Chong qing Communist Party secretary Bo Xi lai attends a meeting
during the annual National Peoples Congress at the Great Hall of the People on March 6, 2010, in Bei jing ChinaFotoPress/Zuma Press R E P O R T THE UNRAVELING OF BO XILAI China loses a populist star By Lauren Hilgers When Wang Lijun f led for Chengdu, he evaded guards outside his door who, a few weeks earlier, would have bowed to his authority. He drove quietly out of a city full of po- licemen who once would have called him a hero. It was a Monday early last February and Wang, a stocky ffty- two-year-old with jet-black hair, a bulldog face, and wire-rimmed glasses, had recently been removed from his position as police chief of the sprawl- ing Chinese city of Chongqing. There were powerful forces at work against him. Offcials in Beijing were reported to be investigating Wangs record in the city of Tieling, in the northern province of Liaoning, where he had also worked as police chief. His driver had been detained and things were going south with his boss, the Com- munist Party secretary of Chongqing, a man named Bo Xilai. The accepted story starts with Wang waiting until evening to slip past the guards, then has him switch license plates somewhere along the Lauren Hilgerss last article for Harpers Magazine, The World, Shanghaied, ap- peared in the October 2010 issue. Hilgers Report CX2.indd_0129 38 1/30/13 11:02 AM lLllT 39 li,lway. ln tle juicier versions, le takes tle extra precaution of Jis,uis- in, limself as an olJ laJy. leople say le feareJ Lo Xilai was ,oin, to assas- sinate lim. (ne Hon, lon, ma,a- zine woulJ later report tlat Lo laJ consiJereJ tlree Jistinct ways of ar- ran,in, Wan,s Jeatl.) tler people say Wan, laJ voweJ tlat if le went Jown for corruption, le woulJ take Lo witl lim. /t least one part of tle story can be connrmeJ: Wan, sloweJ up at tle L.S. Consulate on tle eve- nin, of lebruary 6 witl a mysterious box of papers. He stayeJ insiJe for tlirty-six lours, talkin, about Lo Xi- lai anJ a man nameJ Neil HeywooJ wlile police cars of various jurisJic- tions accumulateJ outsiJe. /ccorJin, to a State Department spokeswoman, tle former police clief tlen left tle consulate of lis own volition. He was sluttleJ to Leijin, by national-security a,ents anJ woulJnt be seen a,ain until lis trial seven montls later. nce Wan, maJe it safely insiJe tle consulate, someone quickly leakeJ tle news. llotos from outsiJe tle builJin, were spreaJin, on Sina Wei- bo, Clinas Twitter variant. lt took very little time before people starteJ speculatin, tlat Wan, was seekin, asylum. Tley wonJereJ wlat laJ Jriven lim out of Clon,qin,. /rounJ eleven ..:. on TuesJay, a cryptic mes- sa,e appeareJ on tle Sina Weibo ac- count of tle Clon,qin, ,overnment, only to Jisappear a few lours later: /ccorJin, to reports, because of lon,- term overwork, a state of anxiety anJ inJisposition, Vice Mayor Wan, li jun las a,reeJ to accept vacation-style meJical treatment. Clina las lon, preferreJ to keep its leaJerslip maclinations in tle slaJ- ows. Wlen a scanJal comes to li,lt, it tenJs to Jo so in a series of facts, lalf- trutls, anJ outri,lt lies tlat are near- ly inJistin,uislable from one anotler. Tlis process blurs tle lines between reality anJ politics, listory anJ propa- ,anJa, anJ, in Wan,s case, between a murJer investi,ation anJ a political takeJown. Tle reverse of trutl, wrote Montai,ne, las a lunJreJ tlousanJ slapes anJ a limitless nelJ. Clinas political scanJals offer little verinable information, anJ little of it is recoverable by listorians. Wlen, for example, Maos seconJ-in-commanJ, a man nameJ lin Liao, JisappeareJ in 1971, it took montls for tle public to n,ure out wlere le laJ ,one. Mao announceJ tlat lins plane laJ crasleJ somewlere over Mon,olia. later, Clinese ofncials claimeJ lin laJ been leaJin, to tle Soviet Lnion after an abortive attempt on Maos life. Western sclolars lave lon, JoubteJ tlis account, but intervenin, JecaJes lave offereJ little in tle way of clarifyin, information. ln tle years prior to lis Ji,lt, Wan, laJ been builJin, lis power at tle siJe of Clinas most colorful anJ contro- versial politician. Lo Xilai laJ brou,lt lim to Clon,qin, to lelp launcl a Jramatic crackJown on tle citys ma- fia. Tle resultin, criminal anJ municipal-corruption trials maJe tle front pa,es of newspapers all over tle nation, wlicl celebrateJ tle Jownfall of sucl criminals as Xie Caipin,, tle CoJmotler of tle LnJerworlJ, anJ Wen Qian,, tle citys former Jeputy police commissioner. Lo seemeJ poiseJ to soar up tlrou,l tle ranks of tle Communist larty; Wan,s base of power seemeJ secure. Wan, was so pleaseJ witl limself tlat le was saiJ to be commissionin, a movie about lis partnerslip witl Lo anJ tleir role in tle crackJown. Tlis was, of course, before Lo Xilai lost lis job anJ lis political stanJin,, before lis wife be- came implicateJ in tle murJer of a forei,n national. Wan, was tle nrst loose tlreaJ. Since tle Jeatl of Den, Xiaopin, in tle 199Os, Clinas leaJers lave become increasin,ly blanJ. To ,uarJ tle country a,ainst tle risk of an- otler Mao, tley rule by consensus, anJ tle consensus builJers, until very recently, lave all been teclnocrats. leaJers in Leijin, rely for tleir power on tle popular perception tlat tley lave specializeJ knowleJ,e, on an aura of wise remove anJ a faaJe tlat su,,ests seamless, monolitlic confor- mity. Wlen provincial or municipal leaJers misbelave, tle national partys upper eclelons can claim