Daily Lessons from Life 23 July 2009

"China news blackout on graft case linked to president's son
Searches Hu Haifeng's connection to the case turned up error messages. -Thu, Jul 23, 2009 AFP

Thursday about a graft probe in Namibia involving a firm linked to the son of President Hu Jintao, as the state-run media ignored the sensitive issue.

Two Namibians and a Chinese national were arrested last week in Namibia as part of a probe into bribery allegations involving Nuctech, a company headed until last year by Hu's 38-year-old son, Hu Haifeng.

Searches for information on the case and Hu Haifeng's connection to it on Chinese Web portals turned up error messages such as: "The search results may contain content not in line with relevant laws, regulations and policies."

Such results on China's heavily-censored Internet are typically returned when a Web user seeks banned information.

The US-based China Digital Times, which monitors Web developments in China, said propaganda officials had issued an order banning various Internet searches related to the Nuctech case.

Hu Haifeng was president of Nuctech, which provides scanning technology, until last year, when he was promoted to Communist Party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, which controls Nuctech and more than 20 other companies.

The three arrested in Namibia are accused of graft over a series of bank transfers allegedly linked to a 55.3-million-dollar contract Nuctech had won to supply the nation with security scanning equipment, court officials there told AFP earlier."

Lessons for me are:

1. at least someone noticed the case and the potential link to the President's son. This is much better than some countries which are non-communist!;

2. this showed that with the internet world, even when you ban the contents from being searched in one country, it does not guarantee that the same information are not available elsewhere! So, it is better to do the right thing than to hope that nobody find out about the truth!;

3. it will be interesting to see what will happen next. Though most pundits will probably say nothing will happen given the person implicated! That maybe some, however it must not be overlooked that the investigation was started by another country's law enforcement agency. So, there will probably be some horse trading or negotiation to resolve this investigation. Some names may be put forward to take the blame or something may give to quiet down the noise level!

Fundamentally, if we don't want to be found out, it is best not to do things that we will not be proud of when the truth is revealed! Be a 7e Leader firmly anchored on ETHICS!