tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/bo-xilai-4295/articlesBo Xilai – The Conversation2013-08-30T05:26:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175992013-08-30T05:26:41Z2013-08-30T05:26:41ZFall of a princeling: Bo Xilai’s trial by Chinese social media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30259/original/y96x4332-1377822498.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For the first time in Chinese legal history, the court published transcripts of Bo Xilai trial via social media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jinan Intermediate People’s Court</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The trial of former official Bo Xilai is a significant benchmark for social media’s role in increasing transparency in the Chinese justice system, at least when it comes the trials of party officials.</p>
<h2>Who is Bo Xilai?</h2>
<p>Bo Xilai is one of <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18832046">the princelings of Chinese politics</a>. After successful tenures as the mayor of Dalian and governor of Liaoning Province, he was promoted to Minister of Commerce from 2004 to 2007. From November 2007 to 2012 he served as a member of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) and secretary of CPC’s Chongqing branch.</p>
<p>In Chongqing, Bo <a href="http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?cHash=8400a753575726d6003e9fbe4f3ad780&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38660&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25#.Uh8tiZJRI6I">became well known</a> for his iron-fisted populism. He initiated campaigns against mafia gangs, improved social welfare and enhanced economic growth. </p>
<p>Bo also launched the controversial “red culture” movement which aimed to revive the spirit of China’s revolutionary era. Because of his promotion of egalitarian values and the effectiveness of the <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/08/the_chongqing_model_worked">“Chongqing model”</a>, Bo became a darling of the Chinese New Left. Some of his supporters called him the “Vladimir Putin of China”.</p>
<p>The CPC would prefer that officials “know their place” in the power hierarchy rather than develop power individually. Nevertheless, Bo was a promising candidate for promotion to the elite Politburo Standing Committee. </p>
<p>However, his political career came to an abrupt end after his police chief, Wang Lijun, sought asylum at the United States consulate in Chengdu. Wang was fleeing the repercussions of his involvement in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/world/asia/detained-party-official-facing-ouster-from-politburo.html?pagewanted=all">the murder of Englishman Neil Heywood</a>, committed by Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai. </p>
<p>After the new CPC leadership came into office, Bo was stripped of all his party positions and expelled from the party.</p>
<h2>Social media and the ‘trial of the century’</h2>
<p>On August 22, 2013, the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court in Eastern China heard Bo’s case. For the first time in Chinese legal history, the court published trial transcripts through China’s most popular social media platform, <a href="http://www.weibo.com/">Sina Weibo</a>. </p>
<p>Bo was charged with receiving 21.79 million yuan (A$3.99 million) from local businessmen. Bo Xilai tried to win an acquittal through dramatic defence against most charges. Hearings finished on August 26 and the case is still awaiting final judgement.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The official Weibo account of Jinan Intermediate People’s Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sina Weibo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In China, trials of party officials have usually been muted in secrecy. Political housecleaning has generally been resolved in closed-door courts with the state media showing only final judgements. </p>
<p>This time, despite the trial itself being accessible only to the party’s leading mouthpieces, the authority “live blogged” the hearings via Sina Weibo. The official account of Jinan Intermediate People’s Court (<a href="http://e.weibo.com/jinanzhongyuan?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fs.weibo.com%2Fweibo%2F%2525E6%2525B5%25258E%2525E5%25258D%252597%2525E4%2525B8%2525AD%2525E9%252599%2525A2%3Ftopnav%3D1%26wvr%3D5%26b%3D1">@Jinanzhongyuan</a>) gained more than 590,000 followers. It released 160 posts in the form of explanatory texts, video evidences, and images of complete trial transcripts. Some posts were forwarded hundreds of thousands of times.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30239/original/vbyctjz3-1377775603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Bo Xilai trial’ trend spikes on Sina Weibo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Weibo Index</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weibo became the main forum for public discussions about the trial. More than 1.8 million posts were made about the “Bo Xilai trial”, ranking first of all Weibo topics for the period. The most intensive discussion occurred on the first and last days of the trial, both with more than 450,000 posts respectively.</p>
<p>By contrast, traditional media coverage of this trial was left in an embarrassing situation. The party’s media outlets attended the hearings but were muted in their ability to report in detail. As such, most journalists were reduced to reproducing information from the court’s official Weibo account.</p>