i,norance or swoop in like an,ry parents. leople still turn up in Leijin, to petition tle central ,overnment as tley once woulJ lave petitioneJ tle emperor, seekin, reJress for local injustices. Maybe it is because of tlis scrupu- lous ima,e mana,ement tlat Clinas leaJers selJom smile anJ almost never wave. nce, someone tlrew a sloe at Clinese premier Wen Jiabao Jurin, a speecl le was ,ivin, at CambriJ,e Lniversity. Wlere Ceor,e W. Lusl, facin, a similar projectile in La,lJaJ, laJ JoJ,eJ atlletically, Wen JiJnt Juck or even Jincl. Tle sloe went wiJe anJ le pauseJ for a moment, al- lowin, lis ,aze to follow its arc. Wen is consiJereJ one of Clinas most ac- cessible politicians, but le clooses lis worJs so Jeliberately tlat a Lritisl journalist once likeneJ lis manner to tlat of a teacler in a classroom of clilJren witl learnin, Jisabilities. ln tlis worlJ of poker faces, Lo Xilai was a smiler. He was a Jifferent kinJ of politician simply because le acteJ like a politician. He was tall anJ ,ooJ- lookin, anJ wore nicely tailoreJ suits. He lelJ press conferences anJ slook lanJs vi,orously. He Jrew attention to limself, anJ to Clinas ,overn- ment, wlile otler political leaJers were careful to keep a low pronle. /s tle larty secretary of Clon,qin, from 2OO7 to 2O12, Lo built an ima,e as tle clampion of Clinas JowntroJJen anJ an uplolJer of communist values. He promoteJ lis accomplislments in speecles anJ tlrou,l tle state- controlleJ meJia. ln 2OO9, Clinese outlets reporteJ tlat atop six Clon,- qin, li,l-rise builJin,s si,ns laJ been erecteJ tlat reaJ srcnr1.n\ no, \oi wonx i.ni. /ltlou,l le playeJ tle populist, Lo was as close to royalty as members of tle Clinese Communist larty ,et. He is a princelin,, tle powerful son of a powerful revolutionary leaJer. His fatler, Lo Yibo, was one of Clinas Li,lt lmmortals, a ,roup of men wlo ruleJ tle Communist larty unJer Den, Xiaopin, in tle 198Os anJ early 199Os. Lefore le became powerful, lowever, Lo Yibo anJ lis family suf- fereJ. Durin, tle Cultural levolution le was JenounceJ by tle larty, anJ tle youn,er Lo, after a slort run witl a faction of tle leJ CuarJs calleJ LniteJ /ction, spent lis early twen- ties in a labor camp. His motler laJ been abJucteJ by anotler leJ CuarJ faction, anJ JieJ in tleir custoJy as a result of eitler illness, murJer, or sui- ciJe. Wlen people want to unJerscore Hilgers Report Final3.indd_0125 39 1/25/13 2:00 PM 40 HARPERS MAGAZINE / MARCH 2013 Bos ruthlessness, they will often bring up an unverifed story from this period about how Bo once beat up his dis- graced father, breaking the older mans ribs to protect his own reputation. According to a little-known author named Yang Guang, who writes that he heard it from a man named Yang Beicheng, the elder Bo once said that this was the moment he realized his son would be a good Party leader. After Maos death, the family made a comeback. In 1992, Bo Yibo pro- posed that each high-ranking veteran of the revolution contribute one child to the national partys future leadership. By then, many children of revolutionaries were already on track to become high-ranking offcials, sup- ported by their parents but expected to prove their worth. Xi Jinping, who became leader of the Communist Par- ty this past November and is expected to be named president this month, is the son of the revolutionary Xi Zhong- xun. Xi was sent to Hebei province in 1982 to get his start in Zhengding County. By 1986, Liu Yuan, the son of Liu Shaoqi, was serving as the mayor of a city in Henan province. Bo Xilai had gone to university to study world history and journalism with the ambi- tion of becoming a foreign correspon- dent. He ended up working as the deputy Party secretary of a rural coun- ty in Liaoning province, where he steadily rose through the ranks. Before he arrived in Chongqing in 2007, Bo had served as the Party sec- retary of Dalian, Liaonings second- biggest city, then the governor of the entire province, after which he moved to Beijing to serve as minister of com- merce. In Dalian, Bo planted so much grass that people started calling it Xilai grass. He deftly courted foreign investors and money poured in, trans- forming the city. Bo instated fnes for cursing in public. He hired a biogra- pher. Around the same time, Gu Kai- lai, Bos second wife (his frst marriage having ended in a messy divorce), be- came one of the frst Chinese lawyers to win a civil lawsuit in the United States; she wrote a book that got turned into a TV miniseries called Winning a Lawsuit in America. Even during his rise in Dalian, Bo also demonstrated a knack for making enemies. During the Fifteenth Party Congress, though he was serving as the mayor of Liaonings second-biggest city, Bo was so disliked by other off- cials that he was excluded from the provincial delegation. During his ten- ure in Dalian, Bo sentenced a journal- ist named Jiang Weiping to eight years in jail for revealing state secretsthis soon after Jiang published a series of articles on the Bo familys shady busi- ness dealings. (To get any contracts in the city, you had to go through Bos wife, I was told by Jiang, who is now living in Canada.) In a leaked cable from the U.S. Consulate dated De- cember 4, 2007, one consular source named Gu Su commented that Bo had been hurt by his reputation for using people and trading on his name. By the time Bo was sent to Chong- qing (the Communist Party shuffes lesser personnel once every fve years, top