A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (16 page)

Before Bo’s rise as mayor, officials in Dalian were notoriously lazy, and corruption was rampant. Many spent their evenings eating, drinking, and playing mah-jongg at expensive restaurants, all paid for with taxpayers’ money. Work started late in government offices. Bo initiated tough rules to improve government efficiency. Leaders at key government agencies were equipped with beepers so they could be on call anytime he needed them. A reporter with the
China Enterprise Newspaper
recalled that Bo Xilai would deliberately make random phone calls to certain officials to check if they were out entertaining. As a consequence, many chose to stay home for fear they would be caught. One night Bo called a director at a government agency but received no response. The next morning, the director claimed that he had gone to bed early. “Sounds like you don’t have too much to do,” Bo said. “We should probably assign you more projects.”

Restaurants and businesses asked Bo to write comments about them to be displayed to customers. For poorly run businesses, he would embarrass the managers by writing things like “Mismanagement leads to bankruptcy.”

Bo Xilai was a hands-on mayor. There is a story about Bo leaving his office late one night and noticing water leaks in the bathroom. He immediately called the building manager and ordered him to attend to the matter right away. At a year-end party for foreign businesses in Dalian, one foreign businessman complained about being mistreated at a government agency. Upon hearing the complaint, Bo Xilai banged on his desk and ordered the head of the agency to look into the issue immediately.

Bo was keen to make Dalian a showpiece. In 1994, in anticipation of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, he built Xinghai Square on the site of an old salt mine. It is the largest public square in Asia, covering 1.1 million square meters. Its name, which means a “sea of stars,” is reflected in the shape and design of the center of the square, which looks like a gigantic star. As an illustration of Bo’s
pro-people style, the square boasts 1,000 pairs of footprints left by Dalian residents.

The square raised many eyebrows—in the middle of the square stands a pair of
huaibiao
, or white marbled ornamental pillars, 19.97 meters (66 feet) high and 1.997 meters (6.6 feet) around, with dragons carved on them. The ornamental columns, which once would have represented the power of the emperor, were copied from a pair erected in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, near the Forbidden City. The ornamental columns in Dalian are taller and bigger, and Bo’s critics claim they symbolize his secret desire to overpower the emperor, or in modern terminology, the general party secretary. When former president Jiang Zemin visited Dalian, he was said to be shocked by the imperial symbols. It is unlikely he missed their significance.

After Bo Xilai’s downfall, Chinese state media said his vaunting political ambitions left many imprints in Dalian. Whereas the US president supposedly carried a suitcase that contained “the football”—giving him the power to launch nuclear weapons at a moment’s notice—Bo Xilai installed a switch on his desk that could turn on or off all the city’s water fountains so he could feel that he was in control.

Like emperors of the past, Bo was said to be a notorious womanizer. Bo had multiple mistresses, one of whom was Zhang Weijie, an anchor at the local TV station in Dalian. It is widely reported on the Internet that Zhang used to openly brag about her cozy relations with Bo Xilai in front of her colleagues. Her favorite line was, “I’m going to see the mayor tonight. If you need anything from him, let me know.” An official familiar with Bo’s investigation at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said Bo fathered a little girl with Zhang in 1998. When his wife, Gu Kailai, learned of the affair, she was outraged at Bo and urged leaders at the TV station to fire Zhang. As a result, the anchor lost her job and vanished from the public eye. For years, people in Dalian believed that Gu Kailai had the anchor “evaporated”—a euphemism for death. In September 2012, I learned from a reporter in Beijing that Zhang is alive. She allegedly received 10 million yuan in 1998 from Xu Ming, Bo’s billionaire business friend, on the condition that she and her baby girl leave the city for good and never bother Bo again. When Bo was under investigation, authorities
in Beijing located Zhang to collect evidence against Bo. The update that I posted on my website about Zhang prompted one Weibo user in China to congratulate Bo’s son, in a typical sarcastic manner, on finding a young sister.

