For those of you looking to get yourself (or your boss) splashed across Chinese media, look no further than this article by David Barboza of the New York Times whose already done the legwork for you and found out all the rates: more ›

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has arrested Thomas and Raymond Kwok, the heads of Hong Kong's largest real-estate firm, Sun Hung Kai Properties, for suspected bribery. However, as of yet, official charges have not yet been placed on the two billionaire brothers more ›

"Many people see rampant bribery as evidence that village elections don’t work or matter. And it definitely isn’t a good thing from the perspective of democracy. But actually elections must be working fairly well for candidates to see bribery—an expensive proposition—as necessary to win. If the elections didn’t matter or if it were easier to stuff the ballot or undermine the election in another way, no one would spend so much money on bribery to win them. The elections ensure that the developers and local officials have to share some of the wealth that they might otherwise just pocket themselves.” more ›

Though the rumors had been kicking around for a while, an official report from CCTV confirms that the Shanghainese former deputy chief engineer for the Ministry of Railways Zhang Shuguang (张曙光) kept overseas deposits worth $2.8 billion USD. In contrast, former Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun (刘志军, he of the 18 mistresses), made off with only a piddling $155 million USD worth of red-packet money. more ›

Nine months later, the sentences are now beginning to rain down on those the Shanghai government has decided were responsible for the residential blaze in Jing'an district that killed 58 people. Surprisingly, nobody yet is slated to executed. Instead, the highest-profile official has "only" gotten 16 years, which has some of the victims' families upset. more ›

"TWO former vice mayors in east China, convicted of corruption and taking millions of yuan in bribes, were put to death today. Xu Maiyong, 52, former vice mayor of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and Jiang Renjie, former vice mayor of Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, were executed today, Xinhua reported. Xu was given the death sentence for taking 145 million yuan (US$22.31 million) in bribes, embezzling 53 million yuan and abusing power. Nicknamed 'Xu of Plenty' because he possessed a lot of money, houses and women, Xu accepted and sought bribes from 14 companies and individuals and helped them get government projects, evade taxes, obtain land and get government jobs, China News Service reported. Jiang was found guilty of accepting 108.57 million yuan in bribes from property developers between 2001 and 2004 when he was in charge of urban planning, construction and real estate development in Suzhou." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

"Don't think I'm trying to show off my wealth with this posting," a businessman wrote. "It's just I'm so toothless and helpless in the face of current-day society." (Reuters) This is how an entry for a confession to bribing officials starts on a Chinese website. The writer then describes how he coughed up 3 million RMB to government officials to win contracts and even took an official on a 10-day vacation to Europe. Faced with rampant corruption internet users like that businessman are taking to the net to vent their frustration (and perhaps ease their guilt) for taking part in left-handed dealings with sites like ibribery and 522phone. more ›

• The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore travelled to the Qinghai earthquake region and has documented his journey in photographs. To view the photographs please visit his Flickr page. [Flickr]
• High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost on the earthquake in Tibet originally written in Chinese byTibetan blogger "The Lost Curse". "The Lost Curse" imagines what questions they would ask in an official press conference on the earthquake. [High Peaks Pure Earth]
• In the second major bribery scandal concerning the State Food and Drug Administration in less than four years, five officials of the SFDA have been arrested for allegedly accepting bribes in their work supervising the safety of biological products. [China Daily]

The trial for Rio Tinto employee Stern Hu and his three co-workers is now over and the verdict is out: Hu gets 10 years for accepting bribes and stealing commercial secrets. The other three were sentenced to between seven and 14 years in prison. Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith called it a tough sentence" and called the Shanghai court blocking their access to Hu's state secrets trial "very regrett[able]... China has missed a substantial opportunity. This was an opportunity for China to bring some clarity to the notion or the question of commercial secrets." more ›

