A commentary from People Online via sina.com. Translated by CDT:
Liquor consumption is an open secret at a lot of Chinese luncheons and dinners, but the late Kaiping (开平) secretary Zhao Ruizhang (赵瑞彰) took it to the extreme level of getting as wasted as he could. Since 2003, when he took over the city in Guangdong Province, he was given a nickname, “Zhao Liujin (赵六斤),” referring to the fact that at almost every banquet he attended a three-kilogram bottle of Hennessy was uncorked.
An alcoholic as he was, Zhao would need to spend around 10,000 yuan on his name brand liquor for almost every “business meal (应酬).” His Hennessy-addiction developed along with his career curve. And the political path of this “foreign liquor secretary” could have easily squandered a lot of public funds in a small city with a lot of people under the poverty line.
With power and a lot of alcohol-fueled meals, it’s no surprise that the former secretary crossed the bottom line in handing over a plot of 30,000-mu land at a dirt cheap price to a developer. But what’s surprising is that, the official was downed only when he was found abusing his power in the land deal(s), not as a result of his extravagance in drinking up bottles of XO. [Full Text in Chinese]
