China Urged To Consider Lengthy ‘Irish Style’ Tribunal With No Consequences In Corrupt Politician Death Sentence Case

TÁNAISTE AND MINISTER for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has urged China to reconsider the death sentence imposed on its former minister for agriculture over corruption charges, suggesting that the ‘Irish model’ could offer a fairer and just solution.

“It has never failed Ireland in the past,” Harris said in a letter to Chinese President Xi. “We have found setting up tribunals that have no prosecution powers and having them drag on for decades provides a steady income for the legal profession and zero convictions. In Ireland, politicians proven to have taken bribes are often allowed to continue in parliament and in some cases even form a key part of government. You should give it a try sometime, Xi.”

In the Chinese court, however, Tang Renjian was found guilty of accepting cash and property bribes worth more than 268 million yuan (€32.4 million) between 2007 and 2024.

“If we had to sentence every politician guilty of such crimes, there would be no government left,” Harris rightly pointed out.

The People’s Court of Changchun ruled that the bribes ’caused particularly severe losses to the interests of the state and the people, and therefore warranted the death penalty.’

“Between €350,000 bike sheds, failed IT systems, €2 million printers that cannot be used and a hospital project now costing more than €2 billion, we feel that your anti-graft campaign could give people the wrong ideas about how corruption should be handled. We do admire how it keeps your opponents in fear, but thankfully in Ireland our electorate accepts the two-party system and rarely strays from the script,” Harris concluded, signing off his letter with the words ‘Follow me on TikTok’.

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