China’s trial of the 21st century. Not since Mao Zedong’s wife and her fellow members of the reviled Gang of Four were tried in 1980 has a courtroom trial so captured the attention of the nation. For one thing, there’s the sheer scale of the operation that brought more than 30 defendants to court this week: a crackdown on the alliance of criminal gangs and their corrupt official collaborators who have terrorized a huge metropolis for years. Thousands of suspects were questioned, some 1,500 were arrested, bribes in the tens of millions of renminbi were revealed and nearly a quarter of the city’s police force was devoted to the ongoing investigation. Even more astonishing — almost unprecedented — is the fact that so many senior police officers and government officials are on trial, virtually all of them stalwart members of the ruling Communist Party.
China’s trial of the 21st century.
**********
Foreshadowing things to come. Posted after POTUS tweeted the jail cell scene.
Mark