An official who worked for Bo in Dalian said Bo’s insatiable lust for women gained him a nickname, “Bo Qilai,” which means “Erections Bo” in Chinese. He flaunted his propensity for young, pretty women through a “face” program for the city. Under his order, the Dalian police department formed a squad of female officers on horseback, a first for China. Bo instructed the first recruits to “become the beautiful calling cards for Dalian.” The average age of the first fifty female officers chosen was twenty-three. There were unsubstantiated reports that Bo had chosen his favorite officers to entertain other senior leaders who were in town.

In addition to his womanizing, Bo’s former colleagues said he was ruthless toward his political enemies. In China, the central and provincial governments are operated on a dual hierarchy system. The Communist Party chief, being the de facto political head, takes charge of policy and personnel issues, while the leader of the executive branch implements party policy and is responsible for day-to-day matters. The premier of China reports to the general secretary of the Communist Party, and a governor or mayor of a certain province or city reports to the provincial or city party secretary.

When Bo Xilai first arrived, he was appointed mayor of Dalian, and his party boss was a technocrat who grew up in the region. They enjoyed a brief honeymoon before Bo saw his party chief as a political obstacle. A person familiar with the situation said that Bo never treated the party boss seriously and constantly challenged him at internal and public meetings. Eventually the party boss lost the battle and was forced out in 1999. Bo assumed his position and became both party chief and mayor. An online report said the former party chief in Dalian harbored grudges against Bo and started to ally himself with other victims of Bo’s bullying. Over the next two years, the former party chief had a thick file of incriminating information against Bo and submitted it to Li Yanfeng, an official at the State Security Ministry, for investigation.

In May 2002, China Northern Airlines Flight 6136 from Beijing to Dalian crashed, killing all 103 passengers and nine crew. Li Yanfeng was among the dead. Government investigators ruled the accident was arson, blaming a former member of the secret police for setting fire to the plane in a suicide attack. Still, a former journalist in Dalian told a British newspaper that Bo Xilai and his wife had orchestrated the accident to destroy Li Yanfeng. This claim has never been verified, and the case is said to have been reviewed and investigated by the Central Inspection and Discipline Commission.

Bo’s high-profile successes in Dalian, and his father’s relentless lobbying, earned him a promotion in January 2001: he was appointed deputy party secretary and interim governor of Liaoning province. When he stepped out of the municipal government building on the morning of January 17, 2001, he was greeted by enthusiastic residents who lined the streets to see him off. Some well-wishers rushed up to touch his hands and the police had to form a human wall around him. In the city’s Marine Square, more residents were waiting for him. The next day, all the major newspapers and TV stations carried articles and video of residents mobbing the popular mayor. The headline in
Dalian Daily
read, “Touching Scene on the Streets of Dalian—Tens of Thousands Send Off Their Mayor.” Just how spontaneous the scenes were has been questioned by many people, since it was a common criticism that Bo Xilai was intent on creating his own cult of personality. Residents later disclosed the so-called spontaneous farewell scene was organized by various street committees. In some areas, local officials promised to buy residents a bag of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a popular but relatively expensive American “import,” if they showed up on the street.

Liaoning was not an easy posting. It was a notoriously depressing industrial junkyard, an example, if one was needed, of what happened after the government withdrew support for state enterprises. Bo was nothing if not bold, and he teamed up with nearby provinces and, working with the State Council, formulated a regional economic cooperation pact dubbed Northeast Area Revitalization. The program aimed to solve the soaring unemployment by courting investment from geographically close South Korea and Japan.

In 2002, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, with the cooperation of Bo Xilai, uncovered a corruption scandal that involved 120 officials, including the mayor and deputy mayor of Shenyang, both of whom had been hailed by Bo Xilai as savvy reformers line Liaoning’s largest city. The key figures in the scandal were sentenced to death on corruption charges—illegal gambling, having connections with the triad, and embezzling public funds. The experience probably gave rise to Bo Xilai’s later headline-grabbing anti- organized crime campaign in the city of Chongqing.

Bo’s tenure in Liaoning was not without controversy, largely the result of his arrogance. Yang Rong, who went by Benjamin Yeung in the West, was a Chinese financier who founded China Brilliance Automotive, the first Chinese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2001,
Fortune
magazine listed Yang Rong as China’s third-richest businessperson. But in 2002, Yang offended Bo by setting up a new manufacturing facility outside Liaoning, which Bo Xilai had wanted as he lobbied for badly needed investment. Bo retaliated by accusing Yang of embezzling public funds and claimed Yang Rong was not a private entrepreneur, but an agent and operator of state assets. He went so far as to threaten to take over Yang’s company, and instructed the Liaoning provincial procurator to issue an arrest warrant against him. Yang Rong was tipped off and fled to the US.

