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Greater China
Mar 27, 2012
Crisis closes in on China's inner circle
By Chris Stewart
Zhou Yongkang, a member of China's ruling Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and head of the country's 1.5 million-strong police force, is the latest and most senior leader to fall in the battle for control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) if rumors of his downfall have any substance. It was certainly a fall foretold.
Rumors late last week of Zhou's crash from grace came after talk of an attempted coup in Beijing last Monday night or early on Tuesday, supposedly linked to his protege Bo Xilai, former party boss of the strategically important Chongqing municipality and until his dismissal this month a contender to succeed Zhou on the PSC when he steps down in November.
Bo's dismissal, announced on March 14, was "the most important political event in China in more than two decades"; that is, since the party schism that opened over the crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He is now reportedly under arrest, though still a member of the 25-strong politburo, the stepping stone to the PSC. Any denunciation of Zhou would overshadow those events by a large margin. [1-3]
Existing PSC members have only until October to decide, with consultation down the line, on seven replacements to the nine-member body for approval by more than 2,000 delegates at the 18th National Congress of the CCP.
Vice President Xi Jinping, as things stand, is the presumptive president, Vice Premier Li Keqiang presumptive prime minister, in a once-in-a-decade change of the top two PSC posts. Only two, perhaps three, of the remaining vacancies are considered still unsettled. About 70% of the members of the Central Military Commission and the executive committee of the State Council, or cabinet, will also be changed.
Deep divisions exist in the PSC and the country at large over what the new government should do with its vast new wealth, and who should get their hands on it over the next 10 years. Zhou is reported to control the state monopoly of the oil sector as well as being head of the Political and Legal Committee. [4, 5]
The stakes could not be higher. Bo's downfall alters the balance of political forces involved in the selection process. Effective removal of Zhou, close to still powerful former president Jiang Zemin, could be akin to knocking over the chessboard. The future strength of putative president Xi Jinping, like Bo a "princeling" - son of a revolutionary - may be undermined.
The influence of Jiang, a promoter of the careers of Zhou, Bo and Xi, is being questioned in full public view. Coup rumors, however credible, ring truer by the day - on Friday, army officials in Shaanxi province west of Beijing called on the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to unite behind President Hu. [6]
The March 19 'coup' - real, attempted or non-existent?
Stock and bond market traders were among the first to hear of a Beijing "coup" early last Tuesday, March 20, thanks to reports sent out by, among others, United States market website Nasdaq.com, which at 4:53 am New York Time (09:55 GMT), identified "rumors" of a coup without saying where it got the information.
An hour later, at 10.41 GMT, fxstreet.com reported the same rumors in its "Morning Wrap" of breaking news for market traders, this time citing "Epoch Times" as the source, though failing to mention that Epoch Times' own source was another financial writer, Li Delin, "who is on the editorial board of Securities Market Weekly and lives in Dongcheng district of Beijing". [7, 8]
The prospect of a coup attempt in the world's second-biggest economy should have stunned markets - but they appear to have been unimpressed, given the absence of any physical sign of military activity in the capital.
Shares traded in Shanghai fell a mere 1.4%, although a 10 basis point jump in the cost of buying insurance on Chinese government debt and a 15% surge in the volume of shares traded, the most since November 9, indicated some traders were hewing to the market dictum of "buy on the rumor, sell on the news". [9]
Bo Xilai's name has since mid-February been linked by Epoch Times to a coup plot and identified Zhou as necessarily the next to fall. (At the time of writing, Zhou was seen on Friday, March 23, but failed to meet visiting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Saturday, despite the previous day anticipating a discussion.) [10]
Epoch Times reports are treated warily by the mainstream press for several reasons. Not least, it is backed by the Falungong spiritual group. Its teachings can be as beyond the non-believer's comprehension as those of any faith. The group also claims Bo and his former police chief Wang Lijun led a brutal (and award-winning) campaign of repression of the Falungong, including torture and live organ transplants, after then-president Jiang banned the group, with its membership of millions, in the late 1990s. [11]
The Falungong have strong support in the US Congress (see below), and still have large numbers of adherents in China subject to arrest for practicing their beliefs.
Epoch Times, in short, has an ax to grind. Its reports noticeably differ from mainstream publications in not favoring labels such as "rightist", "ultra-left", "charismatic" and so forth, to explain complex affairs. It seems to eschew the tag "reform", perhaps given Falungong's insights into how the CCP works. (For a graphic explanation of the pointlessness of these labels in the present context, see [12]).
