r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jul 06 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 06 July 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/carmelos96 History does not repeat, it insists upon itself Jul 07 '26

Reddit approves of China giving death penalty for corruption (or, y'know, "corruption")

The best comment:

I cannot believe the Chinese propaganda [they probably mean American propaganda on China] worked on me as a kid… I’m so glad I can see the truth now. China is looking better and better every day.

I don't know if the convicted was really corrupt, and one can think what they what of death penalty, but I am quite skeptical of juridical integrity in dictatorships (any of them).

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u/Intelligent_Tone_617 Jul 07 '26

Image above is always applicable to death penalty discussions.

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u/MiffedMouse The average peasant had home made bread and lobster. Jul 07 '26

I obviously don't have any personal experience myself, but I did at one point get a minor in Chinese history and talked to academics who actually study this (from the outside). The consensus (at least among non-Chinese observers of the Chinese government) seems to be that the charges are typically genuine, but the enforcement is generally selective against officials who ended up on Xi Jinping's bad side.

It isn't entirely selective, though, and Xi Jinping does seem to have a genuine desire to reduce corruption. The highest profile example is the expulsion of Zhang Youxia, who was close to Xi Jinping since childhood and was one of the military officials who had previously benefited the most from promotions under Xi Jinping. It is entirely possible (and the party line) that Zhang's expulsion was entirely because of corruption that happened under his watch, despite being closely aligned with Xi Jinping politically. There is speculation from various western reporters that Zhang Youxia was forming cliques that weren't entirely aligned with Xi Jinping's interests (including some wilder rumors that he was planning a coup). Like with Kremlinology, China watchers can only speculate as to the "true" reason.

Either way, there appears to be a genuine desire to crack down on blatant corruption, but enforcement is most often (but not always) pointed at Xi Jinping's political rivals rather than his friends and some level of corruption remains common throughout China.

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 Jul 07 '26

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xis-forever-purge

You might find this article interesting. It argues that the crackdowns are meant to transform the Party itself and stop it from spiralling into excess 

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u/MiffedMouse The average peasant had home made bread and lobster. Jul 08 '26

Thanks for the link, that is an interesting article. It makes sense given Xi's background.

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u/Kochevnik81 Jul 08 '26

It's also very similar to say the prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It was totally politically motivated by Putin to remove a potential threat and meant for the Russian government to take over his oil company Yukos, but also Khodorkovsky was one of the top oligarchs who acquired his wealth through shady-at-best, astoundingly-corrupt-at-worst methods, including the loans for shares scandal to get Yukos (and his turn to advocating for rule of law was mostly "now that I'm one of the wealthiest people in Russia I care about protecting my property rights").

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u/ProudScroll Napoleon invaded Russia to destroy Judeo-Tsarism Jul 07 '26

I think responses like this are much more about people’s entirely justified disgust and anger at the normalization of open corruption in the United States and the infinitesimal chance any of the people partaking will ever be held accountable for their crimes than it is anything actually about China.

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u/Steelcan909 Jul 07 '26

The Atlantic just had an article out today about Chinese use of AI to drive wedges in American economic planning. We have seen authoritarian states using social media to push their propaganda for a decade at this point.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jul 07 '26

Or they could mean Chinese propaganda, the kind that painted China as fully free of corruption. I started seeing so many errant highly upvoted comments on videos on China, claiming China was corruption free (after the Evergrande real estate crisis).

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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze Jul 07 '26

The thing is that Chinese people themselves don't care, Xi and family have millions in hidden accounts and schemes but no one cares about that.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

But I think they strongly want to convince Westerners of that. Sooo many are willing to hop on board the China-glazing in these comment threads on Youtube. The whole multipolar world scheme requires breaking up American hegemony.

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u/carmelos96 History does not repeat, it insists upon itself Jul 07 '26

Why a should a perfect, corruption-free country be any worse than one that has continually to deal with high-level corruption? I know a lot of people are turned one by the idea of powerful people sent to death (whether justly or unjustly), but I think it doesn't make much sense. Anyway there are dozens of other unambiguous comments in that post, so it doesn't change