If the central government’s decrees are opaque, local authorities’ can be downright ridiculous. In 2001, hospital officials in the southern city of Shenzhen specified that nurses should show precisely eight teeth when smiling. In 2003, Hunan Province, in central China, stipulated that the breasts of female candidates for civil-service positions should be symmetrical. The next year, public safety officials in the northern city of Harbin ruled that policemen whose waistlines exceeded 36 inches had to go. In 2006, transportation officials in Zhejiang Province, just south of Shanghai, banned employees from sporting facial hair. The following year, in an effort to reduce the school-dropout rate, Pinghe County in Fujian Province, on the southeast coast, decreed that a junior high school diploma was required to marry.

Several of these rules have since been revoked, but their wacky and arbitrary nature demonstrates the arrogance of power in China. One can imagine all too easily their creators — sitting in comfortable armchairs, drinking high-grade tea and smoking fine cigarettes — discussing the issues at hand as if they were purely intellectual abstractions, never considering how ordinary people might react. That people will be unhappy is no cause for concern because, for so long, the power of the state has trampled on individual rights. Only when rules are so onerous that they stir actual protest do higher-ups take notice: “You guys are just making a mess of things,” they’ll tell their bureaucrat underlings. “This is not good for social stability.” The rules are then quietly rescinded — sometimes.

[Source]

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Post tags: abuse of power, government, regulations, transparency, yu hua
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We’ve learned a hard lesson in Chongqing at the cost of both lives and blood.

[…] If I was to describe how they acted in Chongqing over these past few years, I’d say they were like a crazy mouse on a rollercoaster going to a slippery slide. The newly-appointed leaders of the city’s public security apparatus are strongly opposed to the way that former party chief Bo Xilai and former head of the Public Security Bureau Wang Lijun handled matters in the past.

Now many just causes are gradually being rehabilitated.

But how many people were actually detained during the crackdown? How many were prosecuted? How many were sentenced to death or re-education through labor … we need to be clear on these numbers. We have a duty to history and to the people.

[…] If we don’t reveal what really went on, if we don’t expose their crimes and terrible deeds, many ordinary people will remain in the dark and we will be on the wrong side of history.

Also at Economic Observer, Li’s own lawyer Chen Youxi outlines how Bo’s ‘Chongqing Model’ almost succeeded, the damage it did, and the lessons that should be learned.

After two years of observation and deep thought, I believe that the underlying social foundations that led to the tragedy that occurred in Chongqing, continue to exist and flourish in China today. If we don’t seriously reflect on what happened in Chongqing, the soil which cultivated the tragedy in Chongqing will continue to exist, and if it doesn’t happen in Chongqing again, it just might take place somewhere else.

[…] If Wang Lijun hadn’t defected to the U.S. embassy and set off a series of other problems, it’s likely the Chongqing Model would have been copied across the country. If that happened, what would China’s rule of law be like? The more we think about it, the more we still feel have fears even after the events in Chongqing.

[…] In fact, the Chongqing’s problems are national problems that were concentrated and exposed in one municipality. It showed us the serious consequences of not continuing to deepen reform and also the great possibility and danger of the extreme-left making a comeback.

Reflecting on Chongqing is meaningful for the whole nation.

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Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Chongqing Model, corruption, lawyers, Li Zhuang, murders, organised crime, rule of law, strike black, torture, Wang Lijun
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In his brief statement, posted Saturday evening on Tumblr, the younger Bo wrote: “Personally, it is hard for me to believe the allegations that were announced against my father, because they contradict everything I have come to know about him throughout my life. Although the policies my father enacted are open to debate, the father I know is upright in his beliefs and devoted to duty.”

The statement continued: “He has always taught me to be my own person and to have concern for causes greater than ourselves. I have tried to follow his advice. At this point, I expect the legal process to follow its normal course, and I will await the result.”

Mr. Bo confirmed in an e-mail that the statement was authentic, but declined to comment further.

News of Bo’s expulsion emerged several days after former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun received a 15-year prison sentence, and alongside an announcement that the much-anticipated 18th Party Congress, where the revamped Politburo Standing Committee lineup will be announced as China commences a once-in-a-decade leadership transition, will open on November 8th. The case against Bo could still progress before the congress, writes Reuters’ Christopher Buckley, and he “will almost certainly be jailed”.

Two sources in Chongqing told The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore that different powers in the party ” were fighting each other” over how to handle Bo’s case, but ultimately “decided to get rid of him thoroughly” to blunt the influence of those that still support him. The charges ensure that Bo will not go quietly, writes The Economist’s Gady Epstein, and Oxford University’s Rana Mitter tells NPR’s Louisa Lim that the Party must navigate a number of dangerous questions raised by his offenses:

“How is it possible for someone like that, first of all, to get so far in the party –- within sniffing distance of Politburo standing committee, the very top team in Chinese politics — and what does it say about his connections at a very high level in Chinese politics?” he says.

Mitter says the government will be hard pressed to convey their side of this story to a skeptical public.

“The only way I can see that the Chinese Communist Party can spin this in a way that will serve their interests is to basically make this a morality tale. This is one rogue character, a bad apple, and the party system works because it eventually it caught up with him, even though it was very late in the day,” Mitter added.