leaders once every ten), his ap- pointment as the citys Party secretary was widely considered a sidelining. Bo, it was already clear, was seeking a more powerful postone of Chinas most powerful posts, in fact: a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. The committees numbers have in the past twenty years fuctuated between seven and nine. Two of the seats are occupied by Chinas president and premier; in many cases, these two are no more infuential than their fve or seven comrades. In early 2012, the Party was prepar- ing to swap out the majority of its standing-committee members in its decennial leadership transition, a ma- neuver that had been accomplished without incident only once before. There is really no good time for an attempted defection, and Wang Lijun had picked both the worst and the last possible moment to fee. The transition was fast approaching, and Bo was ex- pected to participate. If you opposed Bo, and many people did, this was the fnal opportunity to get rid of him be- fore he possibly took a seat at the pin- nacle of Chinas political apparatus. Three weeks after Wang fed, I spoke to Cheng Li, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has been following Chinas leadership changes for decades. According to Li, the players who wished to use Wang to oust Bo faced a dilemma: If you only charge him with corruption, this is not enough, because in the Chinese popular mind most leaders are corrupt. You need to fnd something more than a corruption scandal. But then you will enter a new arena. You could shock the public about how awful it has been in the central leadership. There are two big political meet- ings in China: those of the National Peoples Congress, held annually, usu- ally in March, and the National Con- gress of the Communist Party, held every fve years, usually in October. The frst is for lawmaking, the second for personnel decisions. The NPC gathering takes place in the Great Hall of the People, a titanic classical build- ing on the west side of Tiananmen Square. Red carpets run through the halls entryway, up the central stairs, and into the main auditorium, where offcials gather under a gigantic red star set in the ceiling and surrounded by concentric circles of gold light. On the opening morning of the 2012 NPC, about four weeks after Wang Lijun showed up at the Ameri- can consulate, I stood at the east en- trance of the Great Hall, waiting for Bo Xilai. For the most part, Chinas top leaders avoid the pedestrian east entrance, which faces Tiananmen Square and leaves them open to the advances of journalists. They instead fle in through the north entrance, where journalists are kept at bay with red velvet. The attendees preference is easy to understand; journalists have turned covering the NPC into a con- tact sport. (Considering that newspa- pers typically print only what govern- ment censors allow, the journalists enthusiasm is less easy to understand.) Offcials of any rank or interest can be literally tackled by the Chinese press corps. Those trying to escape trip and fall with alarming frequency. Bo had a populist image to uphold. In previous years he had strutted through the east entrance, leaving himself open to the mob, handling them with a smile. He had been the star of previous NPCs, often presiding over three-hour press conferences. Now, following Wang Lijuns fight, people were unsure whether he would even show up. I stood with a pack of Chinese journalists in front of a line of metal detectors that were constant- Hilgers Report CX2.indd_0129 40 1/29/13 12:08 PM REPORT 41 ly going off and being ignored. Dele- gates were streaming in, some in mili- tary uniform, a few in the full ethnic regalia of their minority regions colorful robes and elaborate head- pieces. For the most part, however, the delegates tended to look the same: hair dyed black, suits black and boxy. They showed off only with their accessories; while I was occupied searching for Bo, Chinese photographers were busy zooming in on some outlandishly ex- pensive watches. In the end, Bo came in through neither the north nor the east entrance. Someone suggested he had been smuggled in underground. No one saw him until he was seated, yawning and scribbling on a piece of paper, in the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People. The NPC is an overwhelming event, for the number of delegates, the reach of the decisions made there, and for the cat-and-mouse game the organizers play with the press. The event is designed to be totally impos- sible to navigate. In order not to miss the Chongqing delegations press conference, I took to hounding all the Chinese journalists I knew. Eventually, a few days into the meeting, one of them told me that the press conference would be held the following morning. Bo hadnt showed up at one of the big meetings that day, and people were speculating that this absence was the frst sign of his im- minent demise. By the time I got to the Great Hall on Friday morning, a mob of angry journalists had gathered at the base of a staircase leading to some of the smaller meeting rooms in the building. A row of men in black suits were let- ting in only people who had applied online. There had been no application form on the NPC website. I lied to get past the frst set of guards, telling them I had applied, and had made it up the frst fight of red-carpeted stairs when someone with a clipboard and a list stopped me. On my way back down, an