's made a
'national hero' - so that the state appears to be doing something about a
problem. My guess is that the PRC probably doesn't let people know how big
the drug problem is (there're over 1.25 billion people in the
country). According to
China's entry in the CIA's
World Fact Book 2002, the PRC is "major transshipment point for heroin
produced in the Golden Triangle; growing domestic drug abuse problem;
source country for chemical precursors and methamphetamine"... You make
the call - you think this guy really got to be named a 'national hero'
because he busted a bunch of drug smugglers, or it is because the state is
so desperate to appear doing something about the problem so to create some
'news'.... |