The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos adds that the scope of the allegations against Bo may turn his case into a Pandora’s box as the Party “hangs its dirty laundry out in public”:

How much of Bo’s political history will eventually be open to discussion? One of the biggest surprises in these charges is that the Party didn’t confine its attention to the dramatic events of this spring and declare victory. On the contrary, they harkened back to virtually his full political career, accusing of him impropriety as early as his posts in Manchuria, where he was first stationed in 1984. That’s a quarter century of opportunities, and for years, Bo was said to have been involved in corruption. But nobody ever thought he would be prosecuted for it, not any more than they think that the other members of the Politburo who are routinely subject to rumors about corruption will ever see a day in court.

And therein lies the powder keg at the center of the Bo Xilai case. In seeking to purge him with a finality that can restore short-term political balance, the Party may have raised a more dangerous spectre: the full-scale accounting of a life in government. The results could reveal a culture of self-dealing and personal enrichment that exceeds even the Chinese public’s considerable tolerance of official abuse. It may start a conversation that will be hard to end.

For The Guardian, Isabel Hilton writes that “there was no perfect solution to the Bo Xilai problem”, but the Party’s choice comes with a number of risks:

But such a scandalous trial of a politburo member – on charges of corruption, abuse of power, womanising, and bearing responsibility for the murder of the British businessman Neil Heywood, as detailed by the official news agency Xinhua on Friday – also has its risks. Few in China will believe that similar charges could not be levelled against hundreds of party officials, from the most senior leaders, whose families have grown immensely rich from their connections with high office, to the most junior local power holder, who mimics his superiors by extorting money from defenceless peasants.

Bo Xilai’s crime was not that he stole or abused his power: if those were really crimes in China, few would escape censure. His real crime was the manner in which he pursued his political ambition: he tried to be bigger than the party, campaigning publicly for a coveted seat in the standing committee of the politburo, China’s tiny supreme body. And the party, like the mafia, does not take kindly to any member, however powerful, who forgets that the party is bigger than any individual.

This will be the biggest political show trial since the Gang of Four – Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, and her three close allies – in 1981 when they lost the power struggle that followed Mao’s death in 1976. Jiang Qing received a suspended death sentence and died in prison.

With the purge on, Tea Leaf Nation’s Liz Carter and David Wertime took stock of the comments emerging on microblogging site Sina Weibo, where a search on Saturday for posts mentioning “Bo Xilai” garnered nearly 7 million results (now that searches for his name are no longer blocked). One reporter dissected Xinhua’s press release and concluded via weibo that Bo’s crimes “sound unimaginable”, calling the release “the blueprint for future charges” and speculating that Bo will probably receive life in prison or a suspended death sentence. A number of netizens also drew parallels between Bo’s case and the Cultural Revolution:

One post by liberal columnist Zhao Chu @赵楚 on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter drew recent attention. In his post, Zhao urged netizens to look at the complete picture of Bo’s rise to power, attributing three factors to his earlier success: “Bo Xilai has totally failed, but people should reflect. Bo didn’t just fall out of the sky. He climbed up the ladder step by step, his wife, family members, and lackeys did so many bad things for more than 10 years, this is not happenstance. A political environment that has never fully reckoned with the Cultural Revolution or Chinese history, a law that lacks a strong supervisory voice [and faces] strong pressure from dictatorial methods; [and a central government that has lost its authority and gives local government too much power]; this overall situation has provided the fertile soil giving rise to Bo.” [1]

A number of users responded in agreement, calling for a “reckoning” or “clearing” of the “poisonous legacy” of the Cultural Revolution. @无码的视界 alluded to the sensational trial of the Gang of Four which signaled the end to China’s Cultural Revolution, remarking, “I hope this is the last of court politics. If the system is not changed, the Cultural Revolution could return at any time.”

Other netizens observed rhetorical similarities between the charges against Bo and those commonly leveled during the Cultural Revolution. @小费同学Fernando pointed out that “the wording is the same as during the Cultural Revolution…the techniques are exactly the same.”

Of all the charges leveled against Bo on Friday, perhaps none has drawn more focus than the allegation that he “maintained improper sexual relations with a number of women” while in power. The South China Morning Post reports that observers weren’t surprised, as “sex and power often go hand-in-hand in cases of mainland corruption,” and Foreign Policy’s Isaac Stone Fish runs down a list of other fallen officials whose private lives were exposed alongside their official transgressions. The dossier against Bo reportedly contains a list of his alleged mistresses, including CCTV anchors and other film and television stars, but the lawyer for Zhang Ziyi told The Telegraph that no evidence linked her to the fallen party boss.

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Post tags: 18th party congress, abuse of power, Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai, bribery, CCP 5th generation, corruption, microblogs, netizens, online public opinion, Politburo Standing Committee, sina weibo, Wang Lijun, Zhang Ziyi
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Investigations found that Bo seriously violated the Party disciplines while heading the city of Dalian, Liaoning Province and the Ministry of Commerce as well as serving as a member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and party chief of Chongqing Municipality.

Bo abused his power, made severe mistakes and bore major responsibility in the Wang Lijun incident and the intentional homicide case of Bogu Kailai.

He took advantage of his office to seek profits for others and received huge bribes personally and through his family.

[…] Bo had affairs and maintained improper sexual relationships with a number of women.