overzealous foreign-ministry func- tionary pushed me just enough that I lost my balance and fell into the throng, resulting in a brief moment of crowd surfng. Later, someone from the foreign ministry explained the media limitations. Its a small room, he said. This is for your safety! The handful of journalists who were let in were unsure what had earned them the privilege, but they were charitable. A reporter for Bloom- berg News was emailing notes on the meeting as it progressed: Hes drinking tea in a navy suit with yellow tie sitting under a big red ban- ner. . . I didnt see it coming, Bo says of Wang. This thing came on suddenly, Bo says of Wang Li jun. . . . He also broke some economic news, check it out: Chi- nas Gini [a coeffcient that measures wealth disparity] has exceeded 0.46, Bo says. Bo says reducing wealth divide and Gini Coefficient are major tasks of Chong qing govt. If only a few people are rich then we are capitalists, weve failed, Bo says. History is full of examples of authoritarian regimes with little need of consent from the people they gov- ern; Chinas is not one of these. The Partys concern with maintaining le- gitimacy, however, puts it in a diff- cult position. Its leaders cannot mea- sure populist mandates in votes, and their judicial system does not operate independently of the Party. In other countries, leaders might be able to in- voke royal or revolutionary birthright to justify their reign. In a functioning democracy, people can consent to a system even if they dont like their current leaders. In China, however, the philosophical underpinnings of the Partys right to power have been in fux over the past thirty years. To explain the worth of their ruling elite, they maintain that their system of leadership is a meritocracy. The Party has a stable bureaucracy, a ro- bust security apparatus, and a sixty- three-year history of political, social, and economic revolution. Everything else is performance-based. Even before the death of Deng Xiao- ping, Chinas last all-powerful head of state, Chinese leaders occupied them- selves establishing legitimacy for the government as a cooperative. They cannot base their legitimacy on the claim of representing the working class, as the revolutionary cadres did, wrote the political scientist Hong Yung Lee of the Party in 1991. And they will not be able to maintain their elite status unless they deliver the promised eco- nomic benefts to the Chinese people. With no single charismatic leader to cement their authority, Chinas leaders settled on a formula of bureaucracy and economic growth. To rebel is justifed gave way to the technocrats policy of scientifc development. The problem with this formula now is that Chinas economic boom is slowing. The government has started lowering its target for GDP growth. There is a new game of politics, says Brookingss Cheng Li. You need to fnd new sources of legitimacy. Chi- nese people still report happiness with the direction of their country, but protests (mass incidents) have been happening with greater and greater frequency. One Tsinghua University professor estimated that there had been around 180,000 such incidents in 2010. Its also becoming clear that Chinas wealth is accumulating in some corners and not in others. Cor- ruption among offcials is one of the Partys biggest challenges. Bo Xilai offered a potential solution one that didnt require real political reform. He relied on his populist ap- peal, his revolutionary bloodline, and an utter disregard for the law. He was undoubtedly corrupt, but in Chong- qing, as in Dalian, he rolled out poli- cies with something for everyone. Bo orchestrated a return to communist values, sending out mass text messages with his favorite Mao quotes. He pro- moted the singing of red songs and banned all prime-time advertising on Chongqings television station, encour- aging its executives to run patriotic flms instead. Bos red culture cam- paign turned him into a fgurehead for Chinas New Left, a movement that lionizes Mao and looks to return to what adherents think of as a simpler, less corrupt era. Bo planted trees (Xilai trees), built low-income housing, and attracted investment. At the same time, Bos Chongqing model encour- aged a greater economic role for Chi- nas state-owned enterprises. His anti- mafa campaign, promoted with the slogan Strike the black, helped him wipe out his opponents and establish an extensive surveillance network but it also helped Bo beef up the police force, making the city safer. Bo cast himself as a champion of Chinas poor, a crusader against corruption, greed, and inequality. Hilgers Report CX2.indd_0129 41 1/29/13 12:08 PM +2 H/llLlSM/C/zlNL/M/lCH2O13 ltsnotuswlotooktleinitiative to n,lt tle unJerworlJ, Lo saiJ to tleClon,qin,meJia. lts tle unJerworlJ wlo las com- pelleJ us to Jo so. Tle public las been,atlerin,attle,ateofour,ov- ernment builJin,, lolJin, blooJ- staineJ pictures, Jeeply JistresseJ. Tle unJerworlJ las killeJ innocent people witl macletes, like butclers killin,pi,stoolorribletosee. His antimana campai,n coulJ be interpreteJ as a criticism of Clon,- qin,s former leaJers as well as of tloseinLeijin,wlolaJnotcrackeJ Jownpubliclyenou,loncorruption; lewasJisruptin,tlelartyscareful- ly,roomeJappearanceofconsensus. /nJ once Los mana investi,ations were in full swin,, le coulJ tar,et wlomever le wanteJ. Lusiness leaJ- ers wlo ran afoul of Los frienJs sometimes founJ tlem- selveswanteJmen. Wlile Lo