Former Head of Chinese Dairy Pleads Guilty

[Robbien]

Source: NYT

SHANGHAI — The former chairwoman of one of China’s biggest dairy producers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling tainted powdered baby formula and acknowledged for the first time that the company knew of the problem months before alerting local officials to what has become one of the country’s biggest food-safety crises, according to the state-run news media.

. . .

Ms. Tian’s plea came on the first day of a trial that involves three other Sanlu executives. The court said that consumer complaints about Sanlu’s milk came in as early as December 2007. Ms. Tian said she knew the company was selling contaminated formula by May 2008, but did not report the problem to local government officials until August. Between May and September, when Sanlu stopped production, prosecutors said the company made more than 900 tons of melamine-contaminated powdered formula.

Until Wednesday, company officials had maintained that they learned of the problem only in August.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/asia/01milk.html?ref=asia

[KittyWampus]

1. meanwhile, the local govt officials all knew and were bought off but Ms. Tian takes the rap.

The NeoCons are pikers when it comes to cronyism and corruption compared to China.

[bullimiami]

2. total corruption. some more powerful group decided who would take the blame.

[Robbien]

4. China has tried over 5,000 government officials this year

there was an article on the subject early last week posted here at DU.


And this woman is just one of five other milk execs being tried for melamine additives.


Appears this is the year China is trying to do something about corruption. Meanwhile the US encourages the growth of our own corruption by telling the DoJ to ignore it and go after immigration instead.

[hlthe2b]

5. She'll be executed, no doubt... n/t

[phillysuse]

7. and they will sell her organs for transplant -

Another wonderful thing the Chinese government does - executes people and makes their organs available for transplants for people with money from all over the world.

[Robbien]

9. Where we just kill our prisoners and bury them

Their death penalty system just moves quicker than ours, and they recycle. :)

[martymar64]

3. At least in China, they know who to punish corruption.

She and the others will get a bullet in the back of the head.

Now if we could apply that method here, maybe then those at Enron and those assholes at Halliburton and KBR, etc, could be taken care of with finality and real justice.

[hlthe2b]

6. They know how to punish whoever they scapegoat for corruption..

A major correction.... Don't think for a moment, she is the only (or even perhaps the leading) person responsible.

[martymar64]

8. She's the tip of the iceberg, there will be more

The Chinese are pretty thorough. There will be more up for trial.
My approval comes from the fact that they go after the executives and not just the workers like they do here.
If an exec here in the US was caught doing the exact same thing, they wouldn't even see jail time. The worst punishment would be house arrest for a couple of weeks, ala Madoff.
This is one thing we can learn from the Chinese.

[quidam56]

10. China regulates US

Appalachia powers China's Empire, this is the trade off ? http://www.wisecountyissues.com The schools in Appalachia are so old and outdated, they can't even power up the technology our kids deserve to compete on a global scale. Our landscape and rivers are being destroyed all for the love of money. We can't stand anymore of the Bush/Cheney, BIG COAL INDUSTIRES new and improved clean hybrid coal prosperity. They say Bush has kept US safe from another terrorist attack since 9/11. What is happening all over America ( the beautiful ) is homegrown, TOXIC TERRORISM.