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发帖数: 29576 | 7 Bo's kingdom collapses amid scandal / Ex-Chinese political star brought down
by poisoning of British businessman
Takanori Kato / Yomiuri Shimbun General Bureau of China Chief
BEIJING--The tyrannical "kingdom" of former rising Chinese leader Bo Xilai
has collapsed.
Bo, who was Chongqing's Communist Party secretary, has been ousted after
revelations that he is suspected of involvement in the poisoning and murder
of a British businessman in the southwestern Chinese city last November.
Bo's remarkable demise has created a serious headache for the Chinese
Communist Party as it prepares for a once-in-a-decade leadership succession,
and revealed the sort of overbearing administration that can develop in a
one-party regime with no checks on its authority.
A senior party official assembled his subordinates in a small conference
room on April 10, the day the scandal became public. In an unusual move,
attendees were ordered to turn off their cell phones and prohibited from
taking notes.
The official explained the background that led to Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, and
Zhang Xiaojun, a servant at Bo's home, being suspected of conspiring to have
Neil Heywood murdered in a Chongqing hotel last November.
"They tried to poison Heywood with a drink, but he spat it out," the
official said. "The two people then forcibly held Heywood down, and poured
the poison into his mouth."
Bo had often boasted of his two-year crackdown on criminal elements in
Chongqing that resulted in the arrest of more than 5,700 people. The senior
official's suggestion that Bo might have somehow been involved in a murder
staggered other people in the room.
"He was the gangster of all gangsters," one attendee said.
The senior official spoke as if reading out the synopsis of a mystery novel.
"The item Heywood spat out was retrieved and stored by the deputy chief of
the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, and that has become a decisive piece
of evidence. Wang Lijun has been applauded for cooperating in helping to
unravel the truth in this incident," one official said.
Wang, the former bureau leader and Bo's right-hand man, fled to the U.S.
Consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu on Feb. 6. He stayed there for about
a day before he was transferred to Chinese government authorities in
Beijing.
Police initially said Heywood's death was accidental. If Wang had not
exposed the details of Heywood's death to consulate officials, and if
overseas media had not reported on the story, it is doubtful that Chinese
authorities would have launched a fresh investigation into the matter.
In fact, Bo's despotic behavior had been an open secret for years.
In 2000, when Bo was mayor of Dalian in Liaoning Province, he threw reporter
Jiang Weiping behind bars for writing articles in a Hong Kong publication
that were critical of him. In 2009, during Bo's crime crackdown in Chongqing
, a lawyer from Beijing who had claimed a senior gang member was innocent in
court found himself being prosecuted for fabricating evidence.
There are also clear signs of foul play in the Heywood case.
According to judicial sources, the party's Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection was investigating suspected corruption involving a person close
to Bo even before Heywood's death.
The commission had questioned Wang and had been making moves to speak to the
British businessman, who was friends with both Bo and his wife, Gu. Wang
clashed with Bo over how they should deal with the investigation.
A furious Bo reportedly punched Wang in the face and yelled, "Stop being an
idiot!"
At the end of January, Wang tried to visit Bo to offer him greetings during
Chinese New Year, but was turned away at the door.
Wang, who had supported Bo's tyrannical rule for a decade, found himself
with nobody he could trust. As he drove to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, he
telephoned a Chinese newspaper reporter he had met only once.
"I fear my life could be in danger if I'm left alone with Bo," he said.
The collapse of Bo's Chongqing kingdom was then imminent.
On March 15, it was announced that Bo had been removed from his Chongqing
party post, and on April 10, he was stripped of his powerful Communist Party
positions due to suspected "serious discipline violations." |
