The convictions last week of Taiwanese former president Chen Shui-bian and most of his close family members for corruption made banner headlines around the world.
It had a sharp impact on Chinese everywhere, particularly on the mainland, as Chen is the first freely elected Chinese state leader to be convicted of criminal offences, and his corruption scandal is largely responsible for the Democratic Progressive Party's fall from power.
As the state media on the mainland gleefully played up the shocking scale of corruption involving almost all his immediate family members - his wheelchair-bound wife, son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law - many mainlanders could not help but associate the family's scandal with the rampant corruption involving children and other relatives of Beijing officials.
Indeed, the convictions could not have come at a better time. It should sound a loud alarm for several hundred top mainland officials who are converging on the capital for the fourth plenum of the Communist Party's 17th Central Committee, which begins tomorrow.
It is unlikely that anyone will mention the Chen scandal at the four-day meeting, for which the sole item on the agenda is to discuss how to strengthen ways to keep the party in power, with the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic coming just two weeks later.
But the unspoken message is clear and simple. By the party's own consensus, the success or failure in fighting corruption will determine its life or death, so finding effective ways to curb it - particularly reining in close family members of high-ranking officials - should be the key part of the debate at the meeting. For most mainlanders it is not difficult to see reflections of the Chen family scandal in their own government officials.