Bo Xilai. Photocredit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21427686@N03/6920111000/sizes/z/in/photostream/
When Neil Heywood, a British man based in Beijing, was found dead in a hotel room in Chongqing in China last November, it soon cast a light onto the murky waters of Chinese politics in a plotline that could have come from a superior thriller – and which has led to the purging of Chongqing’s Communist party chief, Bo Xilai, and the arrest of his wife, Gu Kailai.
Heywood was initially said to have died of alcohol poisoning; but the Chinese government announced this week that Gu was supected of ordering his death. The details, reported the Financial Times, had been provided by police chief Wang Lijun, who had fallen out with Bo and fled to a US consulate in Western China. Bo has now been stripped of all his powers, suspected of “serious discipline violations”, and Gu has been detained.
Commentators are saying that the power of the internet in disseminating news has never been so paramount; also that the ouster may in fact stabilise the party since Bo would have threatened the consensus. Whatever happens, the case has shown that China must face up to new challenges in dealing with its ever-more-sophisticated populace. BBC News rounded up Chinese state newspapers’ reactions, all of which said that Beijing had behaved wisely.
Who was Bo Xilai? A privileged “princeling” (ie a son of a revolutionary hero) who had hoped to stand for the standing commitee of the Communist Party Politburo this coming autumn – its highest authority. He was a reformer, a 62-year old ex-commerce minister with, reported The Telegraph, a “suave” manner which was welcomed in a country where leaders are often “rigid.” He was “media savvy”, which irritated some party elders. He spearheaded an anti-corruption drive that saw many imprisoned and exposed – although critics claimed he did so in contempt of the law.
What happened? Matthew Holehouse in The Daily Telegraph reported that Neil Heywood had been called in to meet people working for Bo; he told a friend he was in trouble, and left documents which told of Bo’s overseas investments with his lawyer in Britain. When he was left to wait alone in his hotel room, what happened next is not clear. Heywood is said to have been in a dispute with Gu, who required members of her family’s inner circle to divorce and to swear oaths of loyalty. The case has exploded into the open.
Opening up? “For thousands of years,” said Jamil Anderlini in Beijing for the Financial Times, “Chinese politics has been punctuated by violent internecine struggles played out behind palace walls but almost never have they spilled out into the public arena in such a spectacular way.” It’s not clear yet how the Politburo candidacies will be effected – but at least this affair has shown that “real ideological struggles are playing out behind the deceptive curtain of communist party unity.” There’s been nothing like this in recent history. When Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu was arrested in 2005, there was silence, and his trial was held in near secrecy. “But today, with more than 500m online voices in China, the sensational case of Bo Xilai and his allegedly murderous wife will be virtually impossible to silence this time around.”
Vital importance. It shows also that Chinese politics is changing, as candidates are now increasingly being associated with individual policies rather than the Party, said Martin Jacques in The Independent. China is facing “huge new problems.” Firstly – the economy is shifting towards “domestic consumption.” Then there’s “political reform”, coupled with “corruption and inequality” as the new rich are viewed as hand-in-glove with the government. And then there’s foreign policy. The events around Bo Xilai’s demise show a “huge and fascinating debate about the country’s future.” The Chinese Communist Party Congress will be “of greater consequence to the world than the American presidential election with which it will more or less coincide.”
What will the party do? But this public purge shows “just what a threat” Bo represented to Communist leaders, said David Pilling in the FT. To “reaffirm the party’s legitimacy” it must cast Bo and Gu “as criminals”, whilst it remains the “paramount upholder of the law.” That’s all very well, said Evan Osnos in The New Yorker, but the “flipside” of that – that everyone is equal under the law – is “especially thin this week” as a disabled lawyer, Ni Yulan, is sentenced to prison for “disturbance and fraud.” Even despite the internet, the state has been trying to censor the story.
So what now? Bo was popular with the people – so can the new leadership reform in a way that answers his supporters? The Telegraph reported that it might pave the way for the first ever woman member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee – Liu Yandong, who has strong ties with the Party leadership, and is known to be a “modest” and “prudent” leader. The world waits with bated breath.