was makin, lis last stanJattleNlC,lJeciJeJtotakea JayoffanJmeetsomeoflissupport- ersintleNewleft./websitecalleJ LtopialaJbeenoneofLosstauncl- est aJvocates, anJ its information pa,e mentioneJ a bookstore, alon, witl very JetaileJ Jirections on low to,ettlere.l,avetlemacallanJa youn,,pleasant-sounJin,womansaiJ lsloulJstopby. Tle Ltopia bookstore looks like tlekinJofplacelwoulJlavelun, out as a colle,e stuJent. locateJ on tle sixtl f loor of an apartment builJin,, it is absolutely stuffeJ witl books. / rack of ,reen lats, eacl witl a reJ star, ,reets visitors at tle entrance. lartler insiJe, between bookcases anJ a central reaJin, ta- ble, a tiny, Jan,erous-seemin, spiral staircase leaJs up to a seconJ level. Tlere were a few T-slirts for sale, anJ on tle wall was a back-lit clock JecorateJwitlaserene-lookin,Mao zeJon,. Wlen l walkeJ in, a ,roup ofpeoplestufnn,envelopesatatable lookeJ up from tleir work, anJ a miJJle-a,eJ laJy slouteJ, / for- ei,nerlasarriveJ' /fterafewseconJsofconfusion,a kiJ wearin, one of tle ,reen lats stooJ up from belinJ a computer monitorto,reetme,introJucin,lim- selfasleiCe.HeexplaineJtlatnone oftlepeoplelererepresenteJLtopia. Tley were all volunteers or people wlo lun, out in tle bookstore, le saiJ. Tley lelJ all sorts of Jifferent beliefs. Tle only tlin, tlat uniteJ tlem,lesaiJ,wastlislar,epieceof calli,raply on tle wall. l am a pass- ablereaJerofprinteJClinese,buta trulylopelessreaJerofcalli,raply. WlatJoesitsay`laskeJ. lt says, 1ir iroiir cirnisi ci.in:.x:.o. l askeJ wletler tley were New leftists, anJ lei Ce starteJ explain- in, tlat maybe some of tlem were Newleftists,wliclmeanttlattley werepeoplewitlsocialistvalueswlo supporteJ Clinas economic reform. /t tlis point a woman in a ,ray sweater witl a reJ Mao pin on tle left sloulJer stooJ up anJ belloweJ, l Jont a,ree witl our economic re- form'SlewalkeJovertome.lrep- resentmyself'lamare,ularolJlaJy. lcamelerebecausemyfrienJaskeJ forlelpstufnn,envelopes,slesaiJ, wavin, an inJex fin,er at me tlat lookeJ just a little too slort. lt ap- peareJ to lave been cloppeJ off at tle top knuckle. Wlo is my iJeal leaJer` sle askeJ. My iJeal leaJer isMaozeJon,' later it came out tlat sle woulJ settleforLoXilai.TlepeopleatLto- pia bookstore were Los tar,et auJi- ence. Tley wanteJ to be en,a,eJ; tley worrieJ about tle fate of tleir countryanJwerelun,ryformorein- formation, wlatever tle source. /nJ Lo, more tlan otler Clinese politi- cians,wasavailable.lortlem,alittle accessibilitywentalon,way.Tlere,- ularolJlaJylisteJlerconcerns:Capi- talism laJ maJe some people lappy, but it laJ maJe some people ricl anJ some people poor. lt laJ also maJepeoplecorrupt.leaJerswerent concerneJwitlequalityortlepoor. ClinaboweJtooeasilyto/mericas JemanJs./nJLoXilai,slesaiJ,was tle only leaJer aJJressin, ler con- cerns. We all pretty mucl support Lo Xilai lere, a visitin, volunteer from SlanJon, tolJ me. He was a little bit suspicious of me anJ askeJ tobeiJentineJasareaJer. Tle reaJer enJeJ up bein, my fa- vorite person in tle room. He sat Jown witl me anJ clatteJ wlile everyone else circulateJ to anJ from tletable,cleanin,up,tapin,to,etl- erlu,epacka,esofbooks.Tlestore wascolJanJtlereaJerwaswearin, a puffy jacket. He laJ lis lanJs jammeJ in lis pockets anJ lookeJ a little unkempt. He laJ a nice, ,rav- elly voice. Tle reaJer saiJ tlat bi, companies ou,lt to be re,ulateJ more caref ully anJ tlat leaJers ou,lt to pay attention to tle poor. Tlin,smi,ltbeallri,ltwitlyour frienJs in Leijin,, le saiJ. Lut if you ,o to a poor area anJ see low tleyliveanJwlattleyeat . . . Tle reaJerlaJseenLtopiaswebsiteanJ laJsou,ltouttlebookstorefortle nrst time on an earlier trip to Lei- jin,.Tlerearentmanyplaceslikeit, letolJme. / youn, woman wlo was sweep- in, scraps of paper from unJer tle table climeJ in. We Jont lave Jecision-makin, power, sle saiJ. Lut we can tell tle ,overnment tlat we like Lo Xilai. We can let tlem know tlere are people wlo support Lo Xilai. Tlis is allre,ularpeoplecanJo. On tle nnal Jay of tle NlC, Wen Jiabao lelJ lis annual press conferencetle last of lis career. He took tle opportunity to criticize Clon,qin,s leaJers, first obliquely anJ tlen Jirectly. Los reJ-son,s campai,n laJ reminJeJ some in Clina of tle Cultural levolution, anJ Wen warneJ a,ainst allowin, sucl a catastrople to lappen a,ain. leform las reacleJ a critical sta,e. Witlout tle success of political re- form, economic reforms cannot be carrieJout.Tleresultstlatwelave aclieveJ may be lost, le saiJ. later le aJJeJ: Tle present Clon,qin, municipal larty committee anJ tle municipal ,overnment must reflect seriously anJ learn from tle Wan, lijuninciJent. Tle next Jay, in a one-sentence bulletin releaseJ by tle state-owneJ news service Xinlua, it was an- nounceJ tlat Lo Xilai was bein, re- moveJfromlispostinClon,qin,: lecently, tle ClC Central Commit- teecametoaJecision:zlan,Dejian, las been appointeJ municipal com- mittee member, stanJin, committee Hilgers Report CX2.indd_0129 42 1/29/13 12:08 PM REPORT 43 member, and Party secretary of Chong qing; Bo Xi lai will no longer serve as secretary, standing committee member, or member of the CPC Chong qing municipal committee. He never went back to the city; aside from one Japanese political commentator who claims to have dined with him in April, no one has heard from him since. So the story of Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai became public in the typical fashion of Chi- nese scandalsthrough rumors and