SUN
WUKONG Curtain not down on Bo Xilai
scandal By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - The announcement on
Friday evening by the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) that it was expelling former Chongqing party
chief Bo Xilai and handing him over for
prosecution, together with the date for the
convention of its 18th National Congress, was
quite within expectations, but unconventional
nonetheless.
Given his Politburo
membership (though suspended), his expulsion from
the party should have been a decision of the CCP's
Central Committee. However, the decision was made
by the Politburo in a meeting on September 28 and
will be presented to the last plenum of the
current Central Committee, to be held on
November 1, for
retroactive endorsement, according to the
state-run Xinhua News Agency.
While the
Politburo also decided to remove Bo from public
office in accordance with the country's Law on
Public Servants, there was no mention of whether
he had been deprived of his membership in the
National People's Congress, China's parliament.
Such a decision must be made by the NPC, not the
CCP. According to Chinese law, an NPC member is
immune to legal prosecution.
The Politburo
meeting on Friday also decided that the CCP's 18th
National Congress would be convened on November 8
in Beijing. But this decision will also have to be
rubber-stamped by the Central Committee plenum.
This is also unconventional. According to
tradition, the date for the convention of a party
congress is to be announced by a plenum of the
Central Committee, not the Politburo.
All
this strongly suggests that the CCP is eager to
clear the air before it opens the congress. Bo
would otherwise have remained a heavy, dark cloud
continuing to spark much speculation in the run-up
to its convention. Rumors about an intensified
power struggle at the top have been rife since Bo
was pulled down in late March. If his case had not
been settled before the congress convened, it
would surely have remained the focus of attention
overshadowing the agenda of the party meeting.
It is also evident that President Hu
Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are duty-bound to
clean house before they pass down the torch of
leadership to their successors at the congress.
Friday's announcement sets the stage for a
highly anticipated trial for Bo, though it will
likely be held long after the party meeting, as
legal procedure takes much time.
The
timing of the announcement is also very
interesting. It was made on Friday evening,
shortly before the start of an eight-day holiday
for the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, when
people would travel or relax and pay little
attention to politics. This could have minimized
the sudden shock of publicizing the results of the
initial investigation of Bo, which are indeed
quite shocking. When people come back to work on
October 8, it will have become old news.
According to Xinhua, Bo's "violation of
party disciplines" (read as corruption and/or
abuse of power) could be traced back to early
1990s when he was mayor of Dalian city in the
northeastern province of Liaoning, and in all of
his other offices afterward. [1]
Investigations found that Bo seriously
violated party discipline while heading the city
of Dalian and at the Ministry of Commerce and
while serving as a member of the Political Bureau
of the CCP Central Committee and as party chief of
Chongqing municipality, Xinhua reports.
Bo
abused his power, made severe mistakes and bore
major responsibility in the incident involving
former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun and the
intentional homicide case involving Bogu Kailai,
or Gu Xilai, his wife.
He took advantage
of his office to seek profits for others and
received huge bribes personally and through his
family. His position was also abused by his wife
to seek profits for others, and the Bo family
accepted a huge amount of money and property from
others.
He was also found to have violated
organizational and personnel discipline and made
erroneous decisions in the promotion of personnel,
resulting in serious consequences, the agency
said.
As such, Bo's suspected offenses are
much more serious than previously reported or
speculated. Not only is he held responsible for
his wife's murder of British businessman Neil
Heywood and the defection of Wang Lijun to the US
Consulate in Chengdu, provincial capital of
Sichuan, but he is also charged with
personally taking a huge amount of bribes
and maintaining "improper sexual relationships
with a number of women". Even worse, he is
suspected to have been involved "in other crimes".
If convicted, he could face the death penalty or
at least life imprisonment. In short, the
63-year-old ambitious politician is finished,
period.
But for the CCP, the damage caused
by Bo's scandals is severe. It will take much time
and arduous efforts to heal the wounds. As Xinhua
put it, "Bo Xilai's behavior created serious
negative consequences, seriously damaged the party
and the country's reputation in China and abroad,
created an extremely negative result, and created
huge losses for the party and the Chinese people."
While the CCP and its propaganda apparatus
can righteously claim that Bo's downfall shows the
party's determination to deal with corruption, it
may have to face questions arising from the Friday
announcement.
How did Bo's evil deeds
remain uncovered for such a long time - some 20
years - while in the meantime he received quick
promotions one after another, ultimately to become
one of the 25 members of the Politburo? How could
he have run Chongqing like an "independent
kingdom", wantonly doing what he wanted to do
without being questioned, let alone stopped?
And without Wang's attempted defection,
which led to the exposure of Bo's scandals, he
might have had a big chance to move up another
rung of the official hierarchy to become a member
of the new Politburo Standing Committee as a party
and state leader. What kind of a country would
China become if ruled by people like Bo?
No doubt, Bo's case exposes a big loophole
in the CCP's internal supervision system, which
must be plugged. There is a Chinese saying, "It is
not too late to mend the fold even after some of
the sheep have been lost." The CCP now owes the
public an explanation of whether and how it will
make the improvement.
Note: 1. Click here
for the full text of the Xinhua report.
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