This was a complex case, involving more than 477 dossiers of related documents. Yet the trial was executed with astonishing efficiency and concluded in less than half a day.

[…] Liu accepted all charges and pleaded for leniency in punishment with a tearful statement. He even made reference to the trending concept of the Chinese dream, a telling example of how deeply he understood the Chinese characteristics in rule of law – for him the only possible way to avoid death is pleasing the top leaders.

[…] The debate was red-hot outside the courtroom. Will Liu receive the death penalty? From the level of cooperation he demonstrated on trial, his life should be spared this time. But then how will large bribery cases be dealt with in the future? Secondly, in the eyes of the legal community, there is an ethics issue. Can a Chinese-style show trial bring justice? The stance prosecutors took by the end of the trial was suspicious, and it’s an open question as to whether judges had a clear grasp of the case. [Source]

The prosecutors’ “suspicious” stance was a request for leniency, which has infuriated netizens eager for harsh punishment. Ding also notes the discovery that the charges against Liu appear to reflect only a tiny portion of his illicit gains, which reportedly included over $140 million and almost 350 apartments. From Cary Huang at South China Morning Post:

On trial at Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court on Sunday, Liu was accused of using his position of influence to help business associates win promotions and project contracts, and of accepting 64.6 million yuan in unspecified bribes between 1986 and 2011, according to an indictment reported by the official Xinhua News Agency.

But the [Beijing] Times reported yesterday that in other cases related to Liu’s abuse of his official power, officials had also seized large amounts of cash in various currencies. These include 795.5 million yuan, HK$85 million, US$235,000 and 2.2 million euro (HK$22.5 million). Also recovered were other assets, such as shares, vehicles, flats and other valuables, according to the report.

The report did not explain why those assets were not included in the charges against Liu. [Source]

One Sina Weibo user quipped that these revelations made Liu “the first high-ranking official to publicly declare his assets”, referring to popular demands for transparency regulations like those recently introduced in Macau. But even as the government acknowledges the problem of official corruption and vows to bring its perpetrators to justice, a number of activists campaigning for asset disclosure have been detained in recent months, prompting protests from human rights organizations. From SCMP’s Cary Huang:

The China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers, Front Line Defenders, Human Rights Watch and Independent Chinese PEN called on the central government to release the detainees and drop all charges against them. They said the detentions cast doubt on President Xi Jinping’s commitment to cracking down on government corruption.

Since May 7, 10 of the 15 activists detained had been formally arrested, indicating they were likely to be prosecuted and convicted, the right groups said. The charges against the 15 include illegal assembly, inciting subversion of state power, disturbing social order and extortion. The crime of inciting subversion carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, while the other crimes have maximum penalties of five years in prison.

[…] “When President Xi Jinping calls for a tough response to corruption, it’s hailed as innovative policy, but when ordinary people say the same in public, his government regards it as subversion,” Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, said. [Source]

See more on these cases at Human Rights Watch, and on Liu Zhijun and corruption via CDT.

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Post tags: anti-corruption, bribery, Chinese Dream, corruption, death penalty, detention, human rights watch, Liu Zhijun, Ministry of Railways, trials, Xi Jinping
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Zhao Zhenchun, who lost both his wife and his sister in the fire, said human error was to blame for the death toll. “I don’t think safety was being managed properly. This should never happen again. They paid the price with their blood. So many of these big disasters in China are caused by lax supervision,” he said.

[…] A senior official at the Baoyuanfeng poultry processing firm was detained. His role in the firm was not disclosed.

[…] Wang Rulin, party secretary of Jilin, has said the government will assign a “working team” to the family of each victim and ordered officials to “resolutely prevent major mass incidents”, according to a statement on the Changchun government website, using a euphemism for social unrest.

He also vowed to strengthen control over the Internet to “resolutely prevent malicious exaggeration, rumours spreading and firmly prevent the misleading of public opinions and the undermining of stability”, the statement said. [Source]

The BBC’s Celia Hatton reported that, although the government says workplace fatalities have fallen by nearly 30% over the last five years, enforcement of safety regulations often remains lax:

Experts say the incident in Jilin highlights the lack of fire prevention equipment or fire safety training available to Chinese workers.