He was also found to have violated organizational and personnel disciplines and made wrong decisions in personnel promotion, which led to serious consequences.

The investigation also found clues to his suspected involvement in other crimes.

The trial of Bo’s former sidekick Wang Lijun triggered renewed speculation that Bo would face criminal charges last week. A lengthy Xinhua account of the trial described a dramatic encounter between the two men and implied that Bo had failed to act on knowledge of his wife’s crime; furthermore, Wang was said to have earned a reduced sentence by cooperating with other investigations, of which Bo seemed a likely target. Bo’s fate is not unprecedented, as Michael Forsythe wrote at Bloomberg News:

Bo’s is not the first case of a Politburo member to be referred to the criminal justice system. Former Beijing party chief Chen Xitong was imprisoned for corruption following his 1995 Politburo expulsion and former Shanghai party boss Chen Liangyu was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2008 for taking bribes after he was expelled from the Politburo in 2006.

Chen was replaced in Shanghai by Xi Jinping, the current vice president, who is forecast to take over the top party and government positions within the next year.

The news about Bo was released on Friday evening at the start of the week-long National Day holiday, and announced with a cursory recitation of Xinhua’s report in the number two slot on the Xinwen Lianbo evening news. Top billing went to the 18th Party Congress start date: at The Wall Street Journal, Jeremy Page commented on the timing of these two major stories

The twin announcements from the state-run Xinhua news agency indicate that party chieftains have likely reached broad agreement on who should run the country for the next 10 years. Internal differences over how to handle the Bo case are widely believed to have delayed an announcement on when the leadership change would begin. […]

[…] By unveiling the accusations against Mr. Bo at the same time as the announcement of the beginning of the leadership change, party officials appear to be trying to send a signal to the country regarding corruption, the abuse of power and the decadent lifestyles of many within the party elite—issues that have inflamed national public opinion. It also serves as an acknowledgment that the issues have become a direct challenge to the party’s hold on power.

For background on the case, see past coverage on CDT, and also The Bo Xilai Scandal: Power, Death, and Politics in China, a $1.33 Kindle ebook by The Financial Times’ Jamil Anderlini.

Updated at 06:01 PST: China Real Time’s Josh Chin has rounded up some initial reactions from Sina Weibo, including the following:

Liu Chun, vice president of web portal Sohu: How is that all I care about is the last line [about the women], that all I can think of is gossip? Could it be that there are some people I know who are a part of it?

Lei Yi, historian: What we should be thinking about is how, at every step along the road, he was violating discipline. How did he climb so high? We should consider problems with the system.

Sisi2008’s World: Before every leadership change, some big official takes a fall. I don’t know what this says.

DarrenLIU (censored): Inappropriate sexual relations with multiple women. Damn. That’s not the sexual problem most Chinese officials have.

On Twitter, meanwhile, Liu Xiaoyuan weighed in (via TIME’s Austin Ramzy):

薄熙来对王立军要承担用人失察责任，那么，谁来对薄熙来承担用人失察之责？

— 刘晓原律师 (@liu_xiaoyuan) September 28, 2012

Lawyer @liu_xiaoyuan tweets: Bo Xilai failed in his oversight of Wang Lijun, so who failed to oversee Bo?

— Austin Ramzy (@austinramzy) September 28, 2012

At the Associated Press, Christopher Bodeen presented a range of views on the political motives behind Bo’s toppling:

“They want to drive a stake through the heart of his political career, and make it absolutely impossible, not only for him to reappear but for anyone else who has that idea of trying to create that sort of personalized, political, charismatic leadership in some part of China which may challenge the leadership,” Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese history and politics at Oxford University.

[…] Bo’s supporters called the Politburo decision a political tactic. “I have doubts on any criminal wrongdoings of Bo Xilai. I need to see the evidence,” said Han Deqiang, an economics professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a leading voice in what Chinese call the new left. “I think this is a political battle turned into a criminal one.”

[…] “This announcement is long overdue. This means there is some progress in the rule of law in China. There is more transparency,” said Li Zhuang, a formidable defense lawyer who found himself jailed in Chongqing after he accused police of extracting his client’s confession by torture. “Of course it is also political. In China, politics and law often go hand in hand.”

Updated at 14:36 PST: Edward Wong at the New York Times weighs in with more about the accusations against Bo:

The most serious accusations against Mr. Bo appeared to be those relating to bribes and the Heywood murder, though no details were given. Ms. Gu was also accused of taking bribes. One Chongqing resident with government ties said officials had learned of the decision in afternoon meetings in that city; at one session, the attendees were told that Mr. Bo had taken several million renminbi in bribes and Ms. Gu had taken more than 20 million renminbi, or $3 million.

The Xinhua report also said Mr. Bo had violated party discipline for many years, starting with posts in the city of Dalian and Liaoning Province, continuing during a stint as commerce minister and extending through his four-year governance of Chongqing, where he was known for a so-called anticorruption crackdown and a revival of Mao-era patriotic songs through public singalongs.

The report also said investigators found Mr. Bo “had or maintained inappropriate sexual relationships with a number of women,” but did not give names. That line did not appear to be referring to potential criminal charges, but instead read like an attempt to soil the reputation of Mr. Bo in the eyes of ordinary Chinese. Officials in Chongqing were also told of Mr. Bo’s improper relationships, as well as those of Wang Lijun, a former police chief, and Wu Wenkang, another Bo associate in the government, said the resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a fear of official reprisal.

