China’s probe into S.Korea’s Lotte Group unrelated to THAAD deployment: expert
Chinese experts on Friday said the decision to investigate units of South Korea’s Lotte Group in China was a legitimate regulatory action, and that it was not related to the company’s involvement in the deployment of a US missile defense system.
A representative at Lotte China headquarters in Shanghai confirmed with the Global Times on Friday that several subsidiaries of the company have been investigated by Chinese authorities for tax, fire control and safety issues.
The representative, who requested anonymity, said they are still gathering information from these subsidiaries and that the company attaches great importance to Chinese laws and safety regulations.
But the representative refrained from commenting further on the investigation or if the company has been in contact with the South Korean government.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Friday that the South Korean government is considering to express regret over China’s probes into Lotte because “the action may be in retaliation to” the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
Lotte has signed a deal with the South Korean government to provide a golf course in Southeast South Korea for the THAAD deployment, according to Yonhap.
Experts said the South Korean government and Lotte may have misread and complicated the investigations.
“They are connecting dots that are not really related here,” Lü Chao, a research fellow with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. He said though it is obvious that Lotte’s involvement in the THAAD issue raised concerns among some Chinese, the probes are “legitimate and are common” to foreign companies operating in the Chinese market.
The Chinese government’s authority to oversee and investigate any foreign company operating in China in accordance with law is indisputable, said Gao Liankui, an expert from the Department of Economics with the Renmin University of China.
However, the accusation that China is punishing a private firm for political disputes is “unreasonable,” Lü said, noting China has “many more ways” to express its opposition to the THAAD issue, including through diplomatic and military channels.
“China has genuine concerns over the deployment of THAAD system, and South Korea should rethink its decision before further damaging bilateral relations. Meanwhile, China should take appropriate counter measures,” Lü said.
Luo Er, a Shenzhen-based father, has made headlines this week after tens of thousands of users reposted his disheartening letter on WeChat on behalf of his fiveyear-old daughter who has leukemia. He keeps a journal to document her treatment and health conditions. One of the latest updates contains a call for help in curing his daughter’s disease, saying a marketing company called Xiaotongren would donate one yuan ($0.15) for each repost of his journals published on the company’s official WeChat account.
Touched by Luo’s love for his daughter and encouraged by this unique approach of raising funds, many compassionate WeChat users reposted Luo’s journals on their WeChat Moments. In a short period of time Luo has raised 2.6 million yuan.
But the Good Samaritan fundraising drew a lot of skepticism. Luo’s real intention in the highprofile event was questioned by many netizens, who suspect that this is more of a marketing campaign for Xiaotongren than a noble cause. Some whistleblowers said that Luo’s family owns at least three apartments in Shenzhen and Dongguan, where the average housing price is one of the highest in China, and most of the girl’s medical bills were covered by insurance. Some allegations have been confirmed by investigations of media organizations.
The dramatic turn has forced Luo to tell the truth. He has confessed that the journals he kept are not entirely true, and the expenses of her daughter’s treatment are not as unbearable as he said earlier. He said he didn’t sell his properties to collect money because except for the one in Shenzhen where they live, the other two cannot be sold because he hasn’t got the right paperwork. His cooperation with Xiaotongren, to some degree, is indeed a publicity campaign of the company.
Luo promised to return all the funds raised to WeChat users that donated to him. The sensational debate might quiet down soon due to the short attention span of Internet users. But the entire event deserves further reflection on the necessity of making charity transparent and reliable.
Luo’s approach for raising funds for his sick daughter is a gray area. China’s charity law doesn’t ban or support individuals seeking financial and medical help from social media platforms, neither has it stipulated whether individuals can combine fund-raising with a profitable marketing campaign.
However, the public’s response is mostly negative. In Luo’s case, there is a thin line between charity and profiteering. Luo exaggerated his daughter’s conditions and portrayed his family as in dire need of help, which has managed to wake up a lot of people’s compassion for the unfortunate family and inspire them to donate money. Luo might not be a complete liar, but who can guarantee if the approach is imitated by others, there won’t be other scammers taking advantage of it. We have seen plenty of financial scams in which swindlers manipulate the merciful part of people’s hearts. From iPhone- using panhandlers on Beijing’s subway to flamboyant entrepreneurs who make false donations to earn a good reputation, these ugly examples are encroaching upon people’s mutual trust. It is high time that the negative trajectory should be reversed by concrete and solid measures. The authorities should explore more ways to ensure the public’s generosity is well-protected, for example, by cooperating with as many social platforms as possible to impose scrutiny over the credibility of help-seekers, and by establishing third-party organizations to supervise the flow of money. May Luo’s daughter regain health as soon as possible. I hope the girl could contribute a bit to the endeavor of recovering trust and improving charity regulations.