“Over the past 10 years there has been some improvement [in accident prevention], although there is certainly no real culture of safety in Chinese workplaces,” said Mr Crothall.

“Safety, unfortunately, still comes second to productivity and profits. There are, unfortunately, deaths at coal mines and factories pretty much every day, but no-one pays attention when it is one or two people.”

Critics argue that factory bosses are rarely punished for workplace accidents, removing an incentive to implement regulations more strictly. [Source]

At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos described netizens’ suspicions of potential corruption behind the scenes of workplace accidents:

In China these days, a fire is rarely accepted as just a fire. Even as the deaths were being counted, Chinese were openly discussing corruption, safety standards, and the government’s likely response. The reflexive reaction by Chinese citizens is to ask which of several common rackets may have played a role. This was the third major workplace accident in northeast China in a week: an oil-tank explosion on Sunday killed two people and left two others missing, and a fire on Friday raged through a storage center that belonged to the China Grain Reserves Corporation; nobody was hurt, but online, people instantly suspected arson. Was it an attempt to destroy evidence before the arrival of a government anti-corruption inspection team, they asked? The speculation became so rampant that news agencies reported, “Media Says That the Fire In the China Grain Reserves Corporation Has Nothing To Do With the Arrival Of the Central Inspection Group.”

[...] Or, perhaps, was a bribe paid to the safety inspector, to allow exits to remain locked as a theft-prevention measure? When a shopping center in Henan burned in 2000, the fire killed three hundred and nine people, and the building was found to have failed fire-prevention checks since 1997. [Source]

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A failing student who offered his professor £5,000 in cash in an attempt to pass his degree has been jailed for 12 months.

[...]Li had been given a mark of 37% in his dissertation, short of the 40% needed to pass. Graves told him he could resubmit the 12,000-word essay, appeal against the mark or accept it and withdraw from the course.

But Li offered a fourth option, the court was told. He told Graves: “I am a businessman,” and placed £5,000 in cash on the table in front of him. “You can keep the money if you give me a pass mark and I won’t bother you again,” Li was alleged to have said.

Graves asked Li to leave but as the student put the money away, a replica handgun – loaded with six pellets – fell from his pocket to the floor, the court heard.

This case has brought back into the spotlight the mutual struggles between Chinese students and their hosts. Since 2000, the number of Chinese students abroad has been rapidly climbing, and last year China became the world’s top source of foreign students. International education has become a profitable industry both for schools seeking more foreign students, and for the agencies that help Chinese students gain acceptance to overseas schools, often by using shady tactics. While some advocate bilateral study abroad programs as a means to enhance strategic international relationships, others have characterized them as “ticking time bombs” that, due to cultural differences, could lead to crises. Indeed, cultural differences were cited by Li Yang’s lawyers in his defense, who noted that carrying large sums of cash is common in China. While covering the Li case (and other similar cases), the Global Times talked to lawyers and education professionals about playing the “cultural difference” card when caught breaking the rules:

However, there are factors that make bribery a more attractive choice in China. According to the criminal law, bribe-taking has a lower threshold before it constitutes a crime and a tougher punishment than bribery, which makes the legal costs smaller. At the same time, those found guilty of bribery can have their penalties reduced by providing evidence to law enforcers.

“On the other hand, those who offer bribes are often considered the weak party compared with the more powerful bribe-takers, and the public likes to see corrupt officials being punished – this eventually formed an attitude in society where using money or gifts in exchange for interests is not ‘bribery’ or crime, but a ‘favor,’” Guo Rui, a Beijing-based attorney, told the Global Times.

[...]There are many, however, who think this is no excuse. “Cultural difference is not a fig leaf of ignorance of the law or an excuse to evade responsibility,” said Xue Yong, assistant professor at Suffolk University in Boston, in his Sina column.

Last year, when a Chinese student studying in the U.S. was accused of sexual assault, his parents flew to the U.S. and allegedly attempted to bribe the accuser. In that case, witness tampering charges against the parents were dropped due to “cultural differences”.