The public airing of such serious and sordid charges showed that party leaders had reached agreement that Mr. Bo had to be dealt with severely.

Meanwhile on Sina Weibo, netizens seemed especially taken with one particular accusation:

“a number of women” as in “Bo had or maintained improper sexual relationships with a number of women” trending now @ #2 in 时事 on Weibo

— Liz (@withoutdoing) September 28, 2012

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, abuse of power, Bo Xilai, bribery, Chen Liangyu, Chen Xitong, Chongqing, corruption, dalian, gu kailai, Li Zhuang, Liaoning, Liu Xiaoyuan, mistresses, Neil Heywood, new left, Wang Lijun, Xi Jinping, Xinhua
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Bo’s only known communication with his family since his ouster was an emotional letter sent in April to his mother-in-law, Fan Chengxiu, written with a traditional Chinese brush. Bo said he hoped to quietly read books while waiting for his case to be resolved, according to a family associate who saw the letter.

[…T]he separate trials of Gu, Wang and four other police officers charged in the coverup left unanswered the crucial question of what Bo knew about the murder and when he knew it. Bo in April was stripped of his positions in the Politburo and the Party Central Committee, but he has not been charged with any crime.

He is thought to have been moved several times among government residences in Hebei province, Inner Mongolia and the outer suburbs of Beijing. Those reports could not be independently confirmed.

Choi Chi-yuk at South China Morning Post gives a detailed account of how Wang and Bo’s closely linked careers:

Wang probably came to Bo’s attention some time in 2003, when he was the secretary in the public security department of the Communist Party in Jinzhou City, in Liaoning, of which Bo had been appointed governor in 2001. Bo was appointed party secretary of Chongqing, a megacity of 33 million people in 2007.

[...] After his apparent success against organised crime in Chongqing on Bo’s behalf, Wang was fêted as a gangbuster by the common people, and took centre stage in public life. This celebrity came despite accusations by lawyers that he extracted confessions through torture and sacrificed due process in the pursuit of the so-called triad groups.

[...] In May last year, Bo promoted Wang to vice-mayor with responsibility for overseeing security while retaining his role as chief of police. As a result, Wang became seen as a rising political star who some day might play a key role in the national Public Security Ministry, when his mentor Bo assumed the high office to which he had seemed destined. The apparent improvement in law and order under Wang’s iron-fisted crackdown had, in turn, boosted Bo’s chances of winning a place on the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, to be decided at the 18th national congress later this year.

Although Wang’s sentencing was relatively lenient, some observers feel that he has become Bo’s human shield. From Shi Jingtao and Choi Chi-yuk at South China Morning Post:

A source close to Wang’s family told the South China Morning Post they believed Wang had been made a scapegoat for Bo.

The source commented: “Wang has apparently become a political victim because the government wants to protect the guy above him and avoid further humiliation.”

[...] Wang’s lawyer Wang Yuncai – not related to her client – confirmed to the Post that Bo was explicitly named during Wang’s trial when the court heard how Bo slapped Wang. But the fact Bo’s name was not mentioned at all by state media throughout the trials of Wang and Gu was seen by many, including Hong Kong analyst Johnny Lau Yui-siu, as a sure sign Bo will be treated leniently to avoid any repercussions on the imminent leadership transition.

Others link Bo’s case to the behind-the-scenes political jockeying between the factions of Hu Jintao and former leader Jiang Zemin. From Mark Mackinnon at The Globe and Mail:

Mr. Bo – a “princeling” whose father was a hero of the 1949 Communist Revolution – was once seen as a near-certainty to join the Standing Committee, and his downfall has exposed deep rifts in a party that normally excels at presenting at least a façade of unity. Mr. Bo’s fellow princelings, and their chief patron, former president Jiang Zemin, are battling to limit damage from the scandal and to check the gains made by a rival faction of Communist Youth League alumni, a grouping headed by President Hu Jintao.

The Youth League faction is broadly considered more reform-minded, while the princelings are seen as more conservative about further opening the economy or any changes to China’s one-party political system.

“It would show that Jiang Zemin and the conservatives still have substantial clout, if they can spare Bo Xilai,” Prof. Lam said.

Yet amid the public debate over the leniency of Wang’s sentencing, his family sees the conviction itself as showing a lack of justice in China. From Edward Wong at The New York Times:

“I feel desperate,” his younger sister, Wang Fengying, said in a telephone interview. “It’s too unfair.”

Mr. Wang’s lawyer, Wang Yuncai, who is not related to him, said in a telephone interview that the 15-year sentence was about what she expected. She said that Mr. Wang’s wife, though, was stunned. “She was utterly shocked and unwilling to accept such a result,” she said.

See more about Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai via CDT, and a chronicle of censorship of the case at Fei Chang Dao.

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Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, corruption, gu kailai, justice, legal system, rule of law, Wang Lijun
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Wang, the former vice mayor and police chief of southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, was charged with several crimes and received a combined punishment for all offenses, according to a verdict announced by the Chengdu City Intermediate People’s Court in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Wang received seven years in prison for the charge of bending the law for selfish ends, two years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year for the charge of defection, two years in prison for the power abuse charge and nine years in prison for the charge of bribe-taking. He received a combined punishment of 15 years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year.

