Attempted defection puts party boss in tight spot

Actions of former right- hand man have created difficulties for Bo Xilai, one of China’s rising political stars

There are persistent but unconfirmed reports from China that Bo Xilai, the politically flamboyant Communist party boss of the Chongqing city- province with national leadership ambitions, has offered to resign from the party’s 24- member politburo.

What would be more surprising is if Bo did not offer to resign from the party’s second most powerful body after the still mysterious attempt by his right- hand man, Wang Lijun, to defect to the United States on Feb. 6.

In the sharp- toothed world of political infighting in the upper reaches of China’s Communist Party it is usually a good idea to put your self- criticism on the table quickly and voluntarily before someone demands it of you, by which time an unpleasant outcome is often already predetermined.

Several reports say Bo has apologized for failing to anticipate what Wang, his former head of security in Chongqing, might do. Wang sought asylum, unsuccessfully, at the U. S. consulate in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province about 300 kilometres from Chongqing, after being demoted by Bo.

Wang is now in the custody of the ministry of state security after apparently making allegations of Bo’s corruption and his abuse of civil rights during a crackdown on criminal gangs.

But Bo is no ordinary party cadre or functionary who can be dismissed or whose resignation can be accepted without careful consideration of the implications.

Bo has gained a significant national following for his populist social policies since he became the Communist party secretary in 2007 of Chongqing, the vast western city of 32 million people that has provincial status.

At a time when the Communist party has abandoned the “iron rice bowl” of social services, his emphasis on education, low- cost housing and health care has won him support not just from local residents, but also from political leftists nationwide.

And his crackdown on corruption among officials and the rotting influence on the city administration of the triad criminal gangs earned him much praise.

That anti- corruption drive was led by Wang, first as police chief and then as deputy mayor with responsibility for public security.

About 2,000 people were arrested in the campaign. including senior party officials accused of protecting triad gang bosses. Thirteen people were executed.

Bo has been unapologetic and unsubtle in playing to popular nostalgia for the days of state cradle- to- grave care when officials were not, as now, steeped in corruption.

He has promoted re- reading of the aphorisms of dynasty founder Mao Zedong and popularized “Singing Red Songs” from the era of idealized propaganda in the 1950s, ’ 60s and ’ 70s. Bo, 62, as of now has no apparent chance of seizing a senior leadership position in the personnel changes at the top levels of the party and the government which will start later this year.

The current vice- president and deputy leader of the Communist party, Xi Jinping, who Monday wound up a weeklong tour of the United States, Ireland and Turkey, seems firmly placed to become both president and general- secretary of the party.

It is widely assumed that what Bo wants is one of the nine seats on the politburo standing committee, the ultimate hub of power in China.

Leftists, whether of the oldschool who nurse fond memories of the idealism of the 1949 Communist revolution, or modern socialists repelled by China’s get- rich- quick culture, see in Bo an alternative to the fat grey cats now in power.

Bo is hardly a man of the people, however.

He is a Communist party “princeling,” more politely called a “second- generation Red,” for those children of the leaders of the 1949 revolution.

Bo’s father was Bo Yibo, one of the revolutionary “immortals,” who died in 2007 aged 99.

Thus Bo Xilai grew up in an atmosphere of privilege, the right to rule and certainty that the normal laws of society do not apply.

Vice- President Xi comes from a similar heritage, but he has been a good deal more clever than Bo at working hard, keeping his head down and his mouth shut.

For the community of technocrats now leading the party and government around the president and party leader, Hu Jintao, there is a deepseated wariness of someone with Bo’s public profile.

The incoming fifth generation of leaders all spent their youths in the late 1960s and early 1970s negotiating the terrors of the Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao to sustain his own power.

The emergence of any political figure who is master of outlandish populism sends shivers down their spines.

But they have a profound problem in dealing with Bo.

Many of the incoming leaders are also princelings. The last thing they want to set in motion is questioning of the Communist party’s exclusive right to rule.

But they have not found a comfortable and appealing model for the future of Chinese society.

There is no vision of how China should be run.

They are stuck in a rut of promoting economic growth as the central function of government, decorated only by a crude and increasingly unhealthy nationalism.