Bo Knows Purges

[Jacob]

A handful of different bits of information and rumours about this whole thing:

- The police in Chongqing have gotten official memos telling them not to openly cheer at Bo's dismissal.
- When Wang Lijun went to the US consulate in Chengdu he was heavily tailed, and had to don disguises and switch cars to get rid of Bo's people following him.
- The police who initially blockaded the US consulate were all Chongqing police who'd driven all the way there (the consulate is in a different jurisdiction, in neighbouring Sichuan). Eventually, however, security personnel from Beijing showed up. There were arguments between the Beijing and Chongqing officers. When Wang emerged from the US consulate he went with the Beijing people and have not been heard from since (though he's been spoken of as a hero in the media and by senior party officials).
- A number of strong-left maoist websites are all down for "server maintenance" at the same time all of a sudden.

... did you read the bit on the BBC about the reporter who visited him in Dalian years ago? And how he had buttons in his office to change the music playing in loudspeakers across the city and the colour of the water in the fountains at whim.

[Razgovory]

Good News!  I vaguely remember this character.  He didn't seem to be a big fan of reformists elements in China.  Which seems bad for us, and probably them.

[Razgovory]

Bo did 3 things in Chongqing - root out the triads, "sing red", and provide welfare for the poor. 

The problem is the way he did things.  It is arbitrary, populist, and Maoist.  Take the triads for example.  Sure, that's a good thing that made him popular.  But he didn't exactly strengthen the rule of law or promote a culture of clean government.  He just pointed at this triad and say get rid of them.  Due process, evidence and the law be damned, even by Chinese standards.  The defence lawyer of the triad leaders was jailed on dubious charges.  The money for welfare isn't from normal government revenues.  He simply confiscated triad money and redistributed them to the poor, Robinhood style. 

The sing red part is the biggest problem.  He used state media resources and mobilised the crowds to do it.  It smacks of cultural revolution, Stalinist personality cults and mass political movements which many Chinese still remember as having killed millions not that many decades ago.

Sounds like Bad News.  Good riddance.

[The Minsky Moment]

- When Wang Lijun went to the US consulate in Chengdu he was heavily tailed, and had to don disguises and switch cars to get rid of Bo's people following him.
- The police who initially blockaded the US consulate were all Chongqing police who'd driven all the way there (the consulate is in a different jurisdiction, in neighbouring Sichuan). Eventually, however, security personnel from Beijing showed up. There were arguments between the Beijing and Chongqing officers. When Wang emerged from the US consulate he went with the Beijing people and have not been heard from since (though he's been spoken of as a hero in the media and by senior party officials).

I read the following rumor about the Wang affair: Bo found out that his enemies in Beijing were going to attack Wang as a proxy for him, so he decided to pre-emptively move against Wang himself.  Only Wang found out before Bo could move and cut a deal with the same people who planned to go after him.  The overnight in the consulate was just a ruse to create an excuse for his new allies to send central government law enforcement to pick him up without Chongqing law enforcement interfering.

Of course, I have no idea whether any of this is true.

[Jacob]

- When Wang Lijun went to the US consulate in Chengdu he was heavily tailed, and had to don disguises and switch cars to get rid of Bo's people following him.
- The police who initially blockaded the US consulate were all Chongqing police who'd driven all the way there (the consulate is in a different jurisdiction, in neighbouring Sichuan). Eventually, however, security personnel from Beijing showed up. There were arguments between the Beijing and Chongqing officers. When Wang emerged from the US consulate he went with the Beijing people and have not been heard from since (though he's been spoken of as a hero in the media and by senior party officials).

I read the following rumor about the Wang affair: Bo found out that his enemies in Beijing were going to attack Wang as a proxy for him, so he decided to pre-emptively move against Wang himself.  Only Wang found out before Bo could move and cut a deal with the same people who planned to go after him.  The overnight in the consulate was just a ruse to create an excuse for his new allies to send central government law enforcement to pick him up without Chongqing law enforcement interfering.

Of course, I have no idea whether any of this is true.

Interesting. And yeah, it's hard to know the truth.

I'd definitely guess that Wang's excursion to the consulate was to avoid Bo's people and communicate safely with people in Beijing; the whole "defect to the US" thing is highly unlikely. Fascinating to watch from the outside, glad not to be directly involved.

New rumours surfacing via Apple (a newspaper, not Jobs' people) in HK: Bo Xilai turned on his own dad during the cultural revolution.

[Jacob]

Not surprising;  CCP doen't like its leaders to exhibit a cult of personality and even possible diversionary thinking that could conceivably be a threat.  Look at Hu Yaobang and hell, even Zhao Ziyang.

Well, if you're sympathetic to to Zhao Bo's fall should cheer you a bit. Bo Xilai's dad was one of the strongest proponents of removing Zhao (who was Wen Jiabao's boss at the time).

[Jacob]

More on Bo and his wife's business dealings: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE84E0HA20120515?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0