The thread that Epoch Times runs through the CCP maze goes like this. A coup, initially timed for early next year, was to target the presumptive president Xi Jinping after he succeeded Hu Jintao in November's shake-up. [13] By the end of this year, Bo was to have followed Zhou Yongkang into the PSC, taking control of the public security forces, which would help supply the post-handover coup firepower.
Implicitly upsetting the coup apple cart, if there was one, was the intervening denunciation this month of Bo. Events had to be brought forward, making President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao the "coup" targets, as claimed on Chinese blogs last Tuesday.
Late last week, Mingjing News, a US-based website said to be affiliated to the "faction" of former president Jiang Zemin, opposed to the incumbent president, came out with its own version of the Bo-Zhou coup plot "to block the expected succession of Chinese vice president XI Jinping", Taiwan's Want China Times reported on March 22. Jiang has allegedly called Zhou a traitor for backing Bo, the report said. [14]
Race to the tape
The present crisis was triggered by the flight of former Chongqing Public Security chief Wang Lijun to the US consulate in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province adjoining Chongqing, carrying with him evidence of wrongdoing by Bo, Epoch Times reports, in line with other media. Its account then diverges from the trodden path.
Premier Wen, seeking a way to secure Bo's downfall for purely political reasons, had initiated investigation of Wang late in 2011, the website said on February 15, with the fruits of those inquiries to be used to undermine Bo. (Alternatively, He Guoqiang, former Chongqing party boss and current head of the disciplinary committee of the central CCP committee, initiated the probe; Bo previously executed He's Chongqing police chief.) [15, 16]
Bo got wind of the investigation, and on February 2 this year distanced himself from Wang by dropping him from his post as head of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau. (After his own downfall, he would have to go a step further and denounce Zhou to save his own skin, Epoch Times commented on February 16. [17]
Four days later, Wang did a runner - to secure political asylum, if lucky; more probably to see that (a) the US was made aware of his anti-Bo evidence, and (b) to ensure that he would be picked up by Beijing security forces rather than by the hotly pursuing Bo, in the form of Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan. [18]
The secrets Wang carried to the consulate included, according to Epoch Times, a plan, that also implicated nationwide police chief Zhou, to stage a coup against Xi. The evidence included a tape in which Bo proclaimed in damning and imperial terms his superiority over the present leadership, the report said on March 5, citing the "dissident" Boxun Chinese-language web site:
On the tape, Bo is reported to have said that former head of the CCP Jiang Zemin is the "current Empress Dowager Cixi'' - a powerful and charismatic woman who unofficially but effectively controlled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years, from 1861 to 1908.
Bo described current CCP head Hu Jintao as the "Emperor Xian of Han", who was the last emperor (reigned 189-220) of the Han Dynasty and was thought to be nothing but a puppet, with even Han loyalists abusing his sovereignty.
Bo also talked about [vice president] Xi Jinping, ticketed to succeed Hu at the 18th Party Congress later this year. Bo said Xi is "Liu E'dou," the infant name of Liu Shan, the second and last emperor of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history. Liu Shan was commonly perceived as an incapable, even retarded ruler.
Bo said it is he that will lead China into its future, not the current nine incompetent and mentally retarded members, nor the new "incompetent and mentally retarded" members selected by the current members. Bo is referring to the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo ... [ 19]
Epoch Times continues:
The Boxun report went on to say that Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai had accumulated 8 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) before they moved from northeastern Liaoning province to Chongqing. Bo is said to have now transferred most of his money to the United States, Canada, Britain and France.
On February 13, the PSC agreed to a special investigation task force into the Wang Lijun affair; Jiang "insisted on the investigation", Epoch Times reported, commenting this was understood to be Jiang severing links to Bo. It cited Mingjing News, "connected to the political faction headed by Jiang Zemin" as the source. [20]
At the time of the decision, Vice President Xi Jinping, a recognized protege of Jiang, was set to fly to Washington, where he arrived "late on February 13" local time after a flight that takes 12 hours commercially; meaning he had to leave Beijing by midnight at the latest on February 13. His involvement in this decision - which could crucially affect the strength of his political support on the PSC when president - is not clear.
