A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (43 page)

Lu Di’s remarks accurately summed up the essence of Bo’s demise. He has broken the taboo by challenging the party’s mantra of “uniting tightly around the Party Central Committee, led by the party general secretary.”

Taikungpao
, a pro-Communist newspaper in Hong Kong, described Bo’s political style in a September 28, 2012, article:

       
Surrounded by bodyguards, Bo shook hands with the cheering crowd. He delivered stirring speeches without a script and peppered his media sound bites with personalized language. These scenes remind one of a candidate during a presidential election in the US.

This couldn’t be a more apt description. Bo used the gimmicks of a Western politician and reached out to the public with a populist agenda, which made the president of China look incompetent. The criticism by Zhang Dejiang, his successor in Chongqing, was more revealing. Zhang accused Bo of being self-important and self-absorbed, claiming that Bo had attempted to establish another political center in Chongqing: “We should always remember that the accomplishment in
Chongqing will not be possible without the leadership of the Central Party Committee and the State Council.”

In a culture where parents advise their children to behave according to the adage “The gun will shoot the head of the flock,” Bo’s relentless self-promotion and maneuvering also alienated many of his fellow princelings, who increasingly felt that Bo was usurping too many political “shares,” leaving them with little to grasp. Thus, when Wang Lijun escaped to the US Consulate, the leadership finally had had enough. “In the end, all factions abandoned Bo because the crisis poses a challenge to the legitimacy of the party itself,” said Li Cheng, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“
The stakes are very high, and the challenge facing the party leadership is intimidating.”

At the time of this writing, Bo had been placed under a new round of investigation by the state prosecutor for his alleged offenses. “Coercive measures would be imposed on him in accordance with the law,” reported the state media. Once the judicial investigation is completed, legal experts say Bo will face a criminal trial. Since the courts are subordinate to the party, Bo’s trial will likely be a mere formality; a highly choreographed affair. The charges will largely be based on recommendations provided by the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. No matter how vigorously his lawyers defend him, a guilty verdict will almost certainly await Bo.

“Bo’s trial will now matter less to the Politburo Standing Committee, which has already moved on,” a Beijing-based legal scholar said recently. “But the new leaders will use Bo’s punishment for another purpose—showcasing the party’s determination to clamp down on corruption and abuse of power.”

Gao Zicheng, a well-known Chinese lawyer, told Deutsch Welle’s Chinese-language service that Bo would receive lifelong imprisonment, if not the death penalty. At present, an official could face up to ten years in jail if he or she embezzles 100,000 yuan (US $16,000). Bo has allegedly taken more than 26 million yuan in bribes, according to overseas media reports. He Weifang, a professor at the Beijing University Law School, also predicted during an interview with Voice of America that Bo would get at least twenty years or even a suspended death penalty.

Regardless of what type of prison sentence Bo might receive, his opponents have one goal in mind—crushing any future chance of Bo’s comeback. A source who is related to a top leader in Beijing whispered to me—nonchalantly over dinner during a recent visit to New York City—that “It doesn’t matter how Bo’s case is handled. We’ll never allow him to walk out alive.”

E
MPEROR KANGXI lived between 1654 and 1722 in the Qing Dynasty, ascended the throne at the age of eight, and ruled China for sixty-one years, becoming the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history. During his reign, his wife and concubines gave birth to more than fifty children—thirty-five of them were boys. Such a big contingent of princes spawned a fierce power struggle. Over time, nine of the sons emerged as powerful political and military figures, fiercely contending for the title of crown prince. Yinzhi was his eldest son, but the honor went to Kangxi’s second son, whose mother was Kangxi’s first and favorite spouse, who died in childbirth.

Displeased with the decision, Yinzhi attempted to sabotage the transition and, in 1708, when the crown prince was temporarily deposed after he fell out of favor with his father, Yinzhi was assigned to take custody of his younger brother. Lured by imperial power, Yinzhi urged his father to have the deposed crown prince put to death, and to install him instead as the next emperor. Yinzhi’s raw ambition reportedly shocked and disgusted Kangxi, who called his eldest son a “treacherous subject.” Other princes deserted Yinzhi, alleging he had once used sorcery to try to unseat the crown prince. Kangxi stripped Yinzhi of his princely title and placed him under life-long house arrest to prevent future disruptions in the succession plan.

