Bo Xilai charged with graft
BEIJING—Deposed Chinese politician Bo Xilai was charged with corruption and abuse of power on Thursday, as China’s new leadership tries to steer the country’s ugliest political scandal in years toward closure.
Bo, 64, was a rising political star who ran the metropolis of Chongqing until he fell from power last year in a scandal that saw his wife convicted of killing a British businessman.
On Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency announced that he was charged with bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power and will stand trial in the eastern city of Jinan.
The indictment paves the way for a trial that could take place in a few weeks, concluding a messy scandal that cast an unwelcome shadow over last year’s political transition to a new generation of Communist Party leaders under Xi Jinping.
“Continuing to let the case drag on would only raise questions and suspicions of political discord in the leadership,” said Dali Yang, head of the Universi- ty of Chicago Center in Beijing.
In China, trials of such highlevel officials accused of corruption are less about legal process than they are about decisions hammered out by politicians and the party’s graft investigators and announced by a court. There is usually little dispute aired during proceedings, and most of it is kept out of the public eye.
News of his prosecution signals that the Communist Party leadership has reached a general agreement about how to handle Bo, who has his supporters inside the party as well as among the Chinese public, despite the scandal.
“This is very important for Xi Jinping because it shows that he’s more than first among equals, it shows that he is a person who can unify the disparate factions not only within the gang of princelings but within the party as a whole,” said Willy Lam, an expert on party politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“We have to remember that there are still many people who support Bo Xilai and his programs. He remains very popular not only in Chongqing, but other parts of China,” Lam said.
Bringing the case to a close will also allow the leadership to declare victory over corruption and other abuses of power, Yang said.