A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (17 page)

Ten days after he came back from the US, Bo accompanied Premier Wen Jiabao on a five-country trip to Europe in May 2004. Hong Kong reporters raved about his charisma, which they said was a drastic departure from other dogmatic and conservative leaders in Beijing. One Chinese newspaper even referred to him as China’s John F. Kennedy.

In Brussels, Belgium, he impressed everyone with his wit. In one speech, he compared the European Union and China to a married couple who needed to get over their squabbles and move closer because both relied on each other. When an Italian reporter asked his views on the flood of cheap Chinese textile products in the Italian markets and their devastating impact on the well-being of traditional Italian textile manufacturers, Bo answered:

       
It’s true that we have exported many cheap textile products to Italy. You shouldn’t forget that we have also imported a lot of expensive textile machinery and fabrics from your country. There was a person called Marco Polo. Even though he was born in the thirteenth century, he set his sights on the faraway China and traveled all the way there to do business. If Marco Polo suddenly woke up from his grave and learned that the Italian government is imposing quotas on high-quality and low-price Chinese goods, he would be shocked and feel regretful.

On the same trip, Bo Xilai imitated a TV commercial at a China- EU foreign investment seminar. “The Commerce Ministry is always at the service of EU investors. If you have any questions, remember to call our hotline at 0636308534.” His words generated laughter and applause.

Just as he had been as mayor, Bo was a demanding boss to his colleagues at the Ministry of Commerce. Staff members had to be on call twenty-four hours a day and many called Bo “Mao Zedong Jr.” behind his back. Meanwhile, Bo started to display a pattern of behavior—his bullish style clashed with that of his own boss, Vice Premier Wu Yi, who oversaw the Commerce Ministry and provided enthusiastic support during Bo’s transition to the ministry. Bo initiated a series of moves to restructure the ministry and eliminated officials favored by Wu Yi. A US-based Chinese-American businessman who met with Bo Xilai and Wu Yi to discuss a joint venture outside Beijing in 2006 recalled Bo Xilai speaking contemptuously of Wu Yi barely before she walked out of the conference room.

“M
USICAL CHAIRS” is a common political game in China that ensures no one minister or governor builds up too strong a power base within the party or in a certain region. In September 2007, an official at the Ministry of Commerce said in an e-mail to me that Bo Xilai might be leaving the ministry to take up a
post in Chongqing, as the city’s party secretary. President Hu Jintao intended to move the then-Chongqing party chief to Guangdong province and the Guangdong party chief to Beijing.

Soon after
Mingjing
published the news of Bo Xilai’s new appointment, a pro–Chinese government newspaper in Hong Kong reported that Bo Xilai was scheduled to arrive in Chongqing the next day. But Bo never showed up.
Mingjing
learned later that he was reluctant to accept the new assignment and kept postponing his start date. Bo and his friends saw the job as a demotion that effectively banished him from the political center. In those days, he was eyeing the vice premier’s position, which would be vacated by Wu Yi, who had announced that she would retire in the spring of 2008. Premier Wen Jiabao was said to be considering Bo Xilai as her replacement. However, Wu Yi, who intensely disliked Bo, opposed the move. The vice premier’s position eventually went to Wang Qishan, an expert in finance and the son-in-law of former vice premier Yao Yilin. Wang currently serves on the Politburo Standing Committee.

As Bo Xilai was deliberating on his next move, the 17th Communist Party Congress convened in October 2007 and he was elected to the then twenty-five-member Politburo, a top policy-making body that meets about once a month to address important issues facing the party and the government. Joining the Politburo was considered a political milestone for Bo because membership is tightly controlled by a few senior leaders and each candidate is appointed only after extensive investigation, and with near unanimous agreement among the sitting Politburo members. The elevation moved Bo Xilai one step closer to the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest and most powerful body in China. With the media once more calling him “a rising political star,” Bo needed to make a decision about his new post.

