Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

Jiang Zemin, the CCP's 3rd leader after Mao Zedong and Deng Xiao Ping, has come out of retirement and is making the rounds of his old stomping grounds in Beijing to assure that his legacy isn't muddied.

Replaced in 2002 by current leader Hu Jintao, sources say Jiang is worried that he may become a scapegoat for many of China's current ills.

A news report I recorded from CNN Asia. CNN does their usual "oh the wacky Chinese" story, but the real highlight is the former President of China, Jiang Zemin picking various things during the recent China National Congress.

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BEIJING - Corruption costs China more every year than it spends on education and is one of the most serious threats to the country's political stability, according to a new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The report said graft would continue because the ruling Communist Party is unlikely to carry out the political reforms needed to fight corruption, as a result of fears of losing its grip on power.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - The leader of Taiwan’s new ruling party promised Monday to seek peace and economic engagement with China ahead of his trip to the mainland to meet President Hu Jintao.

Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the Nationalist Party, is making the six-day trip at the invitation of China. It’s the first mainland visit by the head of a ruling Taiwanese party.

The trip comes less than a week after Nationalist Ma Ying-jeou took office as Taiwan’s president.

Zheng Xiaoyu, ex-chief of the State Food and Drug Administration, was just sentenced to death in China's most recent OBVIOUS SCAPEGOAT TRIAL.

Looking to show that they're taking the dangerous products coming out of their country seriously, Zheng has been ordered to be put to death for accepting bribes and allowing sub-standard drugs onto the market while performing his former role.

Only problem is, Zheng was not at all involved in the recent toothpaste/pet food/saline solution scares. He's been happily retired for two years.

Amid reports of the collapse of the middle schools during the Sichuan earthquakes, the blame of corruption and bad government officials have been focused on China. Here, we are reminded that such corrupt practices are present in our own backyard as well. A few bad seeds, poor funding, under paid staff and no oversight can cause the same problems in any country.

Indignant towards widespread corruption and angered by the staggering indifference of a party elite more interested in their own private power squabbles, the People came together to ask for a better tomorrow. Nineteen years later most of them have their wish.

From the article:
The Tea-Leaf readers will look at [the recent media rules], nod their heads sagely, and in hushed tones suggest that this is a part of Hu Jintao's ongoing effort to deepen his hold over the media as he continues his soft purge of Jiang Zemin supporters left in government. That might be true in part, but as with most things in China, that is at best only part of the real reason (and possibly only a political fig-leaf for the action.)

In reality, I suspect this is as much about money as politics.

In the wake of the controversy involving milk quality, China's chief of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has resigned. Li Changjiang will be replaced by Wang Yong, who has a lot of experience in the aerospace industry.