For more on profits and problems in overseas educational programs, read director of Peking University High School’s international division Jiang Xueqin’s posts for The Diplomat, or see The Chronicle of Higher Education’s coverage of China. Also see prior CDT coverage of overseas Chinese students.

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During the course of that broader probe, the Justice Department approached News Corp.’s outside counsel in early 2012 and said it had received information from a person it described as a whistleblower who claimed one or more Journal employees had provided gifts to Chinese government officials in exchange for information, according to people familiar with the case.

[…] According to U.S. and corporate officials, News Corp. has told the Justice Department that some company officials suspect the informant was an agent of the Chinese government, seeking to disrupt and possibly retaliate against the Journal for its reporting on China’s leadership. The company officials came to that view after finding no evidence of the alleged bribery and because of the timing and nature of the accusations, company officials say. It isn’t clear what, if any, evidence the company officials have for that claim, which reporters for this article couldn’t independently verify.

[…] The Chinese bribery allegations against the Journal arose around the time that U.S. and Dow Jones officials believed Chinese hackers were targeting Dow Jones’s computer systems, according to people familiar with the matter. That is one reason company officials say they suspected the informant’s actions were part of a broader attack on the paper.

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Consider the case of Huang Yubiao, a Chinese real estate millionaire with a charitable streak. He was seen on local television promising poverty-stricken villagers, “I’ll give you whatever you need.”

But his failed attempt to buy a seat on the Hunan Province People’s Congress turned him into a whistle-blower. Online, he went public, admitting that he’d given out approximately $50,000 worth of bribes to about 320 members of the Shaoyang City People’s Congress in his bid to become a provincial delegate.

“Everyone was doing it,” he told NPR in a telephone interview. “My bribes were the lowest, so I wasn’t elected. They asked me to add money, but I didn’t. They told me I couldn’t be elected as I only paid $160 a head. It needed to be higher, maybe even triple that.”

[...]“Everything’s for sale,” says historian Zhang Lifan, noting that China has a 2,000-year history of buying and selling posts in the bureaucracy. “Some people don’t even use cash. I know that people who want to be legislators can just give an antique or a voucher to whoever is in charge, or even help their family members to go overseas to study. There are all kinds of transactions.”

Click through to read the full report and listen to the broadcast.

Also see prior CDT coverage of corruption and the newly appointed CCP administration’s plan to eradicate it.

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Post tags: bribery, corrupt officials, corruption
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As part of Gu’s strategy, dozens of Yage staffers spent the workday surfing the Internet in search of negative news, comments and postings about government officials. Any official whose reputation seemed to be threatened would be contacted and offered Yage’s services as soon as negative information surfaced online.

High season for Yage’s business with local government clients was usually just before the National People’s Congress and China People’s Political Consultative Conference held every March in Beijing. It’s around conference time that officials typically come under attack from whistleblowers. It’s also when these officials are often willing to pay a premium to see negative publicity vanish.

[…] Arrested with Gu was Hu Chunyu, the financial news channel chief at Qianlong, a website tied to state-run media including the Beijing Daily newspaper, the Beijing Radio Station and Beijing TV. The site is managed by the Propaganda Department at the Beijing Municipality’s Communist Party Committee.

A few years after its founding in 2000, Qianlong started outsourcing part of its news production to public relations companies. In 2009, Yage won a more than 100,000 yuan-a-year contract to supply business channel content. Yage also won the right to post and delete articles on that web page.

[…] “We think Qianlong is shameless,” [a] source said. “But you really can’t cross it. It’s still one of the Beijing government’s official propaganda portals.”

Four Baidu employees were fired in July last year for carrying out paid deletions, and three of the four were subsequently arrested. At the time, Marbridge Consulting’s Mark Natkin told The Wall Street Journal that the problem was far more widespread: “There’s no major Chinese Internet company that has been able to completely avoid this sort of thing. It’s just very difficult to police everybody all the time.”

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Some who are involved in Hollywood’s entry into China are privately expressing hope that the Justice Department inquiry will be resolved before they run out of time on what one of them last week called a “ticking clock,” as Chinese consumers outgrow their receptivity to Hollywood fare.

