FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: MANDELSON AND MR BO
SENIOR British figures including Peter Mandelson and Prince Andrew held formal talks with Bo Xilai before his downfall.
Former EU trade commissioner Mr Mandelson, now Lord Mandelson, faced him across the negotiating table during the socalled ‘bra wars’ dispute over EU sanctions on Chinese textile imports in 2005.
Two years later Mr Bo accused his British counterpart of ‘extremist language’ after the former Labour spin doctor described China’s trade policy as ‘illogical’, ‘indefensible’ and ‘unacceptable’.
Despite these confrontations, the two ambitious political figures were said to have brokered a ‘cordial’ relationship, and Lord Mandelson was reported to have visited Mr Bo in Chongqing last year, amid speculation the peer could become head of the World Trade Organisation.
The Duke of York visited Mr Bo last May, just months before he was forced to step down from his role as a UK trade envoy.
Most controversially, Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne met Mr Bo in November last year, within 48 hours of Mr Heywood’s apparent murder.
British diplomats were alerted about the death on November 16, the day of the Browne meeting, but seemingly accepted the official explanation of the cause and Mr Browne was not asked to raise the case with Mr Bo.
Instead, Mr Heywood’s body was cremated without a postmortem examination the day after Mr Browne left China and Britain did not ask Beijing to investigate his death until February.
Former Foreign Office minister Denis Macshane said: ‘It beggars belief that a Foreign Office minister met a major figure in this titanic struggle for the fate of China only days after the suspicious death of a British citizen who appears to have been put to death as a disposable pawn.’