unnamed sources, punctuated by de- tectable amounts of government censorship and the rare short state- ment from the central leadership. Things appeared on and disappeared from the Internet. Bos name would end up blocked on Sina Weibo. The censors did their best to chase down his nicknames. Bo was known for his red spirit, so the censors soon had to block the word for tomato. Why do rumors repeatedly arise in the Bo Xilai incident? a Xinhua headline asked in April. As soon as the one-sentence an- nouncement was released, there was a minor explosion online. People variously celebrated or mourned Bos removal. Leftist websites were shut down. When you tried to reach Uto- pia, a message popped up saying the site was down for maintenance. It came back with much of its Bo Xilai content removed. Then another ar- ticle in support of Bo Xilai appeared. Then the site was shut down again. Eventually commenting was sus- pended on Sina Weibo for three days as a punishment to its users for spreading rumors, but in the days fol- lowing the announcement Bo was among the most written-about top- ics. And then came the rumors of a coup. They arrived late at night with a photo that appeared to show a mil- itary tank poorly disguised as a green cargo truck rolling into Beijing. Someone reported hearing shots coming from Zhongnanhai, the Communist Partys leadership com- pound. The theory went like this: Bo Xilai, with the support of the standing-committee member Zhou Yongkang, had been raising an army in Chongqing. Bo had organized the attack after the central government tried to penalize him. With no one to call inside the regime and no one coming out to dispel them, the ru- mors persisted for days. Around the same time, someone in Beijing crashed a Ferrari into a bridge. Peo- ple on Sina Weibo wondered who had been driving. The word Ferrari was blocked. The coup rumor may have been false, but soon another incredible story started circulating. A British man named Neil Heywood had died in Chongqing under mysterious cir- cumstances the previous November, two and a half months before Wang Lijuns fight. A Shanghai journalist named Yang Haipeng posted on Sina Weibo that Heywood and Bo Xilai were connected through Bos son, Bo Guagua (whose name translates as Bo the very best or, literally, Bo melon melon; cousins Bo peach peach and Bo fruit fruit round out the unusually named generational cohort). Deceased: Guaguas nan- ny, Yang wrote. Nationality: British. Place: Chong- qing. Handled by: Wang Li jun. Cause of death: Wang was not allowed to in- vestigate. The body was not preserved but instead immediately cremated. This was the Sina Weibo rumor that would confrm everyones gener- al faith in Sina Weibo rumors. A few days later, the United Kingdom re- quested an investigation into Hey- woods death. Soon the stories multi- plied. Neil Heywood was a British spy. He was a nanny. He had been sleeping with Bos wife. He had been helping the family smuggle money out of the country. I went to talk to Yang Haipeng in April amid a cloud of speculation about Neil Heywood. Yang didnt want to speak on the phone, so we agreed to meet at a coffee shop. An hour before the meeting, he texted and told me to come to a different location, a place called the Shan Na Na, which turned out to be a mas- sage parlor in the basement of a ho- tel. I walked in to fnd Yang already sitting there with his feet in a bucket of hot water, his pants rolled up to his knees. Two of his friends were laid out in the plush lounge chairs next to him, apparently sleeping as their feet were massaged. A giant Hilgers Report Final3.indd_0125 43 1/25/13 2:01 PM Author/mountaineer Fred Jacobson leads special hiking trips in the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps . . . Chamonix, Dolomites, Saas-Fee, Sils Maria, Soglio, Sdtirol, and Zermatt. Spectacular scenery. Beautiful trails. Delightful inns and fne cuisine. For active outdoor people who also like their creature comforts. Our 41st summer! Visit us at www.alptrails.com Or contact: Alpine Travel Inc. P.O. Box 1477 Newburyport, MA 01950 (800) 291-8126 E-mail: alpine.travel@verizon.net Hike the Alps. 44 HARPERS MAGAZINE / MARCH 2013 fatscreen television mounted on the wall was tuned to CCTV News. We just got back from hiking in Dali, Yang explained, referring to a vaca- tion destination in southern China. He lay back in his sofa chair and started chain smoking. What do you want to know? Yangs cell phone rang constantly; conversations with him were brief and full of hard-to-read grunts. I am the best investigative journalist in China, he told me. Only, they wont let me write anymore. These are some of the premium rumors Yang passed along to me: When Neil Heywood died, four po- licemen were frst at the scene. That was in November, he told me. In January, two of them were beaten to death. A few days after Heywoods body was discovered, Bos wife met with Heywoods wife in a teahouse they had had emptied of people. Gu Kailai cried at that meeting. Yang wasnt himself sure whether Bo and Gu had killed Heywood, but he said he wouldnt be shocked to fnd out they had. They were thugs, he said. The princelings are all thugs. At that point Yang got a call. He had just returned from Dali, he told the caller. He had no new informa- tion. He grunted a few times in as- sent, hung up the phone, then turned toward me. They are meet- ing about Bo Xilai right now, he said. There will be an announce- ment