<p>One Phoenix Television (Hong Kong) news presenter even looked down at her mobile phone to check the Weibo updates of the trial when she was on air. Commenting later, she said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gazing down for the latest news is better than raising head to say nothing new.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phoenix Television’s news presenter Yang Shu checks her mobile phone for updates of Bo’s trial on air.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sina Weibo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A nascent civil society</h2>
<p>Many Chinese netizens viewed the court’s practice as a sign of big progress.</p>
<p>Weibo user @haolinlove commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trial is so open and transparent. I feel I am at the hearing. I believe I am witnessing history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another, @biexiangxinnvren523, posted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This Weibo live broadcast of the trial breaks through the conventional practice of limited openness and makes a refreshing change. The development of the rule of law will be promoted into a new stage, and our party’s anti-corruption construction will turn the new page.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The New York Times has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/world/asia/china-watches-a-trial-unfold-on-social-media.html">approvingly reported</a> the court’s use of the microblog format as demonstrating the new Chinese leadership’s determination to display transparent governance. </p>
<p>The Age <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/bo-xilai-trial-nods-to-chinas-nascent-civil-society-20130826-2slb7.html">argued that</a> the use of microblogging has potentially raised the political cost of committing grotesque judicial abuses and may display real reform of the Chinese legal system.</p>
<p>But this transparency had limits. The decision to prosecute Bo Xilai was entirely political. Further, as the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/world/asia/fallen-officials-trial-begins-in-china.html?ref=asia">revealed</a>, the released transcripts appeared to be edited and that censors removed many comments on the blog that were sceptical of the justice process.</p>
<p>Such caution does not come from thin air. Just days ago <a href="http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130829000063&cid=1103">Beijing police announced</a> they had arrested several Weibo users who specialised in spreading rumours against politicians, celebrities, and other high-profile figures. There is no sign that the government has the will to substantially liberalise Chinese internet.</p>
<p>While many citizens hope the trial represents the government’s stand against corruption, many Weibo users report gaining a better impression of Bo Xilai. His performance is perceived as skillful as upholding the authority’s stance and fighting back with logic and eloquence.</p>
<p>Bo is unlikely to meet true justice. His fall from grace may be as much attributable to long-standing struggles among political factions as it is his personal actions. Many Weibo users speculated that Bo was a sacrifice because there are likely to be many more corrupt officials out there. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, this trial is a significant stepping stone towards a more transparent Chinese government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Rintel is a life member and board member of Electronic Frontiers Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Harrison and Yanshuang Zhang do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The trial of former official Bo Xilai is a significant benchmark for social media’s role in increasing transparency in the Chinese justice system, at least when it comes the trials of party officials…Yanshuang Zhang, Ph.D Candidate, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164292013-07-26T13:42:54Z2013-07-26T13:42:54ZBo Xilai: victim of his own ambition in a land of graft<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28167/original/n6t5w2vz-1374840316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Guanxi" or influence is a way of life in China.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corruption Compliance</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was not so long ago that the name of Bo Xilai was largely unknown outside of China. Although his father is one of the “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13904443">eight elders of the Chinese Communist Party</a>” and he had grown to be one of the “princelings” who dominate public life, Bo’s work in the 30m-plus city of Chongqing remained off western radars. He was a provincial politician doing largely provincial things.</p>
<p>On July 25, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23446278">Bo was charged</a> with bribery, corruption and abuse of power. Again, in many ways that should have been a relatively innocuous event for all but the dedicated China-watching community. Bo is hardly alone amongst Chinese officials in being indicted for corruption - no state, for example, puts more people behind bars for corruption-related offences than China, and <a href="http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/pub/global_corruption_barometer_20091">in 2009</a> more than 30,000 officials were charged with abusing their positions of power and influence. This is a record unchallenged by any other country. In many ways, Bo should be just another statistic.</p>
<p>But he isn’t. And not just because of the rather <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/18/world/asia/profile-wang-lijun">bizarre asylum claim</a> made at one point by his then police chief, Wang Lijun, at a US consulate in Chengdu (previously only really known as the place where tourists begin their tours to find wild pandas), or indeed for the murder of a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19312232">well-connected British national</a> who was found dead in murky circumstances in a Chongqing hotel room (Bo’s wife ultimately being convicted of the crime). No, the case catches the eye for what it says about the way that China works.</p>
