To manage the fund, Yahoo partnered with Harry Wu—a noted Chinese dissident turned powerful anti-China activist—and his nonprofit, the Laogai Research Foundation. But Wu grossly mismanaged YHRF, spending less than $650,000—or 4%—of the fund’s total $17.3 million on support for online dissidents, according to the current lawsuit. One year, YHRF allegedly spent $0 on what was meant to be its primary purpose. (Some defendants contest these calculations.)

  • happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Wu was born into an affluent family in Shanghai; his father was a banking official and his mother had descended from a family of well-to-do landlords.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Wu

    edit: Also an accused paedophile:

    In March 2015, a Virginia woman named Wang Jing publicly accused Wu of sexually assaulting her and three underage girls, the daughters of Chinese dissidents who were under her guardianship, in late 2013. Wu denied the accusation. Wang filed a lawsuit against Wu with the Fairfax County Circuit Court, and the case was scheduled to go on trial in January 2017.[

      • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        7 months ago

        Who could have thought that the deranged right wingers who froth at the mouth about China were deranged right wingers the whole time!

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        ·
        7 months ago

        I lived in Shanghai for many years and I just want to add that while there's more than a few of these Gusanos floating around, the majority of the people are pretty cool and many of them are very patriotic.

      • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        7 months ago

        Is this because Shanghai is often viewed as a technologically advanced yet morally depraved equivalent to Las Vegas, in China?

        I hope that I'm able to move to Shanghai one day.

        • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          7 months ago

          Shanghai was a primary "treaty city" meaning it was EXTREMELY heavily influenced by the western world and liberal ideology for nearly 2 centuries.

          Its also a financial capital, meaning its full of bankers, investment moguls, and the ultra rich.

          • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            7 months ago

            Yeah, I get all of that. From what I'm seeing though, it hopefully looks to be shedding that reputation piece by piece.

            • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              7 months ago

              Not really in all honesty, China needs a financial capital for the time being, and Shanghai has worked perfectly for that. Little changed has happened there, and it is a major international hub, so the influence persists.

              Hopefully in the near future.

        • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
          ·
          7 months ago

          Think of it more as the NYC of China. You'll know when someone is from there because they'll tell you in the first five minutes of meeting them.

          • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            7 months ago

            I've often seen and made the comparison myself that Shanghai is the "NYC of the East", with a bit of Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Singapore and Texas built-in.

        • Bassword
          ·
          7 months ago

          deleted by creator

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
    cake
    ·
    7 months ago

    I’m willing to guess. He pocketed the money. Excuse me, I mean… gifted it. (To himself).

  • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    7 months ago

    Did he name his organisation after the prison system, or after the place in The Last Airbender? If he's trying to squeeze money out of libs, it could honestly be either of them.

    • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      7 months ago

      The Last Airbender was kind of based in certain aspects, but the Legend of Korra become the Harry Potter equivalent.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        7 months ago

        I could write a damn thesis on everything wrong with the ATLA comics and LOTR. Lake Laogai aside, the original series was pretty good, though. Except the "we shouldn't kill fascists" stuff at the end 🙄

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          7 months ago

          What was wrong with the comics? They figured out the magical solution to colonialism: Just let bygones be bygones and abandon all that silly "landback" nonsense!

        • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          7 months ago

          I read some of the first ATLA comics, and some of the stuff I thought was wack, but I can't remember what stuck out to me.

          While Ozai deserved to be in the ground, I felt like him being in prison makes sense.

          • loathesome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            7 months ago

            Yeah capturing him alive was definitely preferable. You wanna avoid rolling heads whenever possible although at times it can seem enticing. What I found odd was the deep turmoil in Aang over the prospect of killing Ozai. It is consistent with the character but I wouldn't have worried about it personally.

            Within the story's ontology (as with most stories involving monarchies sadly), Ozai is not only the king by law but also a very poweful bender and his legitimacy as the king is derived from his talent. So taking away his bending is more effective than in a real world so to speak.

            • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              7 months ago

              Yeah, Aang's reluctance to kill Ozai is kind of comical. It makes sense in the story, and you have very good points about Ozai suffering psychologically and socially after being stripped of his power and imprisoned rather than killed and martyred, though.

      • tripartitegraph [comrade/them]
        ·
        7 months ago

        Man, I want to love Korra so much, because I liked ATLA a lot as a kid. The villain in the first season was such a badass. Same with season 3. But the writers really just fucking libbed out

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    I'm sure that Yahoo and the people who read this article won't attribute this to all Chinese people to being inherently untrustworthy and greedy, right?

    Right?

    • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      7 months ago

      I mean Yahoo doesn't care, they were just laundering money for the CIA, and the CIA promised him he could eat that money.

  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    7 months ago

    Does Yahoo crawl lemmygrad? I wonder if now is a good time to advertise an exciting new project: Lemmygrad Counter-China Services Inc, accepting donations now.

  • shath [comrade/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    damn solid grift

    should do this but pay chen weihua all da money