Stern Hu, the Asian-Australian Rio Tinto exec who was detained nine months ago has now said he will plead guilty today to charges of bribery. Hu was accused of receiving around 6 million RMB of bribes and could end up in jail for over five years. However, despite agreeing to the plea, Hu is still contesting the amount of bribes alleged to have been taken. Though the hearing for the bribery charge will conclude today, since only Xinmin and Xinhua have been allowed into the courtroom, we may only find out what went on tomorrow. Incidentally, the trials for commercial secrets theft start tomorrow as well. more ›

There is a LOT more going on in the Chinese sports world than ever makes it onto this Web site. With that in mind, today I'm posting about some interesting recent developments that I've neglected. Here goes. more ›

• A regional newspaper photoshopped out the label “路政巡查” [Road Administration Patrol] from a vehicle that had hit and killed a 16-year-old in order to distance the accident from the government. People were pretty displeased when they found out. [Chinasmack]
• China has pretty darn good coverage even in its rural areas. Estimates hold that 99.86% of the country's administrative villages have telephone service, 91.5% have internet. [Xinhua]
• In 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion, or nearly three times the economic output of the entire globe in 2000, according to Robert Fogel. [Foreign Policy]

With bribery being a constant issue here, we're in support of this new initiative: individuals and companies can now check out other people and firms' bribery case statuses in Shanghai and its neighboring six provinces. You must first apply to local prosecutors and gain approval before accessing the records, but they'll be updated in real time. While Shanghai has had a local network since October of last year, this will be the first time it will be opening up the list to its neighbors. more ›

We were alerted to this interesting, if somewhat off-kilter opinion piece in China Daily that lists corrupt officials now in jail and their common hobby: writing books. It seems like a lot of officials, now that they have not much else to do, devote it to the pursuit - or at least recording - of knowledge. The list of previously politico scribes now in jail include: more ›

An ex-employee of NBA China's Shanghai office has been detained for alleged involvement in the bribery scandal that engulfed several workers at Coca Cola's bottler, Shanghai Shenmei Beverage & Food Co. earlier this month. The former NBA staff member had been identified during a police probe of irregularities and was handed over to the Shanghai Municipal Prosecuratorate, police have confirmed. more ›

It seems that the Chinese government was just getting started when it arrested employees from Rio Tinto this Summer. The newest company in the hot seat is Coca-Cola, which had an ex-employee arrested by the Shanghai police over corruption charges this weekend. more ›

“I cannot remember the people who bribed me with money, but I do remember the ones that didn’t.” — Xu Guoyuan (徐国元), ex-mayor and vice Party chief of Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region more ›

Caijing has a spectacular article looking at some of the troubles still shrouding the CCTV fire from last month, and they don't all have to do with the destroyed building. The blaze that gutted the TVCC building on February 9 may have also uncovered questionable financial deals made by high-level CCTV executives. more ›

If Helen of Troy could be said to have a face that launched a thousand ships, we guess Lu Jiali over here had the sex appeal to launch a thousand corruption schemes. Who is she? The alleged mistress of an entire slew of Shanghai officials currently embroiled in the city's social security scandal. Rumored to be in her little black book: more ›

Ex-Pudong Vice Governor Kang Huijun, who allegedly accepted nearly 6 million yuan in bribes, has been sentenced to life in prison. Kang, who became known as “Pudong's landlord,” was arrested in 2007. Besides the bribes, he and his wife, Wang Xiaoyin, also illegally owned 11 million yuan worth of property. Wang has been given a five-year term and about 18 million yuan of the couples' net worth has been repossessed by the government. Caijing published a great summary of what Kang and Wang did leading up to their arrest. more ›

Chen Liangyu (陈良宇), the former Mayor of Shanghai and member of China's Politburo, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty on taking bribes and abusing power. During the course of the trial in Tianjin, it was revealed that amount of money stolen of Shanghai's pension fund, $480 million USD was 10 times worse than initially believed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 33.9 billion RMB ($4.8 billion USD). more ›