| Submit your comments on this article | |
| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| "Wang's Woman Woes" or "Hell Hath no Fury" | |
| 2006-06-15 | |
| BEIJING: One of China’s top brass has been charged with accepting millions of dollars in bribes from contractors after one of his mistresses blew the whistle, independent sources with ties to the military said on Wednesday. If found guilty, Vice Admiral Wang Shouye, 63, one of five navy deputy commanders and a member of China’s parliament, would be the most senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer ever convicted of a crime. “Wang Shouye kept several mistresses. One of them reported him to the authorities” after he refused to give in to her demands for money, a source with knowledge of the case told Reuters, requesting anonymity.
The corruption scandal deepens the woes of the PLA, currently reeling from the worst air force disaster in more than five decades. Forty people were killed when a military plane crashed in the eastern province of Anhui on June 3. Wang, a Tianjin University civil engineering graduate, was promoted to deputy commander of the navy in 2001 after heading the Logistics Department office which oversaw the construction of barracks. He was also in charge of housing reform. He was accused of accepting up to 120mn yuan ($15mn) in bribes from contractors in exchange for throwing construction projects their way, a second source said. It was unclear when the military court would hand down a verdict. China’s state media have not reported the case. Wang’s family, mistress and lawyer could not be reached. Last year, Major General Liu Guangzhi, who was targeted by Taiwan for recruitment as a spy, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for accepting bribes from subordinates seeking promotions or transfers. State media have made no mention of Liu’s imprisonment either other than reporting that parliament had expelled him for unspecified “economic crimes”. Liu was also sacked as commandant of the Air Force Command Academy. Official graft was virtually wiped out in China in the years after the 1949 Communist takeover but has bounced back in the wake of economic reforms that have spawned wealth and greed. Leaders have warned repeatedly that corruption threatens the Communist Party’s survival. In 1999, a general and a colonel were executed for spying for Taiwan in the biggest espionage scandal of the Communist era. Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other since their split in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war.–Reuters | |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #4 Good one, Sgt. Mom! I once worked in an office that had a Wang mainframe system tended by a very nice and wickedly competent IT person named Wong. You can imagine the punmanship that combination inspired. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-06-15 17:18 |
| #3 Official graft was virtually wiped out in China in the years after the 1949 Communist takeover but has bounced back in the wake of economic reforms that have spawned wealth and greed. Official graft is an integral part of one party states, rich or poor. Just an opportunity for the writer to take a shot at capitalism. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2006-06-15 16:55 |
| #2 Hey, that's fun, Wang (spelled differently in latin characters) is my mother family's original name (chinese, too), perhaps we're related. Oh, boy, I'm so excited, if that guy gets the bullet-in-the-head routine, I might get a share of his inheritance or something... more money to spend on ebay, yeah! |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-06-15 14:32 |
| #1 So, what are the chances of a best-selling book about all this, entitled "Gone With The Wang" ***exits the room rapidly, in a hail of thrown shoes, rotten vegetables and other debris**** |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-06-15 14:13 |