MCLC: Bo Xilai political scandal grows

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Bo Xilai political scandal grows
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (3/8/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/world/asia/in-china-bo-xilais-political-s
candal-deepens.html

Cast of Characters Grows, as Does the Intrigue, in a Chinese Political
Scandal
By DAN LEVIN and MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING ‹ Dynamic, ruthless and once seemingly bound for the highest
echelon of Chinese leaders, Bo Xilai, the Chongqing Communist Party
secretary, saw his prospects dim last month after a corruption scandal
prompted the city¹s vice mayor, a trusted ally, to seek refuge at an
American consulate.

Now further events worthy of a spy novel ‹ a fugitive Chongqing
multimillionaire¹s charges of torture, another tycoon¹s sudden detention ‹
have added new layers of intrigue to a sensational political scandal
unfolding in a country that normally manages to keep rivalries under wraps.

The drama deepened on Wednesday after Chongqing¹s deputy police chief and
three plainclothes officers, posing as maintenance workers, came to
Beijing and seized a real estate mogul who had been waging a ferocious
battle to recover his Chongqing business empire from a politically
connected rival.

The mogul, Zhang Mingyu, claims to have a tape recording in which the
erstwhile vice mayor, Wang Lijun, threatened him and demanded that Mr.
Zhang stop accusing his rival of swindling him. Besides Mr. Wang, Mr.
Zhang claimed, other senior Chongqing politicians are protecting his
business rival, Weng Zhenjie, although he refused in recent interviews to
publicly name them. Mr. Weng, he said, ³is like a single chopstick; you
can break him very easily. If you go after the entire group, you¹re trying
to break a tree branch.² Mr. Zhang¹s whereabouts are currently unknown and
his cellphone has been turned off, his lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, said in an
interview on Thursday.

Mr. Bo¹s plight has dominated the annual meeting of the National People¹s
Congress, China¹s handpicked legislature, where his populist attitude and
flamboyant personality made him something of a media star a year ago.

On Thursday, he failed to appear at the congress¹s plenary session, a
highly unusual absence. A spokesman said, however, that Mr. Bo would
answer questions at a news conference on Friday.

Mr. Zhang¹s charge and curious disappearance add to a growing impression
that Mr. Bo¹s aggressively cultured image of Chongqing as a model for
China¹s future ‹ moral and crime-free, rapidly urbanizing, growing like a
weed ‹ has been tarnished.

Mr. Bo¹s critics regard Chongqing under Mr. Bo as a place where power
brokers were given free rein and rivals were framed, extorted and even
tortured.

Many see power politics at work. For two decades, Mr. Bo has stood out as
one of China¹s most enterprising ‹ and polarizing ‹ politicians. Until Mr.
Wang left Chongqing, in south-central China, in early February for nearby
Chengdu and the United States Consulate, Mr. Bo was a prime contender for
a seat on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, whose nine members
essentially run China, when the panel¹s membership turns over late this
year.

As a son of a revolutionary hero ‹ a princeling, in China watchers¹
parlance ‹ Mr. Bo retains considerable clout. Because of that, some with
high-level connections in the Chinese hierarchy refuse to rule out his
ascension to a higher post.

But his status has plummeted, some insiders say. As a contender for a
committee seat, Mr. Bo ³is basically out of the game,² said one official
media organization executive, citing high-level friends in China¹s
government.

One person from Chongqing familiar with the government¹s inner workings
said Thursday that he believed Mr. Bo was unlikely to be punished for
lapses in Chongqing, but that given the stir over Mr. Wang¹s flight to the
consulate, his political career was probably over. Speculation over his
replacement as Chongqing¹s party secretary is already under way, he said.

There is no shortage of enemies, including other contenders for the
committee, who would delight in Mr. Bo¹s troubles.

Mr. Wang was Chongqing¹s police chief during the venture that made Mr.
Bo¹s reputation, a fierce crackdown from 2009 to 2011 on crime gangs that
had burrowed deep into the city power structure. His ³smash black²
campaign led to thousands of arrests and 13 executions. Mr. Wang¹s reward
was a promotion to vice mayor.

But their relationship fell apart, and Mr. Wang fled to the consulate,
after Mr. Bo sidelined him amid indications that Mr. Wang himself was
under scrutiny in a corruption inquiry in a city where he had previously
worked. Mr. Wang later left the consulate, ³of his own volition,² American
officials said, and was taken into custody by security officials, and Mr.
Bo¹s reputation for political savvy suffered.

Even before then, the crime-fighting campaign had been fiercely
criticized. A lengthy study last year by an expert at the East China
University of Political Science and Law, Tong Zhiwei, concluded that Mr.
Bo¹s corruption crackdown relied on unjust convictions, ignored civil
rights and seized vast amounts of assets whose eventual disposition was
murky.

Since then, matters have only worsened. In interviews reported last week
in The Financial Times and The Washington Post, one fugitive Chongqing
businessman, Li Jun, accused Chongqing security officials of torturing him
and seizing his $700 million real estate conglomerate, apparently in
retaliation for buying land sought by a military leader. Mr. Li is in
hiding abroad; his claims could not be verified.

The problems of Mr. Zhang, the mogul who was seized on Wednesday by the
Chongqing police, are not directly tied to the crime-fighting effort. But
in interviews before his detention, he charged that high-level Chongqing
officials had colluded with Mr. Weng, his rival, to take over his business
interests.

Mr. Zhang gave a detailed account of his rise into Chongqing¹s business
elite and the web of corruption that he said had led to his downfall. In
2009, he lost his fortune in a development deal that he claimed was rigged
by one of Chongqing¹s financial kingpins, Mr. Weng, and supported by top
municipal officials.

Mr. Zhang, 44, was the sole shareholder of Chongqing¹s Tongchuang Property
Corporation, a $316 million company built from a 1990s motorcycle-sales
business. In 2004, he and Mr. Weng, a former People¹s Liberation Army
officer, became partners in lucrative development deals that relied on Mr.
Weng¹s political influence to win contracts and loans.

Mr. Zhang said he lost control of his company in 2009 when he used his
assets as collateral for loans from Mr. Weng to begin a new property
development project, and faced demands for early repayment that he was
unable to make. The dispute reached a climax last year when Mr. Zhang, by
then a delegate to Chongqing¹s Municipal People¹s Congress, rose at a
session to confront Chongqing¹s mayor, Huang Qifan, and then accused Mr.
Weng of bribery and involvement with gangs.

But the city¹s crime-fighting campaign did not touch Mr. Weng, Mr. Zhang
said, and he later moved to Beijing to take his case to higher-level
officials. On a microblog with tens of thousands of followers, he railed
against Mr. Weng and, in recent weeks, wrote about the travails of Mr.
Wang, the vice mayor, whom he accused of threatening him.

Mr. Zhang was in his Beijing apartment when Chongqing police officers
detained him.

On Thursday, Mr. Pu, Mr. Zhang¹s lawyer, said Mr. Zhang had told him that
his captors demanded that he stop referring to Mr. Weng and Mr. Wang in
his microblog comments because it was a delicate time for Chongqing. In
return, Mr. Pu said, they promised to enlist Chongqing government
resources to recover his lost business.

On Thursday, Mr. Pu called Mr. Zhang¹s disappearance a ³stability
maintaining effort² intended to deflect attention from the Chongqing
dispute during the national legislative session.

Jonathan Ansfield and Edward Wong contributed reporting, and Shi Da and
Mia Li contributed research.