Comments by "Aristocles Athenaioi" (@aristoclesathenaioi4939) on "Is Chinese military corruption the PLA’s self-destructive weapon?" video.
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Another excellent explanation of the politics in China. This reminds me of the corruption in the British Navy at the time of the American War of Independence, which left the British Navy ineffective against France who allied with the colonialists. If I may be indulged a long description: In 1783, when attention was called to abuses in the public offices, Mr. Pitt stated in the House of Commons that though it bad been officially declared that no fees were received by the navy office, it appeared that very considerable sums were received by the officers under the name of 'gifts'. Exact inquiry disclosed wholesale robbery rather than peculation. The accounts showed a deficit of about three hundred thousand pounds of bread in 1780, besides beef, pork, and other provisions. It was shown that the contract price of bread was more than 4s. per cwt. above the market price, and that the bread actually supplied was 4s. per cwt. inferior to the contract ; that the men in charge of the storehouses kept hogs in them, and fed them on serviceable biscuit ; that stores of different kinds and in large quantities had been taken out of the yards not for the private use of the officers, but for sale, and that everywhere intimidation or guilty complicity had kept the knowledge of these abominations secret (Parliamentary Report, 1783-4). The dockyards had been sinks of iniquity before that time, and were so after it [cf. Jervis, John, Earl of St. Vincent], but at no time were they so utterly bad as during the war of American independence. This state of affairs took place when the First Earl of Sandwich was the Lord of the Admiralty. It was said of the Earl of Sandwich that he was "too infamous to have a friend, too bad for bad men to commend." History does so often repeat itself.
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