MCLC: Bo Xilai-Wang Yang love fest

Denton, Kirk denton.2 at osu.edu
Thu Dec 15 09:57:20 EST 2011


MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Bo Xilai-Wang Yang love fest
***********************************************************

Source: Wall Street Journal (12/15/11):
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/12/15/in-chinaa-strange-love-fest-b
etween-political-rivals-bo-xilai-wang-yang/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=chinablog

A Strange Love Fest Between Political Rivals
By Russell Leigh Moses

At the same time that a central leadership meeting on holding the economy
together was getting underway in Beijing, a far stranger get-together took
place on the sidelines.

Representatives of the municipality of Chongqing and Guangdong province
met earlier this week and signed a deal to widen and deepen regional
cooperation (story in Chinese
<http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/16570419.html>). The agreement came on
the second year anniversary of a previous accord; like the first, the pact
focuses on economic exchanges, market opening, investment, and other
industrial undertakings.

None of that is especially noteworthy, given that one major focus of the
Hu leadership has been to recentralize economic decision-making at the
top, in part by breaking down the barriers on inter-provincial trade and
compelling regional officials to answer to Beijing.

What¹s stunning about the meeting, however, was the mutual admiration that
appears to have broken out suddenly between political rivals Bo Xilai and
Wang Yang, the Communist Party chiefs of Chongqing and Guangdong
respectively.

In his public remarks published in Chongqing Daily and reprinted in the
central media <http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/14562/16583722.html>, Bo
was lavish in his praise of Wang, his predecessor in Chongqing, saying
that ³today, we sit together with Comrade Wang Yang [who] during his time
in Chongqing led us all to lay the foundations, worked for long-term plans
and significant events, and gave important meaning to the present
conditions of the people of Chongqing.² Bo went on to say that when he
spoke to Wang, he was ³brimming over with true feelings², noting that ³the
old saying of the first step is the most difficult² applied to Wang¹s
contribution to Chongqing¹s present development.

All of this from the same Bo Xilai who has not been at all shy about
making a clean sweep of Wang¹s legacy, especially as Wang is considered by
many officials there to have skipped town abruptly, leaving behind a city
they saw as half-completed and in social disarray.

For his part, Wang Yang said that even after he departed Chongqing, he
³remained concerned² with its well-being, even so far as to plant a native
tree from Chongqing downstairs from his office to watch its development.
Passing it every day after he left work, Wang said, he was reminded of his
time there. While his praise of Bo personally was spare and not nearly as
effusive as the remarks made by his successor, Wang noted that he was
³emotionally gratified and proud² of the progress made in Chongqing since
his exit, implying that Bo was not the disruptor he had made out to be,
but a fine economic partner.

What¹s going on?

For all the good fellowship displayed at the meeting, these two remain
competitors. After all, Bo has made his national name recently by remaking
Chongqing and being different from Wang where politics is concerned.

Bo¹s methods‹the Chongqing political model­emphasize the red glare of
populism and nostalgia amid the gleam of urban reconstruction. Wang, on
the other hand, has been promoting the notion of a wider responsibility
for government in Guangdong; that Party officials should be judged not on
the renovations they produce, but the social happiness they provide for a
public pressed by the stresses and strains of modern city life. While Bo
may be pining for a return to politics practiced by the masses, Wang wants
to reorient politics towards the masses, away from a focus on elites and
infrastructure exclusively.

The problem for both Bo and Wang is that the central leadership does not
need any more rivalries; it¹s riven quite enough by debates about how to
handle the economic slowdown and what should be done about those sections
of society here that are growing increasingly disgruntled. (An example of
just how disgruntled some have become is the village of Wukan, in Wang¹s
backyard, where residents angry over land seizures have erupted in open
revolt against the local government
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203518404577097532246936046.
html>.)

Unfortunately for Bo and Wang, the space for fighting has naorrwed. The
hardline center in the Party still holds the advantage. Bo and Wang have
been brought to heel. Their inclusion the economic summit here depended on
their willingness to come to some common ground and to do so publicly.

It would be nice to think that Bo and Wang have made amends, that some
middle ground in the political landscape has finally been reached. But Bo
and Wang did not jump; they were pushed.

And while the joint announcement said that the accord was ³a win-win,² the
ultimate victor in the meeting was neither Chongqing nor Guangdong. It was
Beijing that prevailed, showing that sometimes the center can hold.

Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on
Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in
the Chinese political system.









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