Wang stated to the court that he would not appeal the sentence.

Defence lawyer Wang Yuncai suggested to The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore, however, that there is some possibility of Wang’s early release on medical grounds:

“I cannot say how many years he will serve,” she said. “If he gets the chance to go to a hospital for a serious illness then there is no minimum sentence that he will have to serve.” She declined to comment further.

Mr Wang appeared in rosy health at his trial, and clips of him giving evidence, dressed not in the standard orange boiler suit of Chinese prisoners but in a crisp white shirt, were broadcast on national television.

However, one diplomatic source suggested in the run-up to his trial that he was in poor physical and mental health.

A psychiatrist who knew Mr Wang in Chongqing also said he exhibited “clear signs of mental disturbance” in the days before he fled to the US consulate in February.

Wang’s sentence is the latest omen of the fate of his former superior, Bo Xilai, for whom its relative lightness—Wang could have faced the death penalty—may be a bad sign. A nine-page Xinhua account of Wang’s trial explained last week that the defence had sought a reduced sentence in recognition of his “meritorious reporting” of others’ crimes. The account also implied that Bo had been aware of his wife Gu Kailai’s killing of Neil Heywood for over a week before Wang finally brought it to light, suggesting his complicity in the cover-up for which Wang, Gu and several others have already been prosecuted.

Caixin editor-in-chief Hu Shuli alluded to the possibility of a Bo trial in an editorial on Friday:

The magnitude of power Wang had at his disposal during the famous Chongqing “anti-mafia” campaign and the cover-up of Heywood’s death was a public outrage. But even more egregious was just how quickly local political and police forces moved to smother Wang when he fell out of favor with the Bo family.

The rule of law is written in China’s constitution, and states that consensus between the ruling party and the public is a goal. The trials of Bogu and Wang, and the shards of truth that have since emerged, were an important exercise in the rule of law.

According to the prosecutor, Wang “revealed important information of others’ legal activities” and “played an important role in the investigation of relevant cases.” Perhaps this represents only a prelude to another trial, which can serve as the final installment to the saga and open the door to legal reforms. While nothing has been a foregone conclusion with regard to the handling of the cases, it is clear that the establishment of a judicial system that can make horizontal and vertical checks on power must be implemented with greater urgency than ever.

In the wake of Wang’s trial and sentencing, the South China Morning Post examined how Bo’s criminal prosecution might come about:

So far, Bo has only been accused of breaching internal party discipline. But experts say the public citing of Bo’s angry rebuke of Wang has raised the likelihood that he too will face criminal charges, probably after the party congress.

Before then, party leaders could first expel Bo from the party and hand him over for criminal investigation.

“The prosecutors said Wang exposed leaders to major crimes by others,” said Li Zhuang, a Beijing lawyer who opposed Wang and Bo for mounting a sweeping crackdown on foes in the name of fighting organised crime. Bo was the likely target of Wang’s allegations, said Li.

“That was a slap around the ears that changed history,” Li said of Bo’s alleged actions against Wang. “Otherwise, Bo might still be in power and hoping to rise higher.”

Li himself faced charges, later dropped, of “fabricating evidence” in defence of a client during one of Bo’s signature anti-Mafia campaigns. AFP’s account today of Wang’s rise and fall describes how he personally “confronted Li at the airport, in front of dozens of police cars, their lights flashing, greeting him with the words ‘Li Zhuang, we meet again!’ before taking him into custody, the lawyer said.”

Another profile by The Guardian’s Tania Branigan also describes Wang’s expansive flamboyant side, as well as his extreme dedication to police work:

He claimed to have wrestled a suicide bomber to the floor just seconds before the man detonated his explosives. He boasted about love letters from awed young women and that his classmates at police academy had nicknamed him “tiger general”. But for all the self-mythologising, he succeeded in winning popular acclaim.

[…] Now 52, Wang, grew up in north-eastern Liaoning province and served in the army – where he met his wife – before joining the police, initially as a traffic policeman.

His devotion to duty was such that he chose to holiday in Beijing, where – rather than sightseeing – he spent hours standing at major road junctions, watching the traffic officers work.

Once back home, he used the photographs he had taken to practise his gestures and hand signals.

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Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Xilai, bribery, Chengdu, Chongqing, corruption, defection, gu kailai, Hu Shuli, legal system, Li Zhuang, Neil Heywood, trials, Wang Lijun
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“I acknowledge and confess the guilt accused by the prosecuting body and show my repentance,” Wang said in his final statement at court.

“My acts were crimes, and I hope the serious impacts (caused by my acts) both at home and abroad would be eliminated through the trial. Meanwhile, I hope the trial will issue a warning to society and let more people draw lessons from me,” he said.

“For the Party organizations, people and relatives that have cared for me, I want to say here, sincerely, ‘I’m very, very sorry, I’ve let you down,’” Wang said.

Speaking to The New York Times, Wang’s lawyer endorsed the Xinhua account as, for the most part, a faithful record of the proceedings. It offers some explanation for the unannounced early start of what, it was initially reported, would be an “open” trial:

The Chengdu Municipal Intermediate People’s Court held a closed-door trial on Monday for Wang on the charges of defection and abuse of power and an open trial on the charges of bribe-taking and bending the law for selfish ends on Tuesday.