<h2>Ambitious man brought low</h2>
<p>Bo’s easy, outgoing style masked a populist campaign to bring back “red” songs and rhetoric from the time of the cultural revolution. In policy terms, he waged a war against organised crime - leading to more than 2,000 arrests and the development of an image as an enforcer who got things done. Bo was popular. He was also ambitious. And he wasn’t scared to show it.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bo Xilai: ambitious man brought low.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">jinnews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’ve yet to see any evidence of any wrongdoing on Bo’s part, but it was ultimately his political ambitions - and his willingness to pursue them in public that raised the hackles of the party elite in Beijing. Had that not happened, then his indiscretions are unlikely ever to have become public.</p>
<p>China’s president, Xi Jinping, has subsequently <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20405106">called for</a> Chinese elites to begin dealing with corrupt practices such as those for which Bo stands accused. And with good reason as, for many, corruption remains the most widely perceived public policy challenge facing the country. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, was equally as unequivocal: “If we fail to handle the issue of corruption, it could prove fatal, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state,” <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/08/china-hujintao-warning-congress-corruption">Hu declared</a> just before he stood down last year. There is little doubt that Hu meant it.</p>
<h2>Corruption rife in China</h2>
<p>There is also little doubt that Chinese people also believed, and continue to believe, that corruption is a serious issue. Gripes and groans on the Chinese street are much more likely to be about the self-serving behaviour of local party elites than they are about, say, the troubles in Tibet, the party’s human rights abuses or indeed many of the other issues that tend to preoccupy western observers.</p>
<p>There is, however, a major problem facing those seeking to take Hu’s and Xi’s lead and clean up Chinese politics. For the elite in Beijing, the challenge of tackling corruption is essentially a technocratic one. Beefed-up laws, nuanced sets of rules and regulations, specific codes of conduct and new sets of oversight procedures will help purge - at times in an almost Stalinist sense of the term, as Bo Xilai is discovering - the self-serving bureaucrats and politicians who put their own interests before those of the Chinese state (and, indeed, the Chinese people). If potential sinners feel that they are likely to be caught, if the punishments are heavy enough and if the all-round quality of governance in China can be improved, then the state will be in a position to take this battle forward.</p>
<p>The problem lies in making practical sense of this. There are times when tweaking (or actually following) the rules of the game makes sense. But it is not going to work in China. This is not a case, to use a football analogy, of having an incompetent referee or of having linesmen who can’t keep up with play and subsequently can’t make the right off-side calls. China’s problem is that players understand the rules all too well and systematically abuse them - think of your perennially diving centre-forward, or of the constant badgering of a referee to make calls that suit your interests.</p>
<p>Corruption in China is a systemic challenge. The system exists not in spite of it, but because of it. Systems of <em><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-11-18/you-say-guanxi-i-say-schmoozing">guanxi</a></em> (sometimes nothing more than extensive networking, at other times out-and-out favouritism that is all-important in securing a job, a contract, a favour or even someone simply agreeing to do their job) pervade all aspects of Chinese life, and they subsequently underpin the entire political process. Fighting corruption in Chinese political life is not about nuancing a generally healthy whole, it will need to be about fundamentally re-writing the rules of the game. </p>
<p>Bo’s mistakes were not necessarily in acting in a corrupt fashion, but in losing the support of powerful people in Beijing - it was then that the tables were turned and his misdemeanours came back to haunt him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Hough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was not so long ago that the name of Bo Xilai was largely unknown outside of China. Although his father is one of the “eight elders of the Chinese Communist Party” and he had grown to be one of the…Daniel Hough, Professor of Politics, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107012012-11-16T23:07:20Z2012-11-16T23:07:20ZLoud thunder, little rain: China’s new leaders target corruption<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/17732/original/jf6vrc54-1353037192.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bo Xilai may be the most "lurid" example of corruption in China, but he is not alone.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dennis M. Sabangan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>China’s new leaders are aware of the danger that corruption poses to the nation’s social stability and economic development. </p>
<p>But entrenched corruption at the local and national levels, including among the families and friends of those very leaders, will make it difficult for them to break the link between money and power that frustrates the masses but sustains the power of a Communist Party that long ago abandoned political belief for economic gain.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.carnegieendowment.org/2007/10/09/corruption-threatens-china-s-future/g4">2007 report</a> of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by Minxin Pei called the level of Chinese corruption “astonishing,” noting that it cost $US86 billion a year, more than China’s annual education budget. Things have not gotten any better. The Bo Xilai affair – Bo’s wiretapping of other top Chinese leaders, his son’s privileged lifestyle abroad, and his wife’s murder conviction – was but the most lurid case of rampant corruption that has shaken the trust of the Chinese people in their government.</p>
<p>Other high-profile cases have left the public seething: the melamine-laced milk that poisoned hundreds of infants; the Wenchuan earthquake that toppled “tofu schoolhouses” onto pupils while government buildings stood firm; the bullet train crash in Wenzhou that disgraced railway czar Liu Zhijun; and the sale by Wukan officials of prized farmland to real estate developers that triggered villager demonstrations and violence.</p>
<p>In his speech to the 18th Party Congress last week, outgoing President Hu Jintao stressed the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/07/world/asia/china-party-congress/index.html">need to fight corruption</a>, warning that if the issue is not addressed, “it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state.” Significantly, he warned leading officials to “strengthen education and discipline over their family and staff.” Along the same lines, incoming Party general secretary Xi Jinping in 2004 instructed, “Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain.”</p>
<p>But Chinese leaders have made similar warnings for years without making serious headway. That’s because of what Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution terms the “<a href="http://www.chinausfocus.com/political-social-development/xi-jinpings-challenge/">marriage of wealth and political power</a>” which supports an economic strategy based on rewards to local officials for “producing rapid GDP growth while keeping a lid on social unrest.” Put another way, the breakneck speed of Chinese economic development provides wealth that is distributed as patronage and provides support for the Party’s continued political monopoly. And campaigns against corruption evoke the Chinese proverb, “Loud thunder, little rain.”</p>
<p>More specifically, Minxin Pei cites two characteristics of corruption – the corruption of local state institutions through the purchase and sale of government appointments, and “collusion among local ruling elites” or “groups of local officials who cooperate and protect each other.” These practices drain the economy and feed public cynicism but they nurture the political and economic ambitions of entrepreneurs and government officials who thrive in a poorly defined regulatory and policy environment.</p>
<p>This is the social context in which Chinese leaders and their families operate, which is why the calls of Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping for discipline of families and staff is so interesting. Politicians, their relatives, staff, and friends use their political clout to build businesses and line their pockets. The average wealth of the richest 70 members of the National People’s Congress in 2011 was over US$1 billion. China’s central bank reportedly <a href="http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/corruption-probes-in-china-said-to-rise-13-percent/">has evidence</a> that up to 18,000 officials and employees of state-owned firms have fled China since the mid-1990s, taking $127 billion with them.</p>
<p>And recent reports have shown how relatives of top Chinese officials have grown wealthy. Xi himself reportedly has sisters and brothers-in-law with “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/12/world/la-fg-china-corruption-20121113">huge interests</a> in China’s real estate, minerals and telecommunications sectors.” And the family of Premier Wen Jiabao, perhaps the strongest reform advocate of all China’s top leaders, has been reported by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">New York Times</a> to have US$2.7 billion in wealth.</p>
<p>The reality is that Chinese leaders, even those who call for (and may sincerely believe in) reform and a crackdown on corruption, find themselves in a social web of political influence and enrichment that sustains the status quo. That reality will make it just as hard for the new leaders as it was for their predecessors to make a serious tilt at corruption.</p>
<p>Corruption and influence peddling are as old as the Chinese nation, and as old as human history. What is new is the demand of poor farmers, workers, and China’s growing middle class for a level playing field and a fairer chance for opportunity. Growing social tensions and environmental stresses make the current system unsustainable for the long term. </p>
<p>How Ji Xinping and the new Politburo meet that test will determine history’s verdict on whether they are authentic leaders with the courage to take the needed steps for the common good of the Chinese people and the welfare of the Chinese nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenneth Chern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China’s new leaders are aware of the danger that corruption poses to the nation’s social stability and economic development. But entrenched corruption at the local and national levels, including among…Kenneth Chern, Professor of Asian Policy, Swinburne University; Executive Director, Swinburne Leadership Institute, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.