On March 20, the LA Times and other mainstream news outlets reported that a video recording posted on YouTube "purports to be a briefing made Friday to party officials in Chongqing explaining that Bo was dismissed because he tried to cover up a police investigation that touched on his family". The LA Times account said the US-based Boxun website published a Chinese-language transcript of the recording. [21]
The scandal around Bo's wealth is a decade old: journalist Jiang Weiping was jailed for six years in 2001, charged with supplying state secrets, after reporting on the finances of Bo and his family. He now lives in Canada, recipient of a Committee to Protect Journalists award. Details were also included in an Epoch Times report on February 14, saying Chinese government news agency Xinhua had also reported this, with uncensored Internet discussion of the topic allowed. [22, 23]
Success in Chongqing
Chongqing, a geographically small region with around 30 million people packed into an area the size of Scotland or South Carolina, is an important hub for road, rail transport between the vast southwest of Sichuan and Tibet and more northerly and eastern parts of China.
Bo's political success there is based on the view that he has built up the city's already booming wealth, cleaned out the local thugs, and attracted overseas investment. He pledged to built housing for 2.4 million people earning $480 or less a month. [24] Critics questioned the math, but the self-publicity persuaded some he was a shoo-in for the PSC.
Bo's last reported public appearances in Chongqing were with former Macau chief executive Edmund Ho on February 23, and with Taiwan's Terry Gou, boss of Apple iPhone maker Foxconn, China's largest employer with up to 1.3 million workers. Both meetings were seen as defiant demonstrations of strength. [25]
Another view, put by Epoch Times, is that Bo funded his political campaign with assets seized from local triad gangsters (with one notable exception, according to a report linking Bo's downfall to Macau that cites Economic Monitor, run by the US economist Nouriel Roubini). [26] Similar fates faced politicians and businessmen, (some innocent, as recounted by the Financial Times on March 4). [27]
Bo has also built on local disillusionment in political and military circles across the southwest, including Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet, to establish a base that would give him the strength to defy Beijing. [28]
The triad clear-out, overseen by later runaway police chief Wang, was tied to a revival of Mao Zedong-era enthusiasm for communist principles, expressed through mass sing-alongs. The campaigns were flagged by a much-bannered slogan translatable as "Striking Black and Singing Red". Originating political campaigns is the function of the central government, Epoch Times points out. "It is unheard of" for a provincial (in this case municipal) bureaucrat to launch one on his own initiative - let alone two simultaneously.
The campaigns were too successful for President Hu's and Premier Wen's liking; both leaders proclaim the need for "reform", but not in the direction Bo urges, or with such outright populism. Yet loyalty to communist principles and driving out corruption are both core goals of the Hu presidency. Other reasons had to be found to dislodge Bo. [29]
Bo's basis for seeking the presidency has several layers, according to Epoch Times, using widely sourced and cited material.
1. He considers the present leadership of President Hu and Prime Minister Wen as weak, and ineffectual (as in the "consulate" tape above). Those opinions are apparently widely shared, not least in the army. Senior officers with similar views were mentioned in Hong Kong's Sing Pao Daily News last April. Epoch Times quotes one senior officer, named as a chief-of-staff Zhang Musheng, as stating at a book launch, "Our country has been led into a serious political and social crisis by some weak, useless and inhuman leaders." [30]
This weakness was, ironically, reflected in a speech Hu made last July, after nine years in office, when he warned party members of a "lack of drive, incompetence, a divorce from the people, a lack of initiative, and corruption". [31]
2. Bo believes control of China is his birthright. His father, Bo Yibo (b 1908) was one of the "Eight Elders of the Communist Party of China" and a minister of finance. After a long period of imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, when his wife was beaten to death, he was rehabilitated and was among those who urged a crackdown during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
One example of Bo's tendency to flaunt his ambitions: a prominent neon sign in Chongqing that proclaimed " 'Secretary Bo, You Work Hard', an obvious reference to a slogan popular from Mao’s days, "Grandpa Mao, You Work Hard!".
3. He considers he has the military muscle from like-minded officers to defy Beijing if necessary; or show he has the support necessary to achieve PSC status peacefully.
