MCLC: Bo Guagua aggravates family fall

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Bo Guagua aggravates family fall
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (4/16/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/world/asia/bo-guaguas-parties-and-privile
ge-aggravate-elite-chinese-familys-fall.html

Son¹s Parties and Privilege Aggravate Fall of Elite Chinese Family
By ANDREW JACOBS and DAN LEVIN

BEIJING ‹ As the grandson of revolutionary giants, Bo Guagua enjoyed the
prestige and privilege that accompanies membership in China¹s ³red
aristocracy.²

After a pampered childhood in the walled compounds of the Chinese capital,
he was sent off for schooling in England, where he developed a reputation
as an academically indifferent bon vivant with a weakness for European
sports cars, first-class air travel, equestrian sports and the tango.

Mr. Bo¹s flamboyance, a staple of social-media gossip in China in recent
years, became another liability for his father, Bo Xilai, who faces
charges of corruption and abuse of power, and his mother, Gu Kailai,
accused of murdering a British businessman who was also close to the young
Mr. Bo.

Although Communist Party insiders say it was Bo Xilai¹s populist reign in
the southwestern municipality of Chongqing that ultimately brought him
down, Bo Guagua¹s high living clearly irritated party leaders, who named
the son, a 24-year-old student at Harvard, in the official statement
describing the reasons for his father¹s fall from power.

One former government employee with party ties said the leadership
tolerated a certain level of corruption among top officials or their
relatives as long as it was kept out of public view. He said Mr. Bo¹s
collegiate antics, splashed across the Internet, were emblematic of an
ambitious, cocksure family who often ignored the party¹s conservative
standards of public behavior.

The resulting buzz also drew unwanted attention to other so-called
princelings, who often leverage their bloodline for financial gain but
generally seek to avoid publicity lest it damage the party¹s image of
self-sacrifice and asceticism.
³If you¹re discreet, they look the other way,² the former government
employee said. ³But Guagua¹s behavior was striking by the standards;
urinating against a fence at Oxford, kissing foreign girls ‹ it all goes
down bad in China.²

Mr. Bo is also tied to Neil Heywood, whose mysterious death in a Chongqing
hotel room last November appears to have led to the Communist Party¹s
biggest political upheaval in decades.

Mr. Heywood reportedly mentored the adolescent Mr. Bo and later helped him
land a spot at the elite Harrow School in North London. It is unclear how
close the two were in recent years, but China¹s state media have suggested
that there were shared business interests and a ³conflict² that led his
mother to commit murder.

As his parents remain in detention, Mr. Bo is finding that the family name
that served him so well has become something of a millstone. Given the
continuing corruption investigation that could implicate him, he is
unlikely to return to China anytime soon.

³I think the options for him look pretty bad,² said Roderick MacFarquhar,
a China expert at Harvard who has written about the purges that dot
contemporary Chinese history.

The details of Mr. Bo¹s life were remarkably public. He appeared on a
Chinese talk show to discuss his family and allowed himself to be
photographed partying bare-chested and with young women.

A short-lived relationship with Chen Xiaodan, the granddaughter of another
Communist Party pioneer, became fodder for the public after the pair was
photographed vacationing in Tibet, trailed by a sizable police escort.

His celebrity stood in marked contrast to the lives of other descendants
of revolutionaries. Xi Mingze ‹ the daughter of Xi Jinping, presumed to be
China¹s next top leader ‹ also attends Harvard, but under an assumed name,
and she does not have a Facebook account.

Last month, a few days before he lost his job as party chief of Chongqing,
Bo Xilai was forced to respond to questions about how his modest
government salary could support his son¹s tuition and expensive tastes. He
called the accusations ³sheer rubbish,² and insisted that Mr. Bo had won
full scholarships, although he did not address the allegations in detail.
³A few people have been pouring filth on Chongqing and me and my family,²
he told reporters. ³They even say my son studies abroad and drives a red
Ferrari.²

But Mr. Bo does study abroad, and American officials say he arrived in a
red Ferrari last year to pick up the American ambassador to China¹s
daughter for a date. Classmates at Harvard say they have seen him driving
around in a Porsche.

Mr. Bo has lately been staying out of public view, having changed his
Facebook account to make it much more private, and he declined to answer
questions last week as he left his apartment in Cambridge, Mass. Those who
know him say he has been studying for final exams while coping with his
parents¹ troubles.

In interviews, many of his friends rejected the notion that he was a
playboy or a poor student, and they described him as exceedingly generous.
He is quick to pick up a bar tab, they said, and he liberally handed out
tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. ³His concern for China and its
people is deep-rooted and real,² said one friend in China who spends time
with him during his frequent visits home. ³He¹s a big thinker. When he
gets drunk, he talks about important things.²

Mr. Bo was largely shaped by his years in Britain. When he arrived, at age
12, he failed to get into Harrow, a boarding school with $45,000 annual
tuition at the time. Although he told a Chinese magazine in 2009 that he
spent a year studying for the Harrow entrance exam, Mr. Heywood, an old
Harrovian, told friends he used his influence to land Mr. Bo a place at
the school.

Mr. Bo became the first Chinese citizen at the 500-year-old institution,
and by most accounts, he flourished. He took up fencing, became president
of the equestrian club and developed proper English manners.

In 2006, he arrived at Oxford¹s Balliol College, known for its lumbering
lawn tortoises and its illustrious alumni, including Aldous Huxley, Adam
Smith and Herbert Asquith, a British prime minister who once described
Balliol men as having ³the tranquil consciousness of an effortless
superiority.²

Oxford administrators dismissed the idea that Bo Xilai¹s stature as a
rising political star played any role in his son¹s admission. ³That kind
of stuff just doesn¹t happen,² said Ruth Collier, Oxford¹s head of
information. ³If this young man won a place at Balliol, he got in on his
merits.²

Mr. Bo pursued a degree in politics, philosophy and economics, and
embraced a more public profile, appearing in the Chinese version of
Esquire and earning the Big Ben Award as one of the top 10 young Chinese
in Britain.

According to a friend from his Oxford days, Mr. Bo became known for his
³professional socializing,² which included organizing a Silk Road ball for
the Oxford Union, the university¹s premier debating society. Mr. Bo tapped
into his extensive connections by arranging an appearance by the actor
Jackie Chan and financial sponsorship from a minibus manufacturer in
Liaoning Province, where his father had served as governor.

He also demonstrated some of his father¹s political drive when, in his
second year, he ran for union librarian, a post equivalent to vice
president. It was an all-consuming effort, friends say, and Mr. Bo broke
with the tradition of low-key politicking by actively canvassing for votes
on Cornmarket Street, a pedestrian boulevard in an area surrounded by
Oxford colleges. He also ruffled some feathers according to several Oxford
students, by asking Chinese students to join the union so they could vote
for him. The campaign was unsuccessful.

While adept at throwing memorable parties, Mr. Bo was struggling with his
coursework. After the union campaign, his professors forced him to take a
set of exams known as ³penal collections.² He failed, several students
said, and was suspended for a year. Barred from using campus facilities,
he moved into the Randolph, a Victorian Gothic hotel where he continued to
hold parties, though a friend said they were more subdued.

His family was not pleased. Using their connections, they reportedly sent
a group of emissaries, including the Chinese ambassador, to plead Mr. Bo¹s
case to the master of Balliol, one faculty member said. Expulsion, it was
explained, would cause his family grave embarrassment.

Although the request was denied, Mr. Bo was allowed to take his final
exams a year later and passed with respectable marks, ³much to people¹s
surprise,² one professor said. Mr. Bo¹s tutors remained unimpressed and
refused to write him recommendations for his application to Harvard.

But Mr. Bo was admitted to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where
tuition and living expenses can cost $90,000 a year. Administrators do not
disclose information on scholarships and would not comment on whether Mr.
Bo¹s family connections played a role in his admission. But a spokesman
said the school considers a ³holistic² approach to applicants, weighing
factors like leadership potential and a commitment to public service.

Although one classmate described Mr. Bo as academically lackadaisical,
others suggested that he had become more serious about his studies. Last
year, he helped organize a China trip for Kennedy School students that
included a visit to Chongqing. ³From my interactions with him, leaving
aside all the gossip, he is a smart lad,² one professor said. ³He seems to
be a typical British public school product: smart, headstrong and
self-confident.²

Despite the flashes of bravado, friends say that Mr. Bo is acutely aware
that in China, the benefits of an illustrious family name can also be a
detriment. His grandfather Bo Yibo was a revolutionary hero, but that did
not shield him from the purges that sent him and much of his family to
jail. ³I have never met my grandmother because she was persecuted to death
during the Cultural Revolution,² he said in a speech at Peking University
in 2009.

In a interview that year with Youth Weekend, a state-run Chinese
newspaper, he reflected on the other challenges of his pedigree. ³When I
do well, it is naturally through my own efforts. When I do wrong, I should
bear the consequences and do not want the blame to fall on my parents,² he
said. ³Although I am fully aware that my father is a good man, I do not
wish to live under his shadow.²

Reporting was contributed by Didi Kirsten Tatlow and Edward Wong from
Beijing, John F. Burns and Ravi Somaiya from London, and Eric Newcomer
from Cambridge, Mass.