One man’s Creativity is Another Man Corruption

I can’t figure out what’s going on. Everyday I open my copy of the South China Morning Post and I read about another arrest or trial of some official or tycoon here in Hong Kong who's been brought up on corruption charges.

Either HK has way more than its share of corruption, or they have some mighty tenacious prosecutors, or the people of Hong Kong just really love seeing the once-high-and-mighty get their comeuppance.

I think it’s a combination of the three.

What I do know for sure is that Hong Kong courts have a 90% conviction rate. If you get arrested here, you are going to jail.

This past Sunday at the church we were visiting, I had a chance to chat with a man from Australian. After a few minutes of the usual pleasantries, I pointed to the bulletin and asked him if he knew anything about his church’s prison ministry. (Hey, while I’m here, I might as well see the inside of a Chinese prison –preferably as a visitor.)

No, he didn’t know much about their prison outreach. But he had been thinking recently that he needed to join. When I asked why, he said he had a mate (remember, he’s Australian) who had recently gone to jail.

His friend and former colleague had been convicted on a white-collar fraud charge and had just started serving a two-year sentence.

I was tempted to ask for more details about the crime. But being a white-collar, financial crime, I figured even if he could explain it, I wouldn’t understand it. So instead, I simply asked “Was the activity he engaged in pretty clearly criminal, or did it fall into a grey area?

Turns out the guy behind bars knew what the law was in Hong Kong and he knew he was wandering into dangerous territory. His lawyers had even warned him early on.

I wanted to get a feel for just how severe the justice system is in Hong Kong, so I asked “It was clearly forbidden in Hong Kong, but would this same activity have gotten him sent to jail in Australia or the State?”

“He probably would not have done any jail-time in Australia.”

Then, almost as an after-thought, Mr. Sydney Opera House added “And in the States? Oh, he wouldn’t even have been arrested.”

Nice.

I don’t know if his comment sheds any light on the comparative differences between jurisprudence in Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States. But I think it does tell us a lot about the way the rest of the world perceives the business culture in the US.

Long live American-style, free-wheeling capitalism.

-Jack