Bo feels he has widespread backing across a range of interests. In a February 16 article, Epoch Times linked:
(i) His military support to soldiers' discontent across the vast southwest over low pay relative to other regions. Military forces in Yunnan, bordering Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, have "the status of a secondary army";
ii) His local political support to taxes on medium- and state-owned enterprises, many of which are based in Chongqing, now going to the central government. That is helping to drag local authorities towards bankruptcy (carrying echoes of the 1911 revolution, which was initiated in southern China, ended the Qing Dynasty and established the republic);
iii) Civilian support to a false appreciation of Bo's charismatic nature and the benefits, such as social housing, he claims to bring them. [32]
Matters moved to a head late last year, when on November 12, Bo displayed his muscle, and defiance of central authority, through military exercises held in Chongqing, reports Epoch Times, timed to coincide with President Hu being out of the country, attending a conference of Asia and Pacific leaders in Hawaii. (The exercises also coincided with the last time credit default swaps on Chinese debt surged as high as they did during last Tuesday's "coup" scare. [33 ]
Officials who presented the military exercises included: Liang Guanglie, member of the Central Military Commission and state councilor and minister for National Defense; Li Shiming, Chengdu Military Region commander; Tian Xiusi, political commissar; Liu Changyin, deputy political commissar; Yang Jinshan, commander of the Tibetan Military Region; Jiang Jufeng, governor of Sichuan Province; Zhao Kezhi, governor of Guizhou Province; Huang Qifan, mayor of Chongqing City; Li Jiheng, acting governor of Yunnan Province and vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional government.
[34] (Immediately after Bo was exposed by Wang's flight to the US consulate, he visited the 14th Army Group in Yunnan, an area where his father held influence, on February 8 and 9, according to one report citing Chongqing Daily.) [35]
After Hu returned to Beijing from Hawaii, "all the top military generals" on January 12 this year "made a public statement supporting Hu's arrangements for the upcoming Chinese leadership changes", Epoch Times reported. [36] After receiving those pledges of loyalty, Hu set in train his entrapment of Wang and hence Bo, it said.
Why the power grab?
Before and after his fall, Bo has been consistently portrayed as a front-runner, among only a few others, for nomination to the Politburo Standing Committee. If that is the case, why such preparations to grab supreme power, if true?
His ambition to hold only the top job is one reason, according to Epoch Times. That may have been sharpened by setbacks along the way, including being passed over for promotion to the party central committee in 1998. But there were increasing signs that he was being isolated by senior party members. Last June, he took to Beijing a troupe to sing Mao-era anthems; none of the PSC attended, demonstrating publicly his isolation. [37]
More seriously, Bo knew at least a year ago, though most certainly before, that circumstances that led to his failure to secure a PSC seat in 2008 could still hold this year. According to a US consulate memo made public in the WikiLeaks trove released in November 2010, based on well-informed opinion, Bo would be excluded from the top table due to:
(i) The disdain of colleagues, potentially fatal when choosing someone to make joint decisions in any government.
(ii) Numerous lawsuits pursued around the world against Bo by Falungong would be embarrassing for the government if Bo were elevated to the PSC.
The late 2007 consulate memo states that one Luo Yi predicted that Bo's recent transfer to be party secretary in Chongqing "will be his final career move". Luo was then chief China representative of Carlyle Group, at the time the world's biggest private equity company.
The memo also noted that Nanjing University Professor Gu Su said in a November 27, 2011, discussion,
Bo's move to Chongqing puts an ambitious, arrogant and widely disliked competitor for a top position in a trouble-filled position far from Beijing. Gu noted that Bo had been angling for promotion to Vice Premier.
However, Premier Wen had argued against the promotion, citing the numerous lawsuits brought against Bo in Australia, Spain, Canada, England, the United States, and elsewhere by Falungong members.
Wen successfully argued Bo's significant negative international exposure made him an inappropriate candidate to represent China at an even higher international level.
Wen's arguments found fertile soil among officials who still harbor resentment against Bo for his treatment of his family - particularly his father - during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In order to make himself politically above reproach, Bo, at the time, had made a public statement denouncing his father and renouncing his kinship ties. Gu said that people value familial feelings above all else and many see Bo as a "base traitor" who is "less than human" for his actions. [38]
Bo's still influential father died in January 2007; Bo Junior was banished to Chongqing 11 months later; a further five years on, he is incarcerated by his political opponents, just as his father was some 50 years ago.
When Wen eventually got around to denouncing Bo after dragging out a news conference on March 14, he committed the party to reform and added that "the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution and feudalism have not been completely eliminated" - construed as a reference Bo Xilai’s "singing red songs" campaign.
In bringing up the party's decision to commit to reform and opening up in the context of Wang Lijun, while criticizing the Cultural Revolution, Wen made the basis of the competition with Bo not merely one of a competition for power - Wen reintroduced into the party "what had not been seen since Mao's time - a struggle between two ideological lines". [39 ]
If Bo wanted to save himself from accountability for his "Smashing the Black" campaign, with at least 2,000 arrests and 13 executions, he had to bring down his patron, PSC member Zhou, Epoch Times said on March 19 - which he sought to do in public in Beijing this month. Zhou's Political and Law Committee (PLC) has authority over all of the nation's police; it also overseas all the law courts, procuratorate and associated organizations. The body, established by Jiang Zemin in the early 1980s, has "over the past 10 years become the most powerful and most notorious instrument of the party" as it pursues wei wen, or "maintaining stability", says Epoch Times.
As Bo mentioned during the Chongqing media day at the National People's Congress, the "Smashing the Black" campaign in Chongqing was the joint effort of the Public Security, the court, the procuratorate, the state security, the armed police, and the Discipline Inspection Commission, under the coordination of the PLC .... That made Zhou Yongkang [not Bo] the real threat to Hu, Wen, and probably Xi. [40]
Epoch Times' account of Bo's downfall is open to criticism; nor does the Falungong have cause to celebrate, as it faces a new three-year campaign of oppression, according to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), last March. [41]
Bearing out Wen's supposed premonitions, the CECC on February 14 this year told Vice President and Hu's heir apparent Xi Jinping, during his much-heralded visit to Washington, "to take concrete steps to improve human rights and the rule of law in China" and "reverse the course of his predecessors". [42] Specifically, among other demands, it said Xi should protect the freedom of religion and spiritual belief of all those in China, whether they be Buddhists, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics or Falungong practitioners".
Bo down, Zhou tottering - this is the patriarchal form of ex-president Jiang Zemin, reports of his death last year premature, marshaling his forces as best he can to ensure his political legacy lasts into the next generation of the PSC.
Back in Chongqing, Jiang's nephew, Tai Zhan, has been appointed to help run the municipal government [43] - to garner its riches or clear up the mess, who knows?
He Ting, a former head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Ministry of Public Security, is the new boss of the local Public Security Bureau, Wang Lijun's old job, Xinhua reported on March 23. That meant short tenure for Guan Haixiang, the initial replacement for Wang and reportedly President Hu's ally. [44]
From Beijing to Chongqing and no doubt beyond, the bodies are piling up as silk and cashmere-suited party hacks, infused with a toxic brew of Marx, Lenin, Bernanke and nationalism, jostle and arrange murder as they squeeze to grab the best seats in the political train careering to its ultimate destination in Beijing this autumn.
On the sidelines, disenchanted civilians in their millions, wondering what will survive the wreckage of the impending party meeting, watch on through their blocked then unblocked Internet searches.
In case they have any thoughts of getting uppity, "reformist" Premier Wen last month told the National People's Congress that the party "will strengthen and improve the system of public security. We will improve the contingency response system, and enhance society's capacity to manage crises and withstand risks". That means more power for the seat Bo so cherishes, with or without a president Xi in charge. What a party this is.
Notes
1. See, for example, Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times March 15.
2. See Bo Xilai Placed Under House Arrest, Reports Suggest, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 22, citing "Jiang affiliated" Foreign Reference News.
3. Why Zhou Yongkang is Doomed to Follow Bo Xilai Expect Zhou to be fired from his posts as the struggle inside the CCP continues, Epoch Times, March 19, updated March 22.
4. Bo Ouster Means State Capitalism in China Will Fade, Zhang Says Bloomberg News March 20.
5. See WikiLeaks: China's Politburo a cabal of business empires, The Telegraph, December 6, 2010.
6. Military official urges PLA to 'unite' behind Hu: Xinhua, Want China Times, March 25, citing Xinhua.
7. See community.nasdaq.com.
8. See Europe morning wrap: China in focus, fxstreet.com, March 20, and Coup in Beijing, Says Chinese Internet Rumor Mill, Epoch Times, March 20. The Epoch Times.
9. China's Stocks Fall Most in Almost a Week on Profit Concerns, Bloomberg News, March 20, and Beijing Calm as Cost of Insuring Chinese Government Debt Rises Bloomberg News, March 20.
10. In absence of facts, rumors of coup take centre stage, South China Morning Post, March 26.
11. See Would-be China Defector, Once Bo Xilai's Right Hand, Oversaw Organ Harvesting: Former Chongqing vice mayor involved in 'thousands' of transplantation operations, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 20, and here for Chinese-language for award citation for Wang Lijun.
12. [Tea Leaf Nation graphic on "left", "right" and "reform" in Chinese politics, see here
13. Chinese Would-Be Defector May Have Revealed Coup Plot to US, Epoch Times, February 16.
14. Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang were planning coup, Want China Times, March 20.
15. Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17.
16. See Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle, Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17. On February 16, Epoch Times stated: "One of the previous Party chiefs of Chongqing was He Guoqiang, the current head of the Disciplinary Committee of the Central Chinese Communist Party Committee. He was very angry at how Wang and Bo treated his former associates in Chongqing and quietly began collecting evidence against Wang. By the end of the last year, He put several of Wang's former associates in the Tieling Police Bureau in Liaoning Province in jail for the crime of corruption, and obtained evidence of Wang's own crimes." The same report is replete with dating errors.
17. Will Western China Party Chief Become a Warlord? Bo Xilai's advancement blocked, but he has resources close to home, Epoch Times, February 167, updated February 24.
18. Bo Xilai's Conspiracy Is Just the Beginning, Others have ideas for displacing a weak CCP leadership, Epoch Times, March 7, updated March 11 and see Wall Street Journal , March 5, for an account by Huang.
19. Bo Xilai Recorded Proclaiming Himself China's Future, Website Says Chongqing Party chieftain showers CCP leaders with contempt, Epoch Times, March 5, updated March 14.
20. Reading the Bo Xilai Tea Leaves, US can tell the Chinese public what Wang Lijun knows, Epoch Times, March 1, updated March 8.
21 See Leaked video sheds light on controversial U.S. asylum bid in China, LA Times, March 20.
22. see Committee to Protect Journalists), Jiang Weiping: Awardee 2001.
23. Attempted Defection Reveals Depth of Power Struggle in China, Epoch Times, February 14, updated February 17.
24. See Forbes, March 15.
25. Reading the Bo Xilai Tea Leaves, US can tell the Chinese public what Wang Lijun knows, Epoch Times, March 1, updated March 8. See here for Foxconn employment. .
26. See Report links ousted Bo Xilai to Macau .
27. See Chinese infighting: Secrets of a succession war, The tale of a billionaire allegedly tortured in a crime crackdown offers a rare glimpse into infighting among the political elite, Financial Times, March 4, 2012.
28. See Will Western China Party Chief Become a Warlord? Bo Xilai's advancement blocked, but he has resources close to home, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
29. The Ouster of Bo Xilai Is Only the Beginning, An ideological power struggle has started in Beijing, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 25 30. See Bo Xilai's Conspiracy Is Just the Beginning Others have ideas for displacing a weak CCP leadership, Epoch Times, March 7, updated March 11.
31. See
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-07/20/content_12939016.htm China Daily, July 20, 2011.
32. See Will Western Chinese Party Chief Become A Warlord, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
33. Beijing Calm as Cost of Insuring Chinese Government Debt Rises Bloomberg News, March 20.
34. See Will Western Chinese Party Chief Become A Warlord, Epoch Times, February 16, updated February 24.
35. See Bo Xilai Seeks Support from his Father's Subordinates, also for further details of Jiang Zemin's debts to Bo's father and family.
36. Chinese Communist Party Head Targets Challenger Bo Xilai for Power, Chongqing Party chief looks like loser in power struggle Epoch Times, February 15, updated February 17.
37. See Arrest of Chongqing's Top Cop Suggests City's Communist Party Leader in Jeopardy, Shake up taking place in highest ranks of Chinese regime, Epoch Times, February 12, updated February 18.
38. See leakoverflow .
39. For an amusing account of Wen's use of reporters on this occasion, see The Ouster of Bo Xilai Is Only the Beginning, An ideological power struggle has started in Beijing, Epoch Times, March 20, updated March 25.
40. See Why Zhou Yongkang is Doomed to Follow Bo Xilai, Expect Zhou to be fired from his posts as the struggle inside the CCP continues, Epoch Times, March 19, updated March 22.
41. See Communist Party Calls for Increased Efforts To "Transform" Falun Gong Practitioners as Part of Three-Year Campaign . The CECC reports annually to the president and congress. Its account says that in 2010 "a three-year, national campaign had been launched in China that calls on local governments, Party organizations, businesses, and individuals to increase efforts to implement 'transformation through reeducation' ... against Falun Gong practitioners. Documents call on local governments to cooperate with Party organizations, or to make use of businesses or family members of Falun Gong practitioners to increase efforts to 'transform' Falun Gong practitioners.
42. See here.
43. See NDTV broadcast.
44. See here.
Chris Stewart is Asia Times Online's business editor.
Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.
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