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Thursday 12 April 2012
Bo a victim of his own ambition
Rising star, destined to become a key member of the new
leadership, who went the way of countless others in history and failed in the
pursuit of ultimate glory
Rising star, destined to become a key member of the new leadership, who went the way of countless others in history and failed in the pursuit of ultimate glory
Wang Xiangwei 12 April 2012
“Legitimacy belongs to the victor; losers are always in the wrong.”
For thousands of years of Chinese history, that phrase has inspired countless ambitious peasant bandits and generals alike to seek the ultimate glory of being crowned king.
Although victors were few and far between, with most contenders ending up badly defeated and usually beheaded, that has not prevented them from trying to seize power.
In this context, it is not difficult to understand why Bo Xilai has become a victim of his own ambitions by pursuing a course that has led to his spectacular fall from grace.
The irony will not be lost on many mainlanders that, until a few months ago, Bo, the flamboyant and controversial party secretary of Chongqing , would have looked certain to become a key member of the new leadership to be unveiled at the Communist Party’s 18th Congress, scheduled to be held in the autumn. But Bo’s fate changed on February 6 when Wang Lijun , his right-hand man and former police chief of Chongqing, walked into the US consulate in Chengdu with incriminating evidence against Bo and Bo’s wife, triggering one of China’s biggest political crises of recent decades.
As analysts have pointed out, Bo’s character had the hallmarks of a typical populist politician easily found in a Western country - smart, abrasive, ruthless and media-savvy (he has a master’s degree in journalism).
He is anything but dull and wooden, which are the characteristics of the mainland bureaucrats who seek to rule by consensus and hide their true colours behind the tightly scripted propaganda.
Much has been written about how Bo has become the flag-bearer of the country’s rising neo-leftists and took advantage of the widespread discontent over the widening income gap and rampant official corruption by launching the twin campaigns of “striking black and singing red” in Chongqing.
The campaigns won him popular support nationwide but caused considerable anxiety among the reformists and liberals, who accused him of disregarding the law and human rights and recalling the painful memories of the Cultural Revolution.
As a man of many contradictions, Bo is hardly the person who wanted to bring back another Cultural Revolution, not least because he and his family members, including his father, a revolutionary veteran, suffered terribly during that period.
As the mayor of Dalian , later as the Minister of Commerce, and then party chief of Chongqing, Bo, speaking in accented but fluent English, has long been known as business friendly.
In Dalian and in Chongqing, he tried hard to woo foreign investment by cutting red tape and meting out preferential policies.
He is credited with turning the sleepy port of Dalian into a modern metropolis and, in Chongqing, he has pushed for comprehensive policies to push for urbanisation and other business-friendly agendas.
Other analysts have argued that his pedigree as a high-powered princeling led him to take bigger and reckless risks.
But according to people who know him, Bo’s downfall, though triggered by one incident, was inevitable and had much to do with his troubled youth and his formative years in the northeastern province of Liaoning .
Bo was born in 1949 into a family of prominent revolutionaries and his father, Bo Yibo , one of the founders of the People’s Republic, was a high-ranking government official.
Bo was just 17 years old when the Cultural Revolution started. After his father was purged, the younger Bo spent five years in jail, which had a big impact on the formation of his character, moulding him into someone unruly and high-handed when dealing with people.
One example is that after he was promoted to become the party chief of Chongqing in 2007, he brought with him not only his secretary but also his top adviser at the Ministry of Commerce. Later, he even managed to bring along Wang Lijun, who had worked with him in Liaoning.
These appointments, though seemingly innocent to outsiders, broke a time-honoured tradition within the party’s leadership that once a senior official is transferred he may take with him only his own secretary to the new position.
Also, Bo spent nearly 20 years in Liaoning working his way up from deputy county chief to Liaoning governor from 1984 to 2003.
He was believed to be heavily influenced by the so-called Jianghu culture, which was developed in the wild years of bandits and secret societies in the 1920s and 1930s and is still prevalent in much of the northeastern provinces.
The code values loyalty and camaraderie above all else and calls for severe punishments for betrayal.
After failing to secure a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th Congress in 2007, Bo appeared determined to do something big and different at the 18th Congress - hence his high-profile campaigns, even though he well knew top leaders including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao disapproved of these.
By then, it was already very clear to him that he would be either a victor or a loser.
2 comments:
Bo a victim of his own ambition
Rising star, destined to become a key member of the new leadership, who went the way of countless others in history and failed in the pursuit of ultimate glory
Wang Xiangwei
12 April 2012
“Legitimacy belongs to the victor; losers are always in the wrong.”
For thousands of years of Chinese history, that phrase has inspired countless ambitious peasant bandits and generals alike to seek the ultimate glory of being crowned king.
Although victors were few and far between, with most contenders ending up badly defeated and usually beheaded, that has not prevented them from trying to seize power.
In this context, it is not difficult to understand why Bo Xilai has become a victim of his own ambitions by pursuing a course that has led to his spectacular fall from grace.
The irony will not be lost on many mainlanders that, until a few months ago, Bo, the flamboyant and controversial party secretary of Chongqing , would have looked certain to become a key member of the new leadership to be unveiled at the Communist Party’s 18th Congress, scheduled to be held in the autumn. But Bo’s fate changed on February 6 when Wang Lijun , his right-hand man and former police chief of Chongqing, walked into the US consulate in Chengdu with incriminating evidence against Bo and Bo’s wife, triggering one of China’s biggest political crises of recent decades.
As analysts have pointed out, Bo’s character had the hallmarks of a typical populist politician easily found in a Western country - smart, abrasive, ruthless and media-savvy (he has a master’s degree in journalism).
He is anything but dull and wooden, which are the characteristics of the mainland bureaucrats who seek to rule by consensus and hide their true colours behind the tightly scripted propaganda.
Much has been written about how Bo has become the flag-bearer of the country’s rising neo-leftists and took advantage of the widespread discontent over the widening income gap and rampant official corruption by launching the twin campaigns of “striking black and singing red” in Chongqing.
The campaigns won him popular support nationwide but caused considerable anxiety among the reformists and liberals, who accused him of disregarding the law and human rights and recalling the painful memories of the Cultural Revolution.
As a man of many contradictions, Bo is hardly the person who wanted to bring back another Cultural Revolution, not least because he and his family members, including his father, a revolutionary veteran, suffered terribly during that period.
As the mayor of Dalian , later as the Minister of Commerce, and then party chief of Chongqing, Bo, speaking in accented but fluent English, has long been known as business friendly.
In Dalian and in Chongqing, he tried hard to woo foreign investment by cutting red tape and meting out preferential policies.
He is credited with turning the sleepy port of Dalian into a modern metropolis and, in Chongqing, he has pushed for comprehensive policies to push for urbanisation and other business-friendly agendas.
Other analysts have argued that his pedigree as a high-powered princeling led him to take bigger and reckless risks.
But according to people who know him, Bo’s downfall, though triggered by one incident, was inevitable and had much to do with his troubled youth and his formative years in the northeastern province of Liaoning .
Bo was born in 1949 into a family of prominent revolutionaries and his father, Bo Yibo , one of the founders of the People’s Republic, was a high-ranking government official.
Bo was just 17 years old when the Cultural Revolution started. After his father was purged, the younger Bo spent five years in jail, which had a big impact on the formation of his character, moulding him into someone unruly and high-handed when dealing with people.
One example is that after he was promoted to become the party chief of Chongqing in 2007, he brought with him not only his secretary but also his top adviser at the Ministry of Commerce. Later, he even managed to bring along Wang Lijun, who had worked with him in Liaoning.
These appointments, though seemingly innocent to outsiders, broke a time-honoured tradition within the party’s leadership that once a senior official is transferred he may take with him only his own secretary to the new position.
Also, Bo spent nearly 20 years in Liaoning working his way up from deputy county chief to Liaoning governor from 1984 to 2003.
He was believed to be heavily influenced by the so-called Jianghu culture, which was developed in the wild years of bandits and secret societies in the 1920s and 1930s and is still prevalent in much of the northeastern provinces.
The code values loyalty and camaraderie above all else and calls for severe punishments for betrayal.
After failing to secure a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th Congress in 2007, Bo appeared determined to do something big and different at the 18th Congress - hence his high-profile campaigns, even though he well knew top leaders including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao disapproved of these.
By then, it was already very clear to him that he would be either a victor or a loser.
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