A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (41 page)

In August, party elders such as Jiang requested a thorough investigation of Ling Jihua. But with the Bo Xilai case still pending, the Politburo Standing Committee considered it politically risky to handle two high-profile corruption cases before the 18th Party Congress. As a compromise, Ling Jihua was banished from the political center. On September 1, 2012, Ling Jihua was demoted to director of the Central United Front Works Department, a largely ceremonial post.

There are rumors Ling may be prosecuted after Hu’s retirement. A source connected with the General Office of the Party Central Committee told me at the Carnegie Club in New York City that many youth leaguers, and princelings, accused Ling of deceiving President Hu and misleading him on many key decisions. For example, he allegedly formed a secret alliance with Bo Xilai back in 2011—if both were elected to the Politburo Standing Committee, they would seize power from Xi Jinping, the new party general secretary. Ling had also allegedly arranged for President Hu to visit Chongqing and endorse the Chongqing model, but was forced to change the plan after the Neil Heywood case emerged and the majority of the Politburo Standing Committee joined the anti-Bo camp. In addition, the family members of both Ling Jihua and Bo Xilai are said to have engaged in illegal coal mining in Shanxi province and profited from their political connections. Ling’s fall dealt a fatal blow to Hu and the youth league faction. In the final years of Hu’s rule, Ling allied with another prominent youth leaguer, Li Yuanchao, who was in charge of the party’s personnel and expanded his own influence by promoting, without President Hu’s knowledge, a large group of youth leaguers, many of whom were his personal favorites. In the aftermath of the Ferrari accident, the princeling faction, led by the new leader Xi Jinping and backed by Jiang, used Ling’s investigation as an excuse to purge youth leaguers connected with Ling, and Hu lost his leverage to intervene.

Li Yuanchao, a strong candidate for the Politburo Standing Committee, was kicked out in the October reshuffle. Li Keqiang, the premier-in-waiting, was the only youth leaguer left with any power on the Politburo Standing Committee. Ling had, however, over the past three years, made it difficult for Li to see or talk with Hu and pushed Li more and more toward the princelings’ camp.

At the end of the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, Hu stepped down from all party posts: party general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, which commands China’s armed forces. Hu’s decision came as a surprise—many had speculated that he would keep control of the military for two years, like his predecessors Jiang and Deng Xiaoping had done, so he could install more of his allies in key positions and protect the interests of his family and his loyalists, such as Ling Jihua.

In exchange for his full retirement, the Japanese newspaper
Asahi Shimbaum
reported, Hu wanted a systematic ban on intervention in the political sector by retired leