A Chinese Robin Hood Runs Afoul of Beijing, by JOSEPH KAHN

The arrest of a rural businessman who antagonized government officials but earned a loyal following among peasants has created a sensation in Beijing, where influential scholars say he showed how to improve life in the vast, backward Chinese countryside.


The businessman, a bold and politically artless onetime farmer named Sun Dawu, is in jail awaiting trial in Hebei Province in northeastern China on charges that he ran an illegal credit cooperative and lured millions of dollars in deposits away from state banks.


In opinion columns and popular Web sites, though, liberal-leaning intellectuals have portrayed Mr. Sun as a modern Robin Hood. They say he battled state finance and trade cartels that they view as draining the savings of China's 800 million peasants to support urban development.


Lawyers for Mr. Sun and supporters in Beijing's academic circles are pressing the government to scrap or define more clearly the scope of the law Mr. Sun is accused of breaking. The loosely worded article gives the authorities broad discretion to charge businessmen who fall out of favor with a catch-all crime called illegal fund-raising.


"It's well worth considering what this case is really about," said Jiang Ping, the former president of the Chinese University of Politics and Law and one of China's most prominent legal experts. "Perhaps the government is violating the law and has wrongly accused him. If this isn't handled properly, it will greatly affect rural economic development."....


"One of the biggest problems for peasants is that local officials decide who gets money and who doesn't," said Xu Zhiyong, a law professor at Telecommunications University in Beijing and a legal adviser to Mr. Sun. "This is about taking the politics out of finance."

Good luck with that.