In Memoriam BO Xilai

choi

(1) Chris Buckley, In China's Chongqing, Dismay Over Downfall of Bo Xilai. Reuters, Mar 16, 2012.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... USBRE82F0H120120316

Quote:

A "stick man" says, "Bo Xilai was a good man. He made life a lot better here,"

"On Friday [today], the website of Utopia was inaccessible. A staff member who answered the telephone said it was a 'technical problem,' and would not elaborate.

"Bo's economic model has yielded China's highest growth rates. From 2007 to last year, Chongqing's economy grew an average annual 15.8 percent, according to government data. In 2011 it was 16.4 percent, the fastest growing urban region and ahead of Shanghai and Beijing, according to Chongqing government data. Last year, Bo announced plans to grant 5 million of rural residents permanent urban residential status over 5 years. He also vowed to shrink the ratio between average urban and rural incomes from 3.3 to 1, to 2.5 to 1. Carved out of Sichuan province as an independent political unit in 1997, Chongqing includes both city and a broad swath of countryside.

"As late as last Friday, Bo had sounded combative about his future and the Chongqing model, using his last media briefing before his dismissal to deride foes. 'If only a minority of people are wealthy * * *

(2) Malcolm Moore, Top Chinese Leader Bo Xilai Purged, One Day After Criticism. Daily Telegraph, Mar 16, 2012.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... fter-criticism.html

Quote:

"But support for Mr Bo within the Communist party evaporated, with no one quite sure what information Mr Wang might have passed to the Americans. 'No one wanted to stand by him without knowing exactly how much evidence Wang Lijun actually had,' said Zhang Ming, a professor of politics at Renmin university. 'Besides, the central committee had given him a lot of chances and he had failed to cooperate with them in the past,' he added.

"Mr Bo is part of the faction headed by Jiang Zemin, the 86-year-old former president who remains a highly influential elder. His replacement is also a protege of Mr Jiang, suggesting a compromise has been struck to allow Mr Jiang’s supporters to remain in control of Chongqing.

"A populist leader, and a journalism graduate, Mr Bo has enjoyed the support of the public wherever he has served. 'Let us pray for our former mayor,' wrote one employee of a language school in Dalian, where Mr Bo was mayor from 1993 to 2000. 'The ship that sailed in the sea of officialdom has finally been sunk by a huge wave. In the hearts of people in Dalian you are our mayor forever.'

My comment: There is no need to read the rest of the report.

(3) Campbell Clark, Bo Xilai's ouster severs vital Canada-China link. Globe and Mail, Mar 16, 2012.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/n ... ink/article2371034/

Quote:

"For more than 15 years [since 1997 when Sergio Marchi, the Liberal former trade minister and chair of the Canada China Business Council, first met Mr Bo on a trade mission in 1997 (in China)], Bo Xilai was the Communist Party figure Canadians went out of their way to see, who offered a friendly ear to Montreal's powerful Desmarais clan and a man who Jean Chrétien recently called an 'old friend.'

"When Canada-China relations were at a low ebb in Mr Harper's first years in office, Mr Bo made a late change on his way to the United States in 2007 to have lunch in Ottawa with then-trade minister David Emerson. Four Canadian [provincial] premiers dropped in to meet him in Chongqing in 2008.

"But over the years, Canadian business and government leaders found an open door in Mr. Bo, a personal style they could relate to and an interest in Canada. 'His English is very colloquial, he had a degree of spontaneity that is not always found in Chinese leaders and [he] had an ongoing interest in things Canadian,' said Peter Harder, the former deputy minister of foreign affairs. 'He made himself accessible.'

"Now, just inches from seeing a Canada-phile enter China’s inner circle, Canada’s Sinophiles see it as a loss.

Note: Power Corporation of Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Corporation_of_Canada
(public: Toronto Stock Exchange; conglomorate: include media, pulp and paper, and financial services; formed in 1925 by stockbrokers Arthur J. Nesbitt and his partner Peter A. T. Thompson; Headquarters Montreal; "While it was originally established as an electric utility holding company, under the control of politically connected Paul Desmarais, Sr, the company became a conglomerate with major interests in publishing and the finance industry. Power Corp is widely described as the power behind the Canadian government and influential elected officials")

(4) Ousted Bo’s ‘Chongqing Model’ Outpaced Peers: Chart of the Day. Bloomberg News, Mar 15, 2012.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/20 ... art-of-the-day.html

My comment: Even if the statistics are correct (not exaggerated, that is), they can be explained by factors unrelated to Mr Bo's competence, such as (a) Chongqing starts out (under Bo) as a backward relative to other cities and Sichuan in this comparison, and thus has more low-hanging fruit to pick, and (b) demographic dividend as a result of enlarged jurisdiction bringing in peasants-turned-urbanites.

(5) Jaime A FlorCruz, The Rise and Fall of China's Bo Xilai. CNN, Mar 16, 2012 (in his weekly column Jaime's China).
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/1 ... i-china/?hpt=hp_mid

Quote:

(a) "For years, Bo seemed destined to succeed in a career that befitted his pedigree as a princeling.

"I knew Bo when we both studied at Peking University's history department in the late 1970s. I majored in Chinese history, he in world history.

"We sometimes ate lunch together, standing while eating around a table with other classmates in the university cafeteria (there were not enough stools for every diner.) We typically talked about current events and debated history and politics.

"Bo was particularly keen to practice speaking English with foreign students like me.

"'His top ambition then was to be a Chinese journalist posted overseas,' recalls a classmate and close friend of Bo.

"Two years later, after getting his Peking University degree, Bo got into the master's degree program in journalism, the first ever, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"After graduation, however, Bo did not pursue his ambition to become a foreign correspondent. Instead, he worked his way up as a local party and government official.

(b) "For decades, [Wenran] Jiang[, a professor at the University of Alberta and Bo's former classmate at Peking University,] recalls, Bo stood out as one of China's most dynamic and maverick politicians.

"I too have seen Bo impress foreign business and political leaders with his charisma and political savvy.

"Instead of reading prepared speeches or reciting memorized lines, for example, he often spoke extemporaneously.

"'Bo is a populist leader,' says Wenfang Tang, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, who also remembers Bo as a fellow student at Peking University in the late 1970s.

"'His populist and sometimes emotional appeal sets him apart from the rest of the technocratic leaders who can certainly win the contest for the most boring politicians,' Tang opines.

"'He would have had a chance to become China's top leader, if China had direct elections. But he shows too much personality and charisma in the post-Mao political culture that emphasizes collective leadership.'

My comment: There is no need to read the rest of the column.