tonight. The rumor had spread online that a seven oclock news broadcast would include new information on Bo. It didnt. (The farcical Twitter entity Relevant Organs took this opportu- nity to tweet, This has been a test of the Emergency News System. Had this been actual news, wed have de- leted it.) But around eleven oclock a short message appeared on the Xinhua website. As Comrade Bo Xilai is suspected of being involved in serious discipline vio- lations, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has decided to suspend his membership of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Commit- tee, in line with the CPC Constitution and the rules on investigation of CPC discipline inspection departments. In another release published later that night, the Party vowed to re- investigate Heywoods death accord- ing to law and said that Gu and an orderly at Bos home named Zhang Xiaojun had been detained. The next day, the New York Times ran a story quoting an anonymous source who said that Bos discipline viola- tions included mismanag- ing his family. The news of Gu Kailais arrest and the removal of Bo from his in- numerable positions arrived with a corresponding barrage of affrmation from the state-run media. Chong- qing supports CPC decision to inves- tigate Bo Xilai, ran one headline. Our nation is a nation of socialist rule of law and the authority of the law cannot be trampled, said a com- mentary in the Peoples Daily. The moment Beijing started push- ing its version of the story, things got even murkier. Neil Heywood, it turned out, was a freelance consul- tant, salesman, and fixer who had likely met Bo in Dalian. He told friends he had helped Bo Guagua get into Britains Harrow School. He drove a Jaguar (luxury cars have been a recurring motif in this scan- dal). At first, Heywoods family all seemed convinced he had died of a heart attack. As the scandal developed, re- porters started tracking Gus busi- ness connections. Unnamed sourc- es leaked outrageous stories about her behavior. She had demanded Heywood divorce hi s wi fe and swear loyalty to her, went one story. She had dressed up like a general following Heywoods death, went anot her, and made an i nsane speech to a group of Chongqing po- lice offcials, claiming she was un- der secret orders from Chinas Min- istry of Public Security to protect the safety of Wang Lijun. The trouble with the unattributed stories, however, was that no one could be sure what agenda their sources had. Many of those being in- terviewed were leaking information third- or fourthhand. Wang Kang, a Chongqing intellectual, business- man, and dissident, took risks to speak on the record to Western jour- nalists, but admitted he had met Bo Xilai only once. Time magazines Hannah Beech noted that different sources had started repeating the same phrases to her over and over. And government censorship was be- coming increasingly uneven, block- ing the word Ferrari but allowing a Sina Weibo post that repeated a ru- mor about a cop having cut off a piece of Heywoods corpse to keep as evidence. In some cases its clear that the dissemination of informa- tion regarding the Bo scandal, as well as some so-called independent analysis from Chinese experts, has been orchestrated, wrote Beech. Another problem with the many stories coming out about Bo was that they were not, in the landscape of offcial corruption in China, out of the ordinary. His wife and family were getting rich off his political suc- cesses. But as soon as the window on Bos personal fnances was opened, people started wondering about the families of other political leaders. Investigations by Bloomberg and the New York Times found Xi Jinping and Wen Jiabaos relatives had grown rich during the two mens tenures, investing in oil, life-insurance com- panies, and diamonds. Children of elite politicians have kept themselves busy running huge state-owned com- panies and private-equity funds and, occasionally, driving Ferraris into bridges. Many local governments had, like Chongqing, gone deep into debt making investments in infra- structure. When I asked Jiang Yan- bei, the author of a double biography of Bo Yibo and Bo Xilai published in Hong Kong in 2009, whether his thoughts about Bo had changed, he said, My opinion of Bo Xilai stands the same. If you say Bo is a schemer, then whoever wiped him out is a schemer as well. Amid the noise, however, were a few stories that offered a more com- plicated picture of Bos rapid decline. In April, the New York Times ran a story about Bos bad habit of wiretap- ping other offcials. Citing nearly a dozen unnamed sources, the article reported that Bo had tapped a call between a visiting foreign official and Hu Jintao, Chinas president. A Wall Street Journal story explored Hilgers Report CX2.indd_0129 44 1/29/13 12:08 PM REPORT 45 Bos ties to the military, reporting that a trip he made in February 2012 to a military base in Yunnan prov- ince had spooked Beijing. Cheng Li had told me there were two groups who disliked Bo Xilai: Party leaders and liberal intellectu- als. Looking at the food in Chinas state-run media of opinion pieces and calls for the military to pledge allegiance to the Party, its clear that Bo was more than just dislikedhe was feared. A campaign promoting unity was deemed necessary. The vice chairman of Chinas Central Military Commission was quoted in Xinhua, telling troops that the en- tire military needs to consciously serve and subordinate