China extends graft investigations to shipping industry

Reuters ^ | 11/08/2013 | Lee Yi-mou

[TexGrill]

(Reuters) - China's investigations aimed at rooting out corruption have now extended to the shipping industry, with China COSCO Holdings (1919.HK)(601919.SS) saying that one of its top executives is the subject of government inquiries.

COSCO, China's largest bulk shipping company, announced on Friday that its vice president, Xu Minjie, had resigned - a day after it said he was "under investigation by the relevant authorities", phrasing used in China to describe corruption investigations.

The company's brief statement to the Shanghai stock exchange on Friday said that there were no disagreements between Xu and the board but gave no further details. The company did not answer Reuters' calls seeking comment.

A former COSCO Group chairman, Wei Jiafu, has also been prevented from leaving China, the Beijing Times said in a report citing unidentified company sources that was reposted by the official Xinhua news agency.

The reports of Wei having been banned from leaving China were baseless, COSCO Group said in a statement on Friday, vowing to comply with the country's anti-graft procedures. It declined further comment on the matter.

COSCO shares fell by as much as 6.9 percent in Hong Kong on Friday to nine-week lows and were set for their biggest one-day fall since early July.

[TexGrill]

I was on vacation in Malaysia last week and just returned to Beijing. So stay tuned for more "Global business tips."

[texas booster]

For every Chinese national investigated by the police, four expats will be charged, and allowed to leave the country after a large fine to their company.

[cloudmountain]

Graft in China????

I am SHOCKED, just SHOCKED!

Didn't China invent graft?
Or was that the Medicis?

[cloudmountain]

My husband and I visited China WAY back in 1981. What a pit-hole. We were there for only 3 1/2 weeks but it was enough for me. My husband had one of the first video cameras then and he lugged it around all that time. It weighed 40 pounds, 20 for the camera and 20 for the power packs.
It was so humid in Hong Kong that the camera shut itself down. The batteries for the power pack fit perfectly into my husbands' size 12 wing tips.

People now say that it's so different, changed.
I doubt that. The culture morphs but essentially stays the same. A culture that binds its girls'/women's feet, and those would be girls/women with status, doesn't have much credence for me.
Imagine how poor women fared.

I always believed that the treatment of women in a country or culture was a key to understanding that country. The world's most cynical women come from the world's countries where the treatment of women is the most horrible.

Just an opinion, folks.

[TexGrill]

There’s a major difference in China now. Chinese reforms were launched in 1979 so in 1981 China was still living in the Dark Ages. China’s economy didn’t start booming until the 1990s and it has continued for over two decades. I would consider Shanghai one notch above Seoul and one notch below Tokyo as a world-class city.

[cloudmountain]

I liked Shanghai too.
I wouldn't call any place in Asia a top notch city. However, I never did get to Tokyo. I didn't want to go there either.

I did see China and where I live are LOTS of Chinese. I don't care for their culture, though it has many good and beautiful things. They were dirty then and they are STILL dirty...their restaurants and shops. They don't take care of their yards or houses. If the yard has weeds and the house is in desperate need of a paint job, it's owned by Chinese. Seen too many not to know this.
Oh well.

I also taught a lot of them. They are ordinary students, not extra good or bad. I did get annoyed when they ignored me, talking with each other and pretending I, the instructor, didn't exist. But, on the whole, they were okay.
Well, I've chatted enough!

[TexGrill]

No problem with chatting. The lack of clean lawns could be due to a cultural issue. In China, almost everyone lives in an apartment so they don’t know how to take care of a lawn. Meanwhile, many Chinese prefer pale white skin to prove they are not farmers. Hence, gardening is perceived as being dirt poor. Chinese are terrible communicators. So if it looks like they are ignoring you, trust me they aren’t. I learned that fact the hard way. That’s why the Chinese make the best spies. They will even hide their cover by claiming they don’t understand English and so when you engage in a conversation with other Westerners you have no idea they are memorizing every single word you say. They have poker faces too, one time I was cracking jokes about a Chinese fellow sitting nearby and he pretended not to notice, didn’t even look in our direction but later we figured out that he played us Westerners for fools. They are not brilliant, but they are some of the most clever people you will ever meet.

[cloudmountain]

The lack of lawns is due to the fact that lawns cost money. The Chinese would rather spend their money on property, their sons education and new cars. There is NO return for a lawn. The Chinese believe in TWO things: luck and money, their words, not mine. Remember I taught them for decades!

Chinese prefer pale skin? Wow, that might be true for some but are you thinking you can categorize ALL of them? I don't think so.

Trust ME, if they seem to be ignoring me, it's because they are. Remember, I taught them for decades...decades, my dear, and finally at the college level.

They don't ALL have poker faces, either. Lol. You haven't really been around them very much if that's what you believe.

Also, they are NOT the most clever people I would ever meet. SOME are clever, others are not. The most clever people I meet are individuals, NOT racial groups.

I do live in California. The Chinese come to California on their quest for a better life, more money, property, whatever. They don't emigrate from China to Texas...they come to California. They go back and forth from China to California.