BEIJING, China
Published: January 11, 2008
A Guangzhou court has handed a life sentence to a 24-year-old migrant worker named Xu Ting for withdrawing 170,000 yuan (US$24,000) from a malfunctioning ATM. Xu used his own bank card and password, but the ATM generated successive errors, allowing Xu to withdraw more money than he had in the account.
The unexpected discovery that he could make big money from the ATM lured Xu to continue withdrawing the funds. The bank and the prosecutor accused him of stealing, and the court agreed. Under the judgment, all his personal property is to be confiscated and he faces life in prison.
The malfunction of the ATM placed the money within it in an unprotected situation. This is like putting a huge amount of money in an open box with no one watching. If one really examines who is responsible for this crime, the place to begin is with the bank staff responsible for that questionable ATM. If the bank management is not found to have been negligent, one should look at the factory that produced the ATM, to which a claim for compensation could be made.
However, the only one to be punished in this case was the young worker who received life imprisonment. In a sense, he merely noticed the box on the street with the money in it and no one watching, and could not resist taking some of the money. This is very similar to the situation in which someone picks up a lost wallet and doesn't return it to the owner, although Xu's action was more serious than that.
Nowadays in China, how many people could resist taking that money if it were right in front of their eyes? It's true that those who pick up lost money and return it deserve praise. However, Xu was a young worker who earned less than 1,000 yuan (US$150) per month. It is odd and evil that his failure to resist temptation would land him in prison for life. Is this justice?
Many financial crimes have been committed by officials and bank professionals in recent years in China. The State Treasury and banks have served as personal ATMs to these wrongdoers. They have stolen huge amounts of funds that were entrusted to their care, and citizens have felt tremendous anger over such crimes.
Compared with those hundreds of thousands of corrupt officials and bank staff in China, Xu's behavior was a small case, although it could be considered embezzlement. Nevertheless, most people involved in those big cases were handed much lighter sentences than the poor worker.
This judgment reminds me of three old Chinese sayings. The first is: "No sentence will be given to an official, and no privilege will be given to a commoner." Another is: "Stealing a hook brings death, while stealing a country brings nobility." A saying that appeared later in history is: "A prince who breaks the law deserves the same punishment as a commoner."
In reality, the first two sayings have proven true countless times no matter how the times change. But the third saying is merely to comfort the common people. Unfortunately, this case is a repetition of the second saying.
Another reason that Xu received such a severe punishment was that the money he took was from a national bank and was considered state property. For a long time, property has been placed in different categories in China. Stealing from an individual is quite different from stealing from the state.
Furthermore, the most untouchable money is the money in state banks. There was once a time when stealing state or collective property and damaging collective production were considered crimes, even when there were no criminal or civil laws. One might be accused and sentenced for stealing even an ear of corn if the leader wanted to get serious about it.
We can quietly accept the sacredness of collectivism and nationalism, even the sacredness of the state. However, the citizen should also be considered sacred. After all, the government is promoting "people-oriented" policies.
In front of the law, the young worker's situation should be given equal consideration to the national bank's loss of 170,000 yuan. Furthermore, the money in an ATM should have no more value than the money in a worker's pants pocket. Both should receive equal consideration when they are lost.
It's a pity that this kind of equal consideration did not exist in that court where the young worker was given a life sentence.
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(Zhang Ming is a professor and supervisor of doctoral students at the School of International Relations of the People's University of China in Beijing. He has a PhD in politics, and is the former dean of the Politics Department at People's University. This article is translated and edited from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online. The original may be found at www.ncn.org and zhangming.vip.bokee.com ©Copyright Zhang Ming.)
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