Murder in the Orient Expressed

From one of the contenders for the top spot in the Peoples Republic of China to disgraced outcast within his own party, former party secretary of Chongqing, one China’s biggest cities, Bo Xilai has fallen like few before him. To make matters infinitely worse, his wife Gu Kailai (a prominent lawyer and daughter of a famous PRC general), now stands accused of murder in what is being depicted as her attempt at a massive cover-up of an alleged extra-marital affair with an Englishman, which in turn appears to be born of corruption, cronyism and near-despotic rule of Chongqing by Mr. Bo and those in his inner circle. (The couple is pictured above.)

Whatever has happened, there has been a huge rift within the Communist Party, and Bo is at the heart of the controversy. He apparently opposed the choice of the new party leadership and his fall is probably as linked to these machinations as the controversy that surrounds him and his family. While Bo has yet to be formally charged with any crime, he is “suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations,” and there appears to be a consensus that such a punishment is in the wind. He has not been seen publicly since March.

If you viewed this as a movie, you might have trouble suspending disbelief. The actors would fill the roles of the angry and cold wife (and her trusty partner-in-crime orderly), a material French witness (architect Patrick Devillers), victim Neil Heywood (the Brit found poisoned to death in his hotel room), the senior police official who sought asylum at the local U.S. Consulate who purportedly brought sheaves of documents uncovering the mess supporting the charge of pervasive corruption in Bo’s world and who seems to have forced the issue, the Harvard-educated son, Bo Guagua, who seems to have enmeshed himself deeply in his father’s web, and of course Bo himself.

The official version is that Gu committed the crime (with her trusty orderly) in order to protect her son: “Gu and Bo Xilai’s son Bo Guagua, who graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School in May and earlier was a student at Britain’s elite Harrow School and at Oxford University, had a financial conflict with Heywood. That caused Gu to view the Brit as a threat to her son’s safety, Xinhua said.” BusinessWeek.com, July 12^th. The word on the street was that Heywood – or was that the French architect – was purportedly Gu’s lover and had enough information on Gu, Bo and the son to blow them out of the water, creating a scandal… er…. very much like the one that they seem to have failed to contain. How much of this is true or not, we will never know, but gossip across the land is rampant.

The bigger issues brought on by this scandal address the notions of insider-elite privilege, stability, the pervasive culture of corruption that the party leadership has attempted to mute, if not crush (obviously unsuccessfully)… and the remaining vast hordes of Chinese citizens who have yet materially to benefit from the economic miracle that defines modern China. As Chinese polices focus on bringing up these disenfranchised masses and upgrading the standard of living for ordinary Chinese, such scandals of horrific abuse at the highest levels undermine the message and that underlying pledge that “while we (the party) will contain your freedoms – for your own good – we will also provide you with a stable and predictable economy which will upgrade your life.” It’s that “stable and predictable” part that the Bo Xilai affair threatens to undermine. Everybody knows what’s going on all over the country, but when a scandal comes out at this level of magnitude – showing that the party cannot contain even its most senior members – it is a big signal to the people that the “big promise” may not be delivered.

As Hu Jintao steps down as China’s leader at the end of the year, to be replaced by Xi Xinping, there will undoubtedly be a further reshuffling of those at the top. But this dark and spreading stain on the party could not come at a worse time.

Authorities are forced to make an example of this powerful family in the hopes that such efforts will restore the popular sense that people can and should depend on this new government to continue to provide that “stable and predictable” economic environment for the future, notwithstanding the vast questions that sill remain in the global economy. “‘China is a socialist country ruled by law, and the sanctity and authority of law shall not be trampled on,’ opined the flagship party newspaper People’s Daily in a commentary on the Bo and Gu case on April 11. ‘Whoever has broken the law will be handled in accordance with law and will not be tolerated, no matter who is involved and no matter what position he is in.’” BusinessWeek.com.

I’m Peter Dekom, and deciphering Chinese politics is exceptionally complex but a necessary part of understanding that great nation’s transition to being a world power.