The International Herald Tribune looks at the career of Zheng Xiaoyu, the State Food and Drug administrator who was recently executed for corruption:
The rise and fall of Zheng offers a rare glimpse inside China’s flawed regulatory system. He started out as an idealistic reformer. Concerned about China’s unsafe drug supply, he lobbied for the creation of the State Food and Drug Administration. But in the end, according to friends and associates, he was corrupted by the very system he sought to change ” even enlisting his wife and son to solicit bribes.
“There were so many companies going to him and he simply couldn’t resist the temptation,” said one drug company executive who befriended Zheng in the 1980s and did not want to be identified discussing the delicate issue. [Full text]
The IHT has also translated Zheng’s confession statement.