The squeeze started last year when they began to spend more money on some homegrown films than on the American blockbusters.

But Michael W. Emmick, who was formerly a prosecutor with the Justice Department, and now focuses on the corrupt practices cases, among other things, in his private law practice, said a resolution could be a long time coming.

“This is still early in the game,” he said.

While Mr. Emmick is not representing clients in the investigation, and said he had no direct knowledge of it, he said that regulators sometimes use such industrywide inquiries as a “cost effective” way of putting an entire business sector — like the pharmaceuticals industry or the portion of the financial industry dealing in sovereign debt — on notice.

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Post tags: bribery, corruption, film industry, hollywood, Securities and Exchange Commission
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Qu Jianguo in court on Friday. (Yangcheng Evening News)

The following examples of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Guangdong Propaganda Department: Regarding the case against former Guangfa Bank Zhuhai branch director Qu Jianguo, all media must follow the requests from our department meeting. Produce only straightforward reports, and do not play up the issue. (December 14, 2012)

广东省委宣传部：对广发银行珠海分行原行长屈建国一案，各媒体要按照我部有关会议要求，只作简单报道，不炒作。

On Friday, the Zhuhai People’s Court found Qu guilty of corruption and bribery, sentencing him to the death penalty with a two-year suspension [zh].

Central Propaganda Department: Except for Xinhua wire copy, all media are without exception not to voluntarily investigate, report, or comment on issues related to Chonqing’s beat black campaign, especially as it involved Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun. (December 14, 2012)

中宣部：对重庆打黑相关问题特别是涉薄熙来、王立军案件的报道，除采用新华社通稿外，各级媒体一律不自行采访报道评论。

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, bribery, censorship, Chongqing, corruption, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, justice, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, official corruption, propaganda, Qu Jianguo, Wang Lijun
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China’s departing president, Hu Jintao, entered the summer in an apparently strong position after the disgrace of Bo Xilai, previously a rising member of a rival political network who was brought down when his wife was accused of murdering a British businessman. But Mr. Hu suffered a debilitating reversal of his own when party elders — led by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin — confronted him with allegations that Ling Jihua, his closest protégé and political fixer, had engineered the cover-up of his son’s death.

According to current and former officials, party elites, and others, the exposure helped tip the balance of difficult negotiations, hastening Mr. Hu’s decline; spurring the ascent of China’s new leader, Xi Jinping; and playing into the hands of Mr. Jiang, whose associates dominate the new seven-man leadership at the expense of candidates from Mr. Hu’s clique.

The case also shows how the profligate lifestyles of leaders’ relatives and friends can weigh heavily in backstage power tussles, especially as party skulduggery plays out under the intensifying glare of media.

Beyond the police and government officials reportedly enlisted by Ling Jihua to suppress details about his son’s death, The South China Morning Post also reported last month that the government had questioned the head of China’s biggest oil and gas producer about alleged hush payments made to the families of the two female passengers injured in the crash.

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Post tags: bribery, corruption, cover-up, Ferrari, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Ling Jihua
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Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Bo Xilai at the National People’s Congress in March.

Central Propaganda Department: Strictly adhere to the information issued by authoritative departments when reporting on officials suspected of involvement in graft or bribery, who have become degenerate, and related issues. Do not speculate on or exaggerate these issues. Do not investigate or report of your own accord. Do not quote from online sources. (December 1, 2012)

中宣部：有关官员涉嫌贪污受贿、生活腐化等相关问题的报道，严格按权威部门发布的信息刊播，不炒作不渲染，不自行采访报道，不转引网上信息。

This year, official corruption has been revealed at all levels of the Chinese government, from Watch Brother to Bo Xilai. Social media gives ordinary people a platform to publicize, critique, and lampoon officials. While the censors cannot pin down every weibo, they can keep a lid on official media.

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Post tags: bribery, censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Internet censorship, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, official corruption, propaganda
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Nearly everything has a price, parents and educators say, from school admissions and placement in top classes to leadership positions in Communist youth groups. Even front-row seats near the blackboard or a post as class monitor are up for sale.