If Bo Xilai resembles the overly insidious and ambitious first prince Yinzhi, the modern-day version of Kangxi is former president Jiang Zemin. When Wang Lijun disclosed to the senior leaders after his botched defection that Bo had attempted to disrupt the previously
negotiated transition and threaten the ascension of the designated successor, the powerful patriarch, or the king father, intervened. Jiang rallied Bo’s political foes and had Bo locked up, even though Bo was widely believed to be one of his protégés.

More than a decade after he notionally retired to Shanghai, Jiang’s words still hold sway among senior Chinese leaders, like a king father in imperial China. His long absence from the public view softened his image, making memory grow fonder for a large sector of the populace that had disliked him intensely when he was in power. In comparison with President Hu Jintao, many of Jiang’s former critics have started to see the former president in a different light, someone who was a stabilizing force, like a monarch.

Jiang’s influence was most evident in the media hoopla over reports of his “premature death.”

In April 2011, Jiang visited his hometown of Yangzhou, a city near Shanghai. Knowing that he fancied calipash, the green gelatinous substance found under the shell of the turtle and a local delicacy, city officials commissioned farmers to catch wild turtles in the river and brought them to Jiang’s favorite restaurant to be cooked and served. A few days after Jiang returned to Shanghai, he began to suffer from very high fever. His staff members checked him into the Eastern China Hospital, but doctors there could not figure out the cause. When the leadership in Beijing was contacted, they ordered officials in Shanghai to transfer Jiang to the Beijing 301 Hospital, an army hospital where senior leaders generally received treatment.

As doctors frantically searched for a diagnosis, rumors started to swirl. Several media outlets in Hong Kong quoted insiders as saying that Jiang had liver cancer and his heart had stopped. One story even claimed that Jiang had been struck with a virus from mosquitoes while in the southwestern province of Guangxi and the virus had caused severe complications. The story claimed that senior leaders had brought Jiang back to Beijing, where preparations were already under way for a grand funeral ceremony.

The speculation peaked on July 1, when Jiang was absent from the celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. At noon on July 6, a local government news site in
mainland China featured a portrait of Jiang Zemin with a caption that read, “Eternity to Our Beloved Comrade Jiang Zemin.” At six o’clock that evening, ATV, an influential TV station in Hong Kong, interrupted its regular programming and announced that Jiang had died. When the spokesperson at the Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to respond to a question by a BBC reporter about Jiang’s health, media outlets around the world started to speculate that something had gone wrong. Many analysts expressed concerns about Jiang’s demise and how it would affect the power transitions in 2012. The next day, as the ATV announcement was reposted on thousands of websites around the world, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, quoting “authoritative sources,” declared that overseas media reports were “pure rumor.”

News about Jiang’s death was finally put to rest in early October when he appeared at a public event. Subsequently, an official explained to
Mingjing Monthly
that Jiang’s illness had not been serious. A young Chinese doctor who had been trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US found the cause of Jiang’s fever—a parasite in the wild turtle that Jiang had consumed in his hometown. Medicine was rushed from Japan and Jiang was cured. Whether he was kept abreast of the international media storm surrounding his illness is not known.

But the media attention focused on his personal health underscored Jiang’s influence as the king father, especially in the days leading up to the Party Congress. In February 2012, after Wang Lijun went to the US Consulate, Bo Xilai was said to have contacted Jiang, seeking his help in putting out the fire, but Jiang refused to see him. According to an insider, President Hu consulted with Jiang frequently after Bo’s removal. The king father urged Hu to build a criminal case against Bo and “hold him accountable for the party and the people.” Jiang’s position played a decisive role in Bo’s final demise.