Despite the gravity of these crimes, Xinhua explained, Wang’s sentence is likely to be somewhat reduced because of his “meritorious reporting” of others’ criminal acts. These others may include his former superior, fallen Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, who for the first time was officially linked to the events surrounding his wife’s murder of Neil Heywood. The Xinhua account describes what would turn out to be a pivotal moment, soon after which Wang fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu; Bo is not named, but his identity is clear.

Relevant testimonies from witnesses showed that on Jan. 28, Wang Lijun reported to the then leading official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Chongqing Committee that Bogu Kailai was highly suspected in the Nov. 15, 2011 Case. On the morning of Jan. 29, Wang Lijun was angrily rebuked and slapped in the face by the official.

Guo Weiguo, who was present when Wang Lijun was slapped, said in the interrogation record that “the conflict was made public after Wang Lijun was slapped.”

That Bo was told of his wife’s crime and failed to bring it to light appears to implicate him in the cover-up for which Wang and four other police officers have already stood trial. Observers disagree, however, over what the episode’s inclusion in the official record means for Bo’s fate. From The Guardian:

[…] Kerry Brown, an expert on Chinese politics at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy, said the party could still deal with Bo’s case internally, adding: “It seems to have been very rigorous in keeping Bo’s malfeasance apart from Gu’s.

“That kind of story [about the confrontation] was so well known that it was hard not to try to address it.”

He added: “I can’t see any big gains from totally trashing Bo now. Not going for the jugular might be more sensible, particularly at the moment.”

But others have read it as a sign of possible criminal proceedings. June Teufel Dreyer of the University of Miami told Bloomberg, for example, that “the nuggets are the clues which could lead to a Bo Xilai indictment later on. They have very cleverly left the door open with several phrases.” The Financial Times’ Kathrin Hille wrote that this interpretation is consistent “with information recently given to senior party members. Lin Zhe, a professor at the Central Party School, said the main point that the internal investigation had found Mr Bo guilty of was helping to cover up for his wife.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Deborah Kan discussed the issue with Jeremy Page, who concluded that an announcement on Bo’s fate is likely “in the next couple of weeks, or immediately after [the] National Day holiday”.

The final section of the Xinhua account is devoted to emphasising the investigation and trial’s thoroughness, fairness and strict adherence to procedure:

Gu Mingan, a professor with the Law School of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics as well as an observer at the trials, said the two sides made full efforts to raise and cross-examine evidence during the trials, and the court scrupulously heard the opinions of the prosecutors as well as the defense counsel, fully reflecting the judicial concept of the equality of the prosecution and the defense, and safeguarded the sanctity of law.

After the trials, Wu Qunfang, a resident from the Taoyuan community in the Chenghua District of Chengdu, said that after the trials they have fully understood the beginning and subsequent development of Wang Lijun’s case.

“We believe that all is equal before the law and expect a fair verdict from the people’s court,” Wu said.

Global Times elaborated, stressing the inevitability of justice in China and invoking a favourite recent theme, the awesome “moral whip” of online scrutiny.

Those who commit crimes, regardless of the power or position they hold, will not escape punishment. Wang’s case has strengthened this faith among the public and served as a serious deterrent in the country.

Wang’s trial will drive forward China’s political system, as it has highlighted the urgency of checks and balance of power.

Confusion still exists over the case, but people are gradually believing more that justice will eventually trump over any privilege.

Confidence is built on more criminal officials being firmly punished, on the influential emergence of online supervision and the rising voice of individuals via Weibo.

But the Xinhua account leaves some questions unanswered. Siweiluozi wondered, for example, what evidence exists that Wang had applied to the U.S. for asylum, justifying the charge of defection.

[… W]hat I really, really want to know now, though, is what is the prosecution’s evidence for this? Do they have the application for asylum? If so, how did they get it? Or is their evidence of this fact Wang’s confession?

If the evidence for Wang’s asylum application is based solely on his confession, then this should be insufficient grounds to convict under Chinese law, since Article 46 of the Criminal Procedure Law states, in relevant part:

A defendant cannot be found guilty and sentenced to a criminal punishment if there is only his statement but no evidence.

To be clear, I am not saying that Wang will (or even necessarily should, within the terms of Chinese criminal justice) be acquitted of defection. I’m merely pointing to what I think is an interesting question regarding evidence. Put simply: what is the evidence to back up this charge? Unfortunately, I’m not optimistic that I will ever see either the verdict in this trial or, through some other means, the evidence disclosed in sufficient detail.

Xinhua’s description of Wang’s actions after he was drawn into Gu’s conspiracy, such as secretly keeping hold of evidence against her, shows his acute awareness of being on treacherous ground. But according to a profile of Wang’s earlier career by The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore, he had known for many years that his position was precarious:

As early as the late 1990s, when Mr Wang was a star policeman in the city of Tieling, in Liaoning province, he spilled his fears to Zhou Lijun, the script writer of “Iron Blooded Police Spirits”, a television drama series based on his career. “I was in a bath house with Wang Lijun in Fushun, Liaoning, and we were both sitting naked in the hot tub,” Mr Zhou recalled on his blog.