A friend of Bo’s disclosed later that he followed his most trusted advisers, who believed that Chongqing was the ideal launchpad for his political future. Chongqing, with a population of 32 million people and thirty-eight subdivisions, covers about the same land area as Austria. The city, situated next to the Yangtze River, is responsible for the Three Gorges dam project. As China attempted to address the uneven
economic development between the coastal cities and inland regions, Chongqing had emerged as strategically important in the government’s grand plan to develop the backward southwestern region. Since 1997, when the city was elevated to the same status as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, and became a municipality under the direct control of the central government, the Central Party Committee had switched party secretaries four times and none had made any visible impact on the city. If Bo could turn the city around, joining the Politburo Standing Committee was inevitable.

For someone with unchecked political ambition, Bo Xilai must have been aware of the story relating to the city’s auspicious name. Legend had it that during China’s Song Dynasty, a prince was sent to rule and tame what was then called Gongzhou, a city famous for its rebellious streak against the central government. In January 1189, the prince was made duke of the region. A month later, when the emperor died, he ascended to the throne. In honor of his double good fortune, Zhao named the city Chongqing, or “double happiness.”

Chongqing’s distance from the political center meant Bo would have more autonomy and less constraint, allowing him to freely test his political ideas.

Bo arrived in Chongqing on November 29, accompanied by another princeling and rising star, Li Yuanchao, who was in charge of the party’s personnel matters. At the changeover ceremony, Li introduced Bo Xilai as an official who was “politically mature” and a man with strong principles. “Having started at the grassroots level and gradually moved up, Comrade Xilai has accumulated rich leadership experience. He is sharp-minded, open to new ideas and has a strong pioneering spirit. He is honest, upright and dedicated to his career,” said Li.

A reporter who saw Bo for the first time at the changeover ceremony described her feelings in a blog: “I’m so excited. I didn’t realize he is better looking and more charming than his photo conveys. He donned a dark suit and walked up to the stage politely. The microphone seemed to be too short for him. Throughout its history, Chongqing has not encountered a leader who is this tall and handsome. He seldom reads off his script and his speech is very stirring. He’s so sexy. I love it!”

There is an old Chinese saying that goes, “All newly appointed officials have three bundles of fire to make an impression.” Bo Xilai’s three “bundles of fire” took the form of what later became known as the “Singing Red and Smashing Black” campaign—singing revolutionary songs, and attacking corruption and organized crime. At that time, Bo’s campaign was considered a safe bet. “If an official became overly enthusiastic about capitalistic practices or democratic reforms, he could easily be accused of being too Westernized and straying away from Communism,” commented Xiaoping Chen, a US-based analyst. “But if you turned left and held up Mao’s banner, nobody dared blame you for going back to the party’s Communist roots.”

At his inaugural ceremony in 2007, Bo lectured several hundred senior municipal leaders: “As party officials, we should be clean and honest, and gain public trust and confidence. My wife and I have already decided not to allow any of our relatives or friends to come to Chongqing in search of opportunities and privileges. If you know or hear about anyone who does business in our name, please stop the person and call us right away.”

Bo took over at a time when the city was plagued with serious social and economic problems, such as poverty and pollution. Among the thirty-eight subdivisions that make up Chongqing, seventeen were on the government’s poverty list. About half of the 32 million people in Chongqing lived below the poverty line, which is measured as 2,300 yuan per capita income (about $360). The city was shrouded year-round in a yellow smog—a combination of industrial pollutants, smoke, coal, dust, and fog from the heavily polluted Yangtze River. In the summertime, acid rain was common. In addition, organized crime and government corruption ran deep, with deals struck at relatively high levels for control of many of the city’s enterprises, from taxis and hotels to restaurants and nightclubs.

Moreover, every day, hundreds of people gathered in front of the municipal building, rain or shine, protesting unpaid wages, forced relocation, and corrupt government officials. Though demonstrations never again reached the peak established at Tiananmen Square in 1989, discontent bubbled just below the surface.

In the face of these challenges, Bo Xilai, following the steps of senior leaders in Beijing, declared himself a Maoist and carried out a series of radical policies in the pursuit of a viable social and political solution for Chongqing.