Zhao Hua, a migrant from Hebei Province who owns a small electronics business here, said she was forced to deposit $4,800 into a bank account to enroll her daughter in a Beijing elementary school. At the bank, she said, she was stunned to encounter officials from the district education committee armed with a list of students and how much each family had to pay. Later, school officials made her sign a document saying the fee was a voluntary “donation.”

“Of course I knew it was illegal,” she said. “But if you don’t pay, your child will go nowhere.”

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Post tags: bribery, corruption, education
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They said the probe into China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) chairman Jiang Jiemin focused on a large sum of money – several tens of millions of yuan – that was transferred from CNPC to the families of two women injured in the single-vehicle accident.

The episode raises doubts about corporate governance practices at CNPC, the giant state-owned energy company. Sources said the party’s top disciplinary officials were shocked by the ease with which such a large sum of money could be transferred out of a giant state firm without any accountability or proper documentation.

It also raises questions about the oversight capability of government regulators including the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, led by Wang Yong. At a group discussion at the party’s 18th congress last week among delegates from central government-administered companies and agencies, Jiang sat next to Wang in the front row.

Sources said Jiang had been trying to help Ling [Jihua], then head of the powerful General Office of the party’s Central Committee, pay compensation to the families of the other victims and prevent details of the car crash from leaking out to the public.

The crash occurred in March and attracted a considerable amount of attention in Chinese social media, though an official report from the Global Times did not mention the name of the driver. Key details did not emerge until September, when Ling Jihua was removed from his post atop the General Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The Wall Street Journal reported on the government’s response to the crash last month, calling out the quiet way in which officials suppressed information about the incident and spared Ling Jihua public embarrassment over his son’s lifestyle and his family’s wealth.

The involvement of CNPC and any payments made to the victims’ families, however, is new information. Sources also told the South China Morning Post that the investigation into Jiang may partly explain his disappearance from public view from late July onwards, which CNPC downplayed in a September statement. From The Financial Times:

Mao Zefeng, a PetroChina spokesman, told the Financial Times that Mr Jiang “presides over PetroChina and CNPC as usual”.

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said Mr Jiang was ill, having been admitted to hospital in July, and was being treated.

However, citing CNPC, the agency added that he did not suffer from “cancer or any other serious illness”.

The Daily Mail also published several photos from the crash scene which had appeared on Chinese social media.

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Post tags: bribery, CCP, China National Petroleum Corp, corruption, Jiang Jiemin, Ling Jihua, social media
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Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement Monday that Lt. Col. Chang Chih-hsin was suspected of “spying for officials at the Communist Party in China” and “bribing other officers in the navy for illegal gains” during his tenure, which ended in May, at the Naval Meteorological & Oceanographic Office. The office provides mapping data for the military.

Authorities arrested Lt. Col. Chang after “gathering evidence of Chang’s illegal behavior” following a report the ministry received in March, the statement said, but added “there was no leakage of confidential information and [the behavior] didn’t involve any officials currently serving in the navy.” It didn’t elaborate further.

The ministry didn’t make Mr. Chang available to comment, and said he will be tried by a military court, but the date hasn’t been set. The ministry said the two others arrested were also retired military officials but declined to identify them.

The Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council denied any knowledge of the spy case to the Global Times, and its spokesman declined to comment. The Taiwan-based China Post has more on the case:

According to Luo, the case came to light after the 45-year-old Chang was accused of attempting to collect information for the Beijing government from military personnel.

The MND’s anti-espionage system received tips on Chang’s alleged misconduct as early as this March.

The ministry later turned the case over to prosecutors for further investigation on the alleged spying attempt. Initial probes showed no confidential military intelligence was leaked to Beijing via Chang, he said.

Chang, who filed for retirement this May, was reportedly recruited by a Chinese intelligence agency before his discharge from the Naval office that is responsible for mapping the maritime areas surrounded Taiwan.

In 2011, Taiwanese Military High Court sentenced General Lo-Hsein Che to life in prison after he admitted to selling military secrets to China since 2004.

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Post tags: bribery, corruption, espionage, State Council, Taiwan, Taiwan relations
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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.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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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