“And he said: ‘I know exactly what I am, I am just a piece of chewing gum in the officials’ mouths. They will chew me up and when they find there is no taste anymore they will spit me out onto the ground, and God knows whose shoes I will be sticking to by that time.’”

[…] “Everybody has some sort of mental problem,” Mr Wang told Mr Chen, his biographer. “I dream about a normal life, but it is not possible. I am struggling between glory and confusion, but I will not let myself collapse. I may be wiped out by certain powers, or die when I am still young, but history will remember me.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai, Chengdu, Chongqing, corrupt officials, corruption, defection, Global Times, gu kailai, justice, legal system, Neil Heywood, rule of law, Wang Lijun, Xinhua
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From Gillian Wong at The Associated Press:

“In line with the Gu Kailai case, the Chinese leadership certainly would like to complete the trial of Wang Lijun well before the 18th party congress to separate these cases from Bo Xilai,” said Joseph Cheng, a political science professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

[…] Wang has been charged with defection, bribe-taking, “bending the law for selfish ends” and abuse of power, though details have not been provided. State media announcements about his indictment did not mention Bo.

Shenyang-based attorney Wang Yuncai, reportedly a close friend of Wang’s, had previously said she has been approved by the court to serve as Wang Lijun’s defense lawyer. Reached by phone Friday, Wang Yuncai would say only she was in a meeting before hanging up.

George Washington University law professor Donald Clarke commented on Wang’s charges and possible sentencing at China Law Prof Blog last week:

[… The] prescribed punishment for defection is surprisingly (to me, anyway) light: up to five years in most cases, and not more than ten years even in serious cases where you possess state secrets. […]

The crimes of perversion of the law, abuse of power, and bribe-taking are respectively punishable by a maximum of 15 years in especially serious cases, 7 years in especially serious cases, and death in especially serious cases. In each case, however, substantially lower punishments of at most a few years’ imprisonment are also possible. What will be interesting to see is whether fleeing to a foreign consulate and revealing at best highly embarrassing and at worst highly damaging secrets is deemed to be less threatening to the state than, say, drafting a political manifesto, for which Liu Xiaobo received an 11-year sentence.

See more on Wang Lijun, Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Xilai, Chengdu, Chongqing, corruption, defection, donald clarke, gu kailai, Liu Xiaobo, Neil Heywood, Wang Lijun
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It began more than 15 years ago in Dalian, a large port city on China’s northwest coast that was about to undergo a remarkable transformation. Today, Dalian markets itself as a green hi-tech hub and international conference centre. But then it was trying to shake off a reputation for depressed rust-belt industries and state-owned enterprises that were targeted for closure.

This was fertile ground for chancers, and in particular, for two men trying to make their mark – albeit at very different levels. Heywood was in his early 20s and had graduated from Warwick university with a degree in politics and international studies. Having odd-jobbed his way across the US and sailed the Atlantic, the Old Harrovian earned a living in China by teaching English, but took every opportunity to cultivate local officials who might further his goals to break into business.

He wrote a self-introduction to Bo, who had taken over as mayor of Dalian in 1993. Although 10 years Heywood’s senior, Bo was also working his way up the Communist hierarchy, and trying to ensure his family would prosper and avoid the hardship of his youth. During the Cultural Revolution, Bo was a Maoist Red Guard, but was later imprisoned for five years and his father was tortured when the family fell out of favour.

His second wife, Gu Kailai, was the daughter of a Communist party general. Her father had also been imprisoned during the political tumult of the 1960s. She – like Bo – overcame this bitter period, went on to attend a prestigious university and became an accomplished lawyer. She was said to be the first Chinese attorney to win a legal case in the US, but this failed to silence critics who accused her of cashing in on her husband’s political connections.

And McClatchy reports on how revelations of corruption, abuse of power, and possibly murder by Bo Xilai, his family and allies may impact the political future of China:

Viewed from the outside, China is a rising economic juggernaut poised for greatness. At home, however, it has struggled to contain the corrosive effects of corruption and abuse of power by officials and their allies. Although hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted from extreme poverty in the past three decades of growth managed by the Communist Party, public resentment has grown over the widening gap in wealth and privilege.

The story of Bo and his family threatens to feed that dissatisfaction, suggesting an elite increasingly removed from those it governs, a Mafia-like clutch of political families who’ve enriched themselves through corruption.

Both Bo and his wife, Gu Kailai, are the offspring of Communist Party aristocracy. Bo, 62, is the son of a renowned party elder and Gu, 53, the daughter of a famous general. Until recently, Bo was considered a likely candidate for one of nine seats on the Politburo Standing Committee, the apogee of power in China.

Far from the selfless sacrifice for the people that party propaganda trumpets about its leaders, the story that has emerged about Bo and Gu in the past several weeks describes a palace court in danger of careening out of control. The particulars would be familiar to anyone who’s come in contact with the way some of China’s villages and towns are run.

Read more about the case on CDT’s Bo Xilai page.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Bo Xilai, CCP legitimacy, corruption, gu kailai
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As China sped toward its new status as the world’s second largest economy, the already yawning gap between the rich and poor grew wider. By sociologists’ calculations, income inequality here is not that far from levels that have spurred social unrest in other nations.

But some things are not easily reduced to statistics. There is an argument, buttressed by the Gansu tragedy, that what truly eats at people here is not so much the rich-poor gap as the canyon that separates the powerful from the powerless.