As part of his “common prosperity” program, the Chongqing government had spent 15 billion yuan (US $2.4 billion) building 800,000 apartments for low-income families and new college graduates, with rents at 40 percent below market rates. The units are built in the center of the city, near higher-income housing to prevent the creation of slums. The government in Chongqing also spent nearly 50 billion yuan (US $8 billion) on rural education, health care, and housing.

Bo was one of the first in the country to grant urban residential permits to migrant workers from the rural areas so they could enjoy the better health care, education, and social security available to urban residents. To improve public security, the Bo administration established five hundred kiosks in the city staffed with police, making it easier for residents to report crimes and access police. The city planted trees and set up government funds to rebuild infrastructure to attract more foreign investment.

During the financial crisis in 2009, when the rest of the country’s economy slowed, GDP in Chongqing reached 16.4 percent, and 17.1 percent in 2010. Some 87 percent of its growth was in the state sector. Under his regime, half of the budget of Chongqing was spent on health care, housing, pensions, education, and other public services. Bo used large state subsidies to woo flagship foreign firms, such as Apple, Foxconn, and BASF. Direct foreign investment increased 50 percent annually during his reign. Bo also launched a giant social housing program predicated on rural migrants trading their land for development by the city.

Chongqing is home to two notorious Nationalist concentration camps that imprisoned, tortured, and killed more than three hundred young, underground Communists and social activists before the Communist takeover in 1949. The city has long been known as a “red city.” A revolutionary martyr’s museum built near the sites of the concentration camps at the foot of Gele Mountain attracts thousands of visitors from around the country. Bo Xilai played up this revolutionary
heritage and launched his “Singing Red and Smashing Black” campaign at a ceremony in front of the museum in 2008. As part of the campaign, Bo, known for belting out Mao-era songs at conferences or private parties, made singing revolutionary songs obligatory in Chongqing. In 2008, his office issued a circular that required all government and party organizations to sing classic “red” songs to strengthen people’s trust in the Communist Party and “lift the spirits of the heroic mountain city of Chongqing.” He personally picked one hundred popular Mao-era songs, which were sold on CDs and aired repeatedly on radio and TV. Within a short time, the whole city was mobilized—children and adults waved red flags and sang their hearts out. During major holidays, such as National Day and Labor Day, the city organized red-song competitions. Over a three-year period, the city organized more than 100,000 public performances. Bo Xilai even sent his red song–singing troupes to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. A mental asylum in Chongqing incorporated this into its treatment regimen, urging patients to sing red songs every day after taking their meds. “The red ‘supplement’ can inspire patients, improve their mood, and enhance their confidence in the treatment,” claimed a doctor.

The red singing has continued after Bo’s fall. During a recent trip to Chongqing, my coauthor witnessed a band consisting of sixteen retirees performing old Communist songs in a public square near his hotel. On a weeknight, the singing lasted until one o’clock in the morning and residents nearby did not seem to mind.

Bo’s “red culture” revival campaign also included a series of little books of ancient and modern classics, from the teachings of Confucius and Mao Zedong’s poems to Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Every official was asked to carry the pocket-size books, reminding one of the Little Red Book, a collection of Mao’s quotations that people carried during the Cultural Revolution. In the preface of the little-book series, Bo wrote, “Reading the classics is like taking a multiple vitamin pill. If you take one a day, it could boost your spiritual health.”

When Bo Xilai was in power, the omnipresent outdoor advertising billboards were removed. No commercial was allowed to be aired on TV channels controlled by the local government. A brand new TV
program was created with the sole purpose of airing old Communist propaganda movies and featuring Communist storytelling.

To improve the image of public officials, Bo initiated the “connecting with your poor relatives” campaign, encouraging officials to visit poverty-stricken regions, stay with peasants for a period of time, adopt a poor family, and help them solve problems. In the spring of 2008, he caused a political earthquake by changing leadership in seven districts and counties, and sent hundreds of officials to training sessions where he was a lecturer, teaching them about Communist theories on modern economic management.