The links are very educational, and the idea that China who executes more citizenry than any country in the world- even more than Aarrnnoollddd.

Date:   1/3/2006 7:24:37 PM ( 18 y ago)

GLOBAL BUSINESS
Executing in China (So to Speak)
Over the holiday week, I received this press release, complete with disturbing photos, alleging the beatings and rape of two Falun Gong adherents by Chinese police last month.

Grassroots organizers are getting smarter and more aggressive about sending this sort of thing to the business press. (The first such release I remember blogging about came from the Rainforest Action Network.)

I expect I'll see more. We reported in November on "China's Growing Appetite," and I'm writing an article right now about the protectionist sentiment stirred up in the United States (particularly in Congress) by China's failed bid for Unocal. As departments editor Joe McCafferty noted last August in "The Price of a Cheap Suit," allegations of poor working conditions in China are already a headache for U.S. companies. Add an increasingly savvy grassroots campaign to draw attention to human-rights issues, and U.S. companies doing business in China are likely to see those headaches continue.

Or will they?

Last year, when China executed four bankers for fraud, the reaction in the general business community tended toward jokes about Andy Fastow's good fortune, or comments like, "You think Sarbanes-Oxley is bad?" Steven Cutler, then SEC enforcement director, even quipped in a speech that "My friend Eliot Spitzer was heard to criticize the approach as too soft."

Good for a laugh, I guess, until one considers that conviction for a capital crime in China often means being shot in the back of the head upon leaving the courtroom, according to Amnesty International. As we reported in our banking issue, foreign investors are increasingly buying up pieces of Chinese banks. How enthusiastic would you be about an overseas stint as CFO at one of these firms?
Posted by Tim Reason | January 03, 2006 06:01pm | Post a Comment




 

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