Jiang Zemin, whose name means “benefitting the people,” came to power in 1989, after Deng Xiaoping and a group of revolutionary veterans brutally crushed the Tiananmen Square protests and removed Zhao Ziyang, the reform-minded party general secretary. Jiang appeared to be the perfect alternative. He was the party chief in China’s second-largest city of Shanghai and had closed down a liberal-leaning newspaper, the
World Economic Herald
. When students
marched on the street in protest of his decision, Jiang had stood firm. Deng Xiaoping and the party elders were reportedly impressed with Jiang’s conservative sensibilities and strong principles in his fight against the invasion of “Western liberal ideas.” More important, he was raised in a revolutionary martyr’s family—his uncle was a famed national hero during the resistance war against Japan in the 1940s. While in Shanghai, Jiang had the reputation of being respectful and compliant, someone Deng Xiaoping felt he could control. Deng made him the new party general secretary.

The promotion came as a shock to the sixty-three-year-old Jiang. An article in the Beijing-based
New Legend
weekly magazine described Jiang’s sudden meteoric rise, offering a glimpse of the erratic succession process:

       
In 1989, Jiang Zemin, who was the party chief of Shanghai, turned sixty-three. After retirement, he had planned to leave politics and become a professor at his alma mater—Shanghai Jiaotong University.

           
In mid-June, Jiang Zemin received an urgent notice from the Central Party Committee Secretariat, urging him to come to Beijing right away. When he rushed to the airport, he noticed a private jet waiting for him on the runway. But when he arrived in Beijing, the car that came to pick him up was an ordinary Volkswagen Santana. By then, he was told that it was Deng Xiaoping’s private car and the paramount leader was waiting for him at a château in Beijing’s West Mountain resort. . . .

           
On June 24, news of Jiang’s appointment was announced to the whole world. His relatives and family members were equally as shocked as China watchers in the West. Jiang Zemin himself felt unprepared. At the subsequent Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Party Congress, Jiang was officially elected to be the party general secretary and to the Politburo Standing Committee.

           
On September 4, at a conference with Jiang and the new leadership team, Deng Xiaoping brought up the topic of his retirement and disclosed that he was ready to give up his baton. Then Deng quickly moved to a new topic—the transition plan. Deng Xiaoping scanned the room and fixed his eyes on Jiang, who had been in his
party general secretary’s position for barely one hundred days. “The Military Commission needs to have a chairman,” he said, emphasizing every single word. “I propose that Jiang Zemin be confirmed as chairman of the Military Commission.” After the conference, Deng Xiaoping officially submitted his full resignation.

The article failed to mention that Deng not only chose Jiang to succeed him, but also picked a successor for Jiang to ensure smooth leadership transition over the next two decades.

During Jiang’s first year in office, nobody believed he would last: First, he was elevated to the country’s top post without prior political accomplishment and without a strong power base inside the party. Second, even though Deng had retired, he still wielded significant power as a king father and he could depose Jiang anytime. Last, many felt that Jiang did not have the stature of such “red emperors” as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He liked to show off his English and Russian skills, belt out karaoke songs, and play the piano when he got close to one. Westerners might see those qualities as charming, but the Chinese public frowned upon his “flamboyancy,” some calling him a “member of the Communist performance troupe.”

Jiang had a shaky start but survived. He first cultivated the support of powerful party elders, including Xi Zhongxun, whose son is Xi Jinping, the current party general secretary, and Bo Yibo, the father of Bo Xilai. In an effort to appease the conservative wings of the party, he followed a leftist agenda in the first year, vowing to fight against “bourgeois liberalization” and stick with the path of socialism by suppressing growth of capitalistic ventures. Jiang’s leftist policies went against Deng’s belief that the only way for the Chinese Communist Party to survive in the aftermath of the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe was to develop the country’s economy. In 1992, Deng was said to have become impatient with Jiang’s lack of leadership in economic reform, but by then, his debilitating Parkinson’s disease deprived Deng of the energy and influence to topple Jiang. Instead, Deng slapped Jiang’s face, metaphorically, by taking a high-profile tour of southern China where he had first ignited the country’s economic reforms and stated in no ambivalent terms that
the pace of reform was not fast enough, and the “central leadership” bore direct responsibility.