to the Party. An op-ed in the Peoples Daily, writ- ten by Yin Fanglong, head of the po- litical department of the 2nd Artil- lery Corps, read, Strict political discipline of party members and cadres should always be as taut as bowstrings. When some- thing happens, frst think of Party dis- cipline and political impact. Do not carelessly guess or inquire about it. Do not listen. Do not believe. Do not pass on rumors. As the months following Bos arrest passed, the pace of new leaks and speculation slowed. The Party began the process of closing the book on the case as quietly as possi- ble, removing Bo piece by piece from all groups in which he had once been a member. The Standing Committee of the 11th National Peoples Congress (NPC) on Friday announced the termination of Bo Xilais post as the NPC deputy, said an official story released through Xinhua in October. The Seventh Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Sunday endorsed a decision made by the Political Bu- reau of the CPC Central Committee to expel Bo Xilai from the CPC, re- ported Xinhua in November. In August, Bos wife had her day in court. She appeared so bloated and unrecognizable that people on Sina Weibo starting asking whether the woman standing there was Gu Kailai at all. Offcials in China have been known to use body doubles. Gu pleaded guilty to poisoning Neil Heywood. The court was open only to approved attendees, but according to an unofficial report, the argu- ments presented included the claim that Heywood had physically kid- napped Gus child, Bo Guagua. She received a suspended death sen- tence, which typically translates to life in prison. Wang Lijun, who was tried in September, was sentenced to ffteen years in prison for defection, abuse of power, and bending the law for selfsh ends. Bo, now that he is no longer a member of the Communist Party of China, should be next in line. Ex- pelling him cleared the way for a criminal trial, and Bo stands to be the most prominent leader to face this kind of proceeding since the Gang of Four were tried in 1981. In the meantime, the power transition that Bo hoped to participate in has already gone forward, with only a few additional disruptions: the handover was delayed from October to November without explanation, and the man slated to take over leadership, Xi Jinping, disappeared for two weeks in September. Now that Xi is in power, it looks as if he is taking a few cues from Bos play- book, at least cosmetically. Under Xi, the Party has ordered offcials at meetings to keep it short and with no empty rhetoric or rigamarole. On a recent tour of southern China, Xi repeatedly showed up to events without a necktie. Unlike Bo, how- ever, Xi spent years keeping his head down. So little is known about his beliefs that some people are seeing hope of political reform in absent cravats. Months before any of this came to pass, I visited Chongqing to see what remained of Bos legacy. The banners celebrating him were gone, but the evidence of his many campaigns was all over town. In a park near the citys university dis- trict, signs designating specifc areas for red singing were still up, and a few elderly people were still belting out songs. I saw buildings whose fa- ades had recently received new coats of paint, whose balconies and air-conditioning units were covered with modern-looking wooden slats all Bo Xilai, I was told. There were new trees, new traffic circles, new subway stations. Following my arrival, a number of my appointments suddenly canceled; among the few who did not was Alan Zhang, a young copywriter who in 2003, as a university student, had started blogging about technology and had since moved on to national and university politics. He picked me up and drove me to a new luxury re- tail development with a Costa Coffee inside. He was thin and had dressed smartly to meet me, in black pants and a white button-down shirt. His teeth were prominent in a way that inclined him to purse his lips, adding to his generally thoughtful air. He be- lieved that Bo had acquired too much power, that the Communist Party in general had too much power. People have the right to go to the park and sing whatever song they like, Zhang said. He told me that Bo, left un- checked, would have turned into a Nazi (this had become a pretty com- mon thing to say). There is a Chinese saying that you will hear often if you bring up poli- tics: The sky is high and the emper- or far away. Its an aphorism normal- ly invoked to suggest that leaders in Beijing are too removed to know what is going on locally, but people in Chongqing were using it to ex- plain the lack of available informa- tion about Bo Xilai. For a moment, he had been the most accessible of Chinese politicians. He had been re- markable for sticking his head above the parapet. And while the Partys fears of allowing the rise of another cult of personality were well founded, Bo offered people a chance to feel they were participating, if only a lit- tle. Then Wang Lijun f led and it turned out that Bo, or at least his wife, had been killing people, and that Bo had been no more candid than any other Party secretary. As much as Zhang disapproved of him, though, it was Bo who had made him follow politics in the frst place. Before Bo Xilai, we didnt know who our leaders were, Zhang told me. I dont know what I talked about before then. I guess I paid at- tention to my hobbies. n Hilgers Report Final3.indd_0125 45 1/25/13 2:01 PM