Since the onset of my Obsessive China Disorder affliction, the Bo Xilai/Gu Kailai…thing is the first major current event I’ve followed.
I remember MacFarquhar and Schoenhals’ dedication to all they talked to, including the “liars.” I remember how bad the first books on the Cultural Revolution were because accurate information was so hard to get out of China at the time. I remember a later author, maybe Kristof, writing that we could see in retrospect that the best information at the time came from Hong Kong refugees. I remember Lin Biao; maybe the closest parallel to the Bo/Gu thing is the “Lin Biao incident.”
The Lin Biao incident was a bridge too far for ordinary Chinese. Mao’s designated successor was plotting to assassinate Mao? Planning a coup d’etat? Fleeing in a plane, trying to defect to the Soviets, crash-landing, killed? Chinese—and the world—were asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast. This official history of the Lin Biao incident was written by…Zhou Enlai.
I don’t believe Gu Kailai murdered Neil Heywood. (Poison? That is so medieval. China will never join the ranks of modern nations with "poison" as an explanation for political murder. "Disappeared" is good.). I remember Neil Heywood’s mother dismissing the idea to a reporter as “just Chinese politics.” I remember China's first cause of death announcement: "overconsumption of alcohol." Since I don’t believe Heywood was murdered, I don’t believe Bo Xilai was ousted because he tried to stop Wang Lijun’s investigation of Gu Kailai for the murder of Neil Heywood.
I believe Bo Xilai was ousted in a power play, a power play that has been played out similarly throughout China ’s dreary history of succession. I believe the reason for the ouster was because Bo was too “red;” he was doing things in a way that reminded the Center of the way things were done during the Cultural Revolution, and the Cultural Revolution is the third rail of Chinese politics. I believe the murder accusation against Gu, and now the criticism of their son, Bo Guagua, are a kinder, gentler variant of the “Nine Exterminations.”
I believe these things, and don’t believe the other things, because the sources for so much of the reporting have been official, anonymous but official; because I doubt Chinese officialdom; because Chinese officialdom is above Chinese law contrary to what Chinese officialdom said when announcing Bo’s ouster; because this has happened in a transition year in Chinese officialdom; because murder of a foreigner—and by the “Jackie Kennedy” of China—is so beyond the pale. And because this--even murder--would not threaten the “legitimacy,” the “survival,” of the Chinese Communist Party.
That is what is being said by serious people, journalists and China-watchers; the legitimacy, the survival of the CCP is being tested here. I find these two explanations to be inconsistent. If this is a murder it truly is a shocking murder, but “only” a murder. The damage would be limited to Gu (the wife of a “rogue” official) and to Bo, a “rogue” official, for covering up. There would be no crisis for the CCP; the CCP didn’t have anything to do with it. If the legitimacy/survival of the CCP truly is at stake, then it’s not a murder, or not “just” a murder.
It says here it’s not a murder. It is a crisis for the CCP, Hu Jintao would not have sent that message to the military if it wasn’t, but CCP survival is not at stake, the People’s Republic of China is not going to collapse over this. Survival is not at stake, but legitimacy has been further eroded. Going back at least to the Lin Biao incident, Chinese have lost a lot of faith in CCP officialdom. A crisis in legitimacy can plausibly threaten state survival, but China is not there yet, and I don't think this is the beginning of the end.
So say I, but maybe I'm wrong.
