Sensitive Words: The Bo Xilai Expulsion

Since Bo Xilai’s expulsion from the Communist Party and announcement that he would face criminal charges, a number of Sina Weibo terms related to Bo which were previously blocked from search results are now live once again. CDT’s Chinese editors found that Bo’s surname (薄) and its pinyin transcription (Bo) were unblocked as of Friday. More terms were discovered to be unblocked earlier today PST, including common nicknames for Bo. These developments are reflected in the list below. You may also view screenshots of search results for select terms.
Search results do not include the “search for user” function.

Bo Xilai:
double expulsion (双开): A form of CCP discipline in which one is expelled from both the Party (开除党籍) and office (开除公职). Bo has suffered this fate.
support + Bo (支持+薄)
endorse + Bo (拥护+薄)
endure + Bo (挺+薄)
Eighteen (Big) + Bo (十八(大)+薄) [unblocked as of 9/29]: The 18th Party Congress is commonly referred to as the “18 Big.”
18big + Bo (18大+薄)
Zhang (Ziyi) + Bo (章(子怡)+薄) [unblocked as of 9/29]
Wang Lijun + Bo (王立军+薄) [unblocked as of 9/29]
Chongqing + Bo (重庆+薄) [unblocked as of 9/29]
Enter the Standing Committee (入常) (Before the scandal broke, Bo was widely expected to join the Politburo Standing Committee)
force the king to abdicate (逼宫)
Hu Deping (胡德平) (Incoming president Xi Jinping met with prominent reformer Hu Deping
Blood Debt Gang (血债帮)

Retested Nicknames for Bo Xilai [all unblocked as of 9/29]:
Captain Bo (薄督)
King Who Pacified the West (平西王)
not thick (不厚): The character for Bo’s surname is the same as for the word “thin” (báo).

Xi Jinping:
Brother Sly (刁哥): The character 刁, which can mean “sly,” resembles the character for Xi’s surname (习).
come out in a wheelchair (坐轮椅出来): When Xi went missing early in the month, a number of rumors circulated about his health. Netizens asked mockingly why he couldn’t sit in a wheelchair and show himself.

Other:
Beijing + chaos (北京+乱)
Prostitute Uncle (婊叔): A nickname for Watch Uncle. “Prostitute” (婊 biǎo) looks similar to and sounds the same as “watch” (表).
Kuqa (库车): A county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search.  CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

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