From a safe distance, Yang fought back. He countered that the Liaoning provincial government had not invested a single penny in his company, that it was a “state enterprise” in name only, and that he had owned the company outright from the very beginning. He filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, DC, alleging the Liaoning provincial government had illegally seized his private assets. Several prominent US lawyers, including a former counsel for President Ronald Reagan, were hired to serve on his legal team.

The Chinese found it hard to accept that a federal court in the US could allow a lawsuit against a local government in China. But after receiving a summons through diplomatic channels, the Bo Xilai administration in Liaoning urged the US court to dismiss Yang Rong’s lawsuit. In the end, upon careful deliberation, the court ruled in favor
of the Liaoning government. Yang Rong’s subsequent appeal was rejected by the appellate court in Washington, DC, in 2006.

As the governor of Liaoning, Bo reported to Wen Shizhen, then provincial party secretary, who disliked Bo’s superficiality. He reportedly criticized Bo’s work in Dalian, calling it public-relations stunts, and coined the famous phrase “Developing China’s cities like Europe and its countryside like Africa.” In response, Bo insisted that Wen Shizhen was personally responsible for several corruption scandals. Beijing was well aware of the cankerous relationship between the two.

When Commerce Minister Lu Fuyuan retired early for health reasons in February 2004, President Hu Jintao considered Bo Xilai as his replacement—some reports say that former president Jiang Zemin, a friend of Bo’s father, also played a role. Bringing Bo to Beijing would eliminate the tension among the leaders in Liaoning. Besides, the Ministry of Commerce involved many foreign trade missions and Hu’s administration needed a charming, charismatic, and articulate leader to represent China. So, Bo returned to the capital city, where he had grown up, and took over the high-profile position. He kept his head down for the first three months, declining media interviews and limiting his public appearances. When reporters mobbed him during the annual National People’s Congress in March 2002, his words were unusually cautious.

General gossip had it that a fortuneteller advised him to lie low and quietly prepare himself for better opportunities ahead. His father’s friends inside the State Council also encouraged Bo Xilai to be modest and low-key, an important quality for a new official inside the central government.

Media interest in the tall, good-looking celebrity politician remained high. When Bo Xilai took a quick tour of an international trade show in Guangzhou on April 15, 2002, reporters crowded around him with questions. And although Bo spoke little in public, he allowed
Esquire
magazine to include him at the top of China’s “Fashionable Men” list. Calling him “the most fashion-conscious Chinese official,” the magazine credited Bo for making Dalian one of the most fashionable cities in China by creating an international fashion festival there and described him as “suave and competent, with public charm.”
Such hagiography in the Chinese press was hard to come by, but as the media attention grew, Bo’s initial restraint failed him. Soon he was back courting the spotlight—confident, straightforward, and eloquent.

Bo took over the Ministry of Commerce at an inauspicious time. In 2004, the ministry faced many challenges: foreign direct investment was stalling and trade friction with the US and Europe had reached new levels. In response to US textile makers’ claims that 16,000 domestic jobs had been lost due to cheap Chinese goods, the George W. Bush administration followed up on its campaign promises to save American jobs by imposing textile quotas. The European Union soon followed suit. Restricting access to key foreign markets was not good for Chinese manufacturers and Bo knew it was essential for textile makers that he break the impasse.

Bo Xilai participated in several of the tough trade fights. He and Chinese vice premier Wu Yi flew to Washington, DC, in 2004 for intense negotiations. Bo’s colleagues told the Chinese media that the new minister of commerce maintained a conciliatory but assertive attitude. The
International Financial News
, a magazine affiliated with the official Communist Party paper, the
People’s Daily
, reported that Bo spoke relatively fluent English and that during a meeting with American officials, he told a struggling American interpreter to stop translating and save time because he and his assistants could all understand English.