Nayan Chanda, TOI
Until last month, all seemed to be in order for a smooth succession of the top leadership in China. Riding three decades of strong economic growth, expanding military power and influence, China’s one-party system seemed to have found the perfect formula for a stable government. A unified party leading a harmonised China towards rebalancing the economy and claiming world leadership was the accepted narrative. Suddenly, things look rather uncertain.
The first crack in the facade of unity appeared in early February when Chongqing’s powerful police chief made an unsuccessful bid to seek asylum in a US consulate. It was soon followed by his boss Bo Xilai’s dismissal from the provincial party secretary’s job. This week Bo’s disgrace was complete with his suspension from the politburo and his wife’s detention on charges of murdering a British businessman. China has plunged into a crisis not seen since the death of Mao Zedong and the arrest of Gang of Four. Amidst rumours of massive corruption and political intrigue dividing the top echelons of the party, an orderly succession later this year looks doubtful. Even if the party manages to patch up its differences, its prestige has been seriously damaged and it will continue to suffer from a thousand cuts by online criticism.
In fact, the manner in which the Bo Xilai scandal has exploded would have been impossible without nearly half of the Chinese population being online and swapping comments and information in tens of thousands of microblogs. Despite the government’s attempt to block words like Bo Xilai or Chongqing from microblogging sites and continuous deletion of offensive messages, the country’s innovative bloggers have found ways around the censors. Political opponents inside the party have apparently been trying to settle scores by leaking information to the bloggers – so much so that most of the internet rumours about Bo have ended up as confirmed news within days. With every little lead, China’s bloggers both at home and overseas have pushed the envelope.
The spate of stories now coming out in Hong Kong and foreign press, plausibly leaked by Bo’s opponents, about massive foreign assets held by his glamorous wife, sisters-in-law and his elder brother, could be used to destroy them. Not only could the rival faction take advantage of China’s hyperactive blogosphere to leak stories, foreign newspapers too have been digging, smelling blood in the biggest story out of China. It is not an environment that is conducive to containing the fallout for the party. The Wall Street Journal reported that the British businessman who was allegedly poisoned by Bo Xilai’s wife had details of her foreign investment stored in a safe abroad. Perhaps the most explosive information about China’s intra-party struggle could be held by the US as the Chongqing police chief spent one full day inside the American consulate in Chengdu before “voluntarily” surrendering to China’s central police.
The party leadership is clearly worried about the impact of its infighting coming out in the open and being intensely discussed by the citizens. It has tried to spin the embarrassing story as evidence of the party’s determination to root out corruption and uphold the rule of law. But to the citizens inured against years of endless talk of campaigns against corruption, the most important lesson from the Bo affair is the primacy of the party over state. Bo and his wife were first accused of violating party discipline and then of breaking the law. It was the party’s disciplinary commission that decided to submit their case before the law enforcement authorities.
It is also clear that over the past years, Bo and his police chief openly employed extra-legal and strong-arm tactics in fighting crime and corruption. And some of the central leadership even praised them for it. The party’s sudden concern about the illegality of Bo’s action months before the organisation was to decide whether to promote him to the highest body – the standing committee of the politburo – has more to do with changing the power balance between factions than with the rule of law.
Whether the rule of law triumphs or the party continues its rule by law, the Year of the Dragon promises to be a significant year for China.
