Read this item carefully. China is passing through a hugely
important transition that will likely see a cleansing of remaining
shreds of Maoism and the bridling of the secret police at the least.
Political reform should naturally follow, probably top down and
imperfect, but it will be a far better place. This also reinstates
the Falun Gong and likely frees up religion generally.
The question posed here is just what will happen to the cadre who
strived to seize control. I find it hard to think that it will be
anything but messy. There are three here who are candidates for
summary execution or a trip to the Hague. Many others are also drawn
in and that can be handled locally.
The real problem is just what do you tell the Chinese people that
they will accept. I suspect the best approach will be to make a
clean breast of what has happened and immediately have a public
execution of a large body of perpetrators. One shock can be matched
with the shock of the executions. A fresh reform oriented government
could plausibly pull this off.
It is still an astounding story that is not been publicized in the
West and as this makes clear, plenty of factual proof is at hand
preventing plausible deniability at this point. And as this story
makes clear, the Chinese are beginning to tell the story themselves
even if it is the ultimate hot potato.
How Jiang Zemin
Encouraged Bo Xilai’s Atrocities
By Wen Hua
Created: October 21, 2012
Bo Xilai’s ambition
for power came through even in his love poetry.
When the now-disgraced
former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief of Chongqing, Bo Xilai,
was courting his first wife, Li Danyu, he wrote her a love poem.
The 26 year-old’s
poem mimicked the style of Mao Zedong’s poem “Snow—To the Tune
of Chin Yuan Chun.” Bo titled his poem, “Forward—To the Tune of
Chin Yuan Chun.” Following the strict form of the Song Dynasty Chin
Yuan Chun lyric, Bo Xilai wrote at one point, “Reading the
brilliant history, [I] ask the Chinese people, who will take over the
succession?”
Growing up, Bo Xilai
experienced being near the top of the CCP’s hierarchy and also
experienced plummeting to the bottom.
Bo Xilai was born in
July, 1949, the son of one of the most powerful members of the CCP.
He attended the elite No. 4 High School in Beijing.
His father, Bo Yibo,
was the vice premier of the CCP State Council from 1957-1966. In the
1980s and 1990s, he came to be known as one of the eight immortals,
the aged founders of the CCP who assisted Deng Xiaoping in ruling
China.
But before Bo Yibo climbed back in the company of Deng to the
heights of the Party, he was struck down during the Cultural
Revolution. Identified in 1966 as a “capitalist roader,” Bo Yibo
was accused of many crimes and spent the decade of the Cultural
Revolution in prison.
His son Bo Xilai was
an enthusiastic Red Guard who at one point beat his father, breaking
three of his ribs, something Bo Yibo would later recall with pride as
a sign Bo Xilai had what it took to succeed in the CCP.
But Bo Xilai’s
fanaticism did not save him. He was eventually imprisoned and served
five years, released in 1976 along with the other members of his
family after the Cultural Revolution collapsed.
The cruelty Bo
suffered in prison made him shady, manipulative, and tyrannical. He
believed power was the only truth in this world.
When Bo got out of
jail, he started working as a repairman at an auto shop, and he began
courting his childhood friend Li Danyu.
In terms of status,
all of the advantages were on the side of Li Danyu. Li Danyu’s
father had before the Cultural Revolution been the Party secretary of
Beijing. He lost that post, but did not fall as far as Bo Yibo. Li’s
father was not branded an enemy of the people; he remained a
“revolutionary comrade.”
Li Danyu herself was a
military doctor at the prestigious 301 People’s Liberation Army
Hospital in Beijing—the hospital where all of the Party leaders
were treated.
For his part, Bo Xilai
was handsome, charming and, like Li herself, intelligent. Bo won his
suit and married the plain-looking and hot tempered Li in September,
1976.
Gu Kailai Appears
Bo Yibo was
rehabilitated in 1978, and Bo Xiali and Li Danyu moved into
Zhongnanhai, the CCP leadership’s compound in Beijing.
Bo Xilai was admitted
to study history at Peking University and then became a graduate
student at the newly established Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
meant to be the premier institution for research in the social
science in the People’s Republic of China.
On their 4-year-old
son’s birthday, June 20, 1981, Bo and Li’s marriage experienced a
drastic change. As Bo Xilai cried holding his wife and son in his
arms, he announced he was divorcing Li, because he had “no feelings
for her anymore.”
No one knows when
exactly Gu Kailai barged into Bo’s life.
Gu Kailai’s father
was the deputy director of the PLA General Political Department,
second secretary of the Xinjiang District—he was the Party’s
second in command in the army based in Xinjiang.
In 1978 Gu Kailai
enrolled at Peking University School of Law, then transferred to
International Politics and studied for 3 years to get her Master’s.
She is 11 years younger than Bo Xilai.
Gu Kailai tells the
outside world that the first time she met Bo was an accident, after
he arrived at Jin County in Liaoning. This is no doubt a lie. Many of
Gu’s classmates from Peking University confirm that Gu and Bo
already had a relationship while they were still at Peking
University.
In addition, Li Danyu
told the New York Times that she began accusing Gu of being the third
party in the divorce Bo Xilai had requested and thus guilty of
damaging a military marriage, which is illegal in China. In 1984 Li
was forced by Bo Yibo’s pressure to divorce Bo Xilai officially. In
1986, Gu Kailai married Bo Xilai.
Bo Xilai had become
mayor of Dalian in 1993, and Gu Kailai opened a law firm in 1995. Any
enterprises that wanted to invest in Dalian had to follow an unspoken
rule and hire lawyers from Gu’s firm for consulting. Consulting
fees could run into the millions, but only in this way could the
firms be sure of having Bo’s support.
Around this time, Bo
and Gu met the English businessman Neil Heywood, who had come to
Dalian looking to get wealthy. Heywood not only helped their son Bo
Guagua with English, but started to help them launder money overseas.
Stuck as Mayor
Bo looked to move up
from Dalian and thought he should move up. He was highly regarded,
popular, politically savvy, and capable. He had brought new
construction to Dalian and beautified the city with parks and
boulevards. Moreover, his father as one of the eight immortals was
extremely well connected.
At the 15th Party
Congress in 1997 Bo did not get a single vote for a seat on the
Central Committee. Nor was he promoted to a province-level position
somewhere—longstanding CCP officials of Bo’s rank are often moved
from one spot to another, climbing the ladder of promotion, but not
Bo.
What disappointed Bo
most was that his family had a special relationship with Party head
Jiang Zemin, but that relationship wasn’t paying off.
In the spring of 1995,
then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping received a letter from seven
officials at the provincial level reporting on Jiang. Deng gave it to
Bo’s father, Bo Yibo, and asked him to take care of it.
Bo’s father took the
letter to Jiang. Jiang was terrified after reading the letter. Bo’s
father had always wanted his son to be promoted to the top of the
political chain and he made a deal with Jiang. Bo’s father agreed
to conceal Jiang’s crimes, and Jiang agreed to promote Bo Xilai.
But Jiang was not
holding up his end of the bargain. Then, in 1999, Bo Xilai found a
way to get Jiang’s enthusiastic support.
Next ... Jiang
launched the persecution of Falun Gong
The Persecution of
Falun Gong
On July 20, 1999,
disregarding objections from the other six members of the Politburo
Standing Committee, Jiang launched the persecution of Falun Gong.
From then on, the basic human rights of the one hundred million Falun
Gong practitioners were taken away.
According to an
informed source, Jiang was opposed even at home. Both his wife
Wang Yeping and his grandson Jiang Zhicheng were Falun Gong
practitioners.
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