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Bo Xilai, Chinese city boss, suffers abrupt fall from grace
[USA Today] With his life-size plastic cows, and pretty policewomen on horseback, Bo Xilai was never your average Chinese leader. Over a decade ago, Bo used herds of both to beautify the coastal city of Dalian he transformed into a magnet for foreign investment.Sharply dressed and media-savvy, with impeccable Communist Party credentials, the confident, even flamboyant Bo has long been China's most Western-style politician in a nation whose propaganda-spouting officials can embody blandness and conformity. But as China prepares for a leadership transition this fall, in which Bo, 62, was a strong contender for a place on the ruling party's highest body, the state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... Xinhua announced his removal as boss of Chongqing, a mega-city in the southwest. Bo's downfall comes amid a broad debate about China's future direction and follows an unusually public scandal involving his police chief Wang Lijun, a close ally who last month decamped to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu but was turned over to China state security and has not been seen since. Controversy already accompanied Bo's campaigns to crack down on organized crime in his city, and organize its masses to sing "red songs" from China's more strictly Communist past. "There have been fierce leadership struggles for decades, but usually we never get to see them," explained Zhang Ming, a political scientist at People's University in Beijing, alluding to Bo's attempt to join the Politburo Standing Committee -- the party's top decision-making body of nine members. While no official reason has been given for dismissing Bo, "the only reasonable explanation is that Bo has been victimized by forces stronger than him in the leadership transition period," said Huang Jing, a China politics expert at the National University of Singapore. His "Chongqing model" was a return to socialism, increased government power at the expense of people's rights and further endangered the rule of law, Huang said. Bo's dismissal aims "a very substantial blow to so-called leftists." Posted by: Fred 2012-03-16 |
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