“Most Chinese aren’t angry about rising inequality,” said Martin K. Whyte, a Harvard sociologist who specializes in research on Chinese social trends. “It’s not rich versus poor. It’s the system of power and procedural injustices that they’re upset about.”

And in fact, many episodes in the litany of scandal and misfortune that has consumed Chinese Web surfers in recent years had little to do with money.

For examples of this phenomenon, see “My Father is Li Gang“, as well as the case of the 15-year-old son of acclaimed PLA singer Li Shuangjiang, who attacked a couple he hit while driving a car illegally, and another recent Internet meme: “Will you speak for the Party, or are you prepared to speak for the people?“

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, injustice, wealth gap
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A group of 70 to 80 men led by a local Communist Party official stormed the couple’s home in Shandong province’s Shuanghou village on Feb. 18 and beat them for two hours, Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, wrote. Her letter was posted Thursday on the website of the U.S.-based China Aid Association, a Christian rights group.

Chen passed out from the beating and Yuan may have suffered a broken rib and brow bone, she wrote ….

Yuan said local authorities have since put metal sheets over the couple’s windows, confiscated their computers, DVD players, cameras, flashlights, books, papers and other belongings, and installed two surveillance cameras outside their home ….

During another raid of their home on March 8, Shuanghou’s vice Communist Party secretary, Zhang Jian, punched Yuan in the head after she complained about authorities taking the family’s property, she wrote.

China Aid founder Bob Fu told The Associated Press on Friday that “a chain of carriers” helped to get the undated letter out of the village and into the hands of activists in China and abroad. The Associated Press couldn’t immediately verify its authenticity.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Chen Guangcheng, China AId, local officials, Shandong, Yuan Weijing
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The tale of her death is precisely the sort of gripping socio-drama — a commoner grievously wronged; a privileged transgressor pulling strings to escape punishment — that sets off alarm bells in the offices of Communist Party censors. And in fact, party propaganda officials moved swiftly after the accident to ensure that the story never gained traction.

Curiously, however, the opposite has happened. A month after the accident, much of China knows the story, and “My father is Li Gang” has become a bitter inside joke, a catchphrase for shirking any responsibility — washing the dishes, being faithful to a girlfriend — with impunity. Even the government’s heavy-handed effort to control the story has become the object of scorn among younger, savvier Chinese.

“There was a little on the school news channel at first,” one Hebei University student who offered only his surname, Wang, said in an interview last week. “But then it went completely quiet. We’re really disappointed in the press for stopping coverage of this major news.”

In many ways, the Li Gang case, as it is known, exemplifies how China’s propaganda machine — able to slant or kill any news in the age of printing presses and television — is sometimes hamstrung in the age of the Internet, especially when it tries to manipulate a pithy narrative about the abuse of power.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Li Gang, princelings
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Heads of China’s nationwide urban inspection force have openly criticized their officers for beating to death a bystander man who filmed a protest, in a rare admission of abuse of power.

Over 100 local leaders of the force, known as the «chengguan» in Chinese, issued a joint letter saying the killing in the central city of Tianmen, apparently by chengguan members, had sparked «deep concern and reflection.

«Hawks» in their midst regularly «spoke roughly and acted boorishly,» wore helmets and body armor, and carried handcuffs and other specialized equipment, the statement said. [Full text]

Numerous photos, videos and witness reports on excessive violence used by “chengguan” forces have appeared on the Chinese Internet. A blogger even made a t-shirt on this theme:

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Read the rest of Beating Death Prompts Rare Statement Condemning Abuses in China Municipal Security Force – AP (99 words)

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, chengguan, Wei Wenhua
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Liquor consumption is an open secret at a lot of Chinese luncheons and dinners, but the late Kaiping (开平) secretary Zhao Ruizhang (赵瑞彰) took it to the extreme level of getting as wasted as he could. Since 2003, when he took over the city in Guangdong Province, he was given a nickname, “Zhao Liujin (赵六斤),” referring to the fact that at almost every banquet he attended a three-kilogram bottle of Hennessy was uncorked.

An alcoholic as he was, Zhao would need to spend around 10,000 yuan on his name brand liquor for almost every “business meal (应酬).” His Hennessy-addiction developed along with his career curve. And the political path of this “foreign liquor secretary” could have easily squandered a lot of public funds in a small city with a lot of people under the poverty line.

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Read the rest of The Downfall of “Secretary Three-Kilo Hennessy” – People Online (73 words)

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, corruption, Guangdong, local power, Zhao Ruizhang
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From June to October, the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province put hidden cameras on its roads and recorded more than 5,900 occurrences of police cars running red lights, according to Xinhua. Of course, local police officers are not allowed to run so many red lights while on duty. Although it’s not as big a deal compared with high profile corruption or embezzlement, police running red lights is not a small matter.

It reflects a warped culture in current society: respecting the ugly as the virtuous, and law-breaking as a kind of glory, or a trophy of social status. And when these power abuses run unpunished, then an ugly culture will prevail, and honesty and obedience to the law will be “disgraced.” And this cannot be solved through moral self-discipline. A system needs to be put in place to weed out its roots. [Full Text in Chinese]

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abuse of power, Heilongjiang, police
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