MCLC: a ton of cash

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: a ton of cash
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT (5/16/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/a-ton-of-cash-reported-in-of
ficials-home/

A Ton of Cash Reported in Official’s Home
By AUSTIN RAMZY

The tempo of corruption investigations in China is so rapid that the cases
begin to blur. Pick up a paper and there will be a photo of an official in
his better days, a list of alleged misdeeds and a tally of corrupt cash.

There is even an identifiable pattern to the announcements. The Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party’s chief
anticorruption body, tends to announce cases against lower-ranking
officials, the so-called “flies,” on Monday, the overseas edition of
People’s Daily reported
<http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2014-05/09/content_1425228.htm>
last week. Investigations against high-ranking officials, the “tigers,”
are generally announced on weekends, which the party mouthpiece speculated
was to allow citizens more time to digest the news.

Even with such careful stagecraft, it can be difficult to tell one bad
apple from another. Sometimes, though, details spill out that reveal
uncommon corruption. Sometimes those tidbits are prurient, as the New
Yorker writer Evan Osnos noted
<http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/the-not-twins-defens
e-chinas-sex-scandal-surge.html> last year in the case of the “just
sisters” defense.

Sometimes the details bring home the staggering gains that can be
ill-gotten. That appears to be the case with Wei Pengyuan, a deputy chief
of the National Energy Administration’s coal bureau. Caixin, the respected
financial news magazine, reported
<http://english.caixin.com/2014-05-15/100678081.html> on Thursday that Mr.
Wei had been detained on suspicion of corruption. In his house
investigators uncovered a trove of renminbi so massive that it took 16
mechanical bill counters to tabulate it — and four of the machines burned
out in the process.

The total amount in cash was more than 100 million renminbi, or $16
million, the magazine said, citing unnamed investigators.
China’s largest bill is a 100-renminbi note. That creates enormous
headaches in an economy where cash is preferred. Buying a car or even
making a rent payment can involve lugging a hefty bag, or bags, of cash.
That problem multiplies when one is trying to conceal a stash of millions.
Several Chinese newspapers published estimates on Friday that 100 million
renminbi in cash would weigh more than a ton.

The author Yu Hua wrote last Sunday in an Op-Ed piece for The New York
Times that the hoarding of cash by corrupt officials might even be a
factor in keeping price inflation under control in China, as vast amounts
disappear from circulation.

Caixin reported that Mr. Wei had been in charge of approving coal mine
projects. His detention follows that of Hao Weiping, the head of the
National Energy Administration’s nuclear power department, it said.