OpEds: The downfall of Bo Xilai in China

By John Chan, WSWS.ORG
Thank you, WSWS. 

 

The dramatic downfall of Bo Xilai (above), a former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committee and politburo member, is a sharp expression of the deepening political and economic crisis in China.

Bo was stripped of his post as party secretary in Chongqing last month, then arrested. He faces serious corruption charges and could face the death penalty over the alleged murders of his wife’s British business partner Neil Heywood and at least two policemen who refused to cover it up. Until the allegations emerged, Bo had been considered a candidate for the CCP’s top body—the Politburo Standing Committee—in the leadership change due later this year.

Bo, who was known for his populist criticisms of the country’s wealthy elite, presented himself as a “servant of the people” on a salary of $26,000 a year and his wife, Gu Kailai, as a stay-at-home mother. In fact, relying on Bo’s political influence, Gu, according to Bloomberg News, “controlled a web of businesses from Beijing to Hong Kong to the Caribbean worth at least $126-million.” Their son, who went to the elite Harrow private school in Britain, is now studying at Harvard and is notorious for driving expensive sports cars. 

Neil Heywood (left) reportedly was part of Bo’s “inner circle,” lining up foreign investors for Bo’s fiefdoms in China and helping the family to transfer huge sums of money abroad. He was found dead last November—allegedly poisoned by Bo’s wife. A cover-up fell apart after a police team refused to sign a document declaring Heywood had died of excessive alcohol consumption. 

The case of Bo is so politically sensitive precisely because it exposes the staggering levels of corruption at the very top levels of the party and state apparatus. It has further undermined the legitimacy of the capitalist class that has emerged in China as a result of the processes of capitalist restoration since the 1970s, fuelling deep popular anger and resentment.

Recent statistics compiled by the Chinese Academic of Social Sciences (CASS) conservatively estimated that some 18,000 officials had transferred illicit money to the tune of $123 billion out of the country from 1990 to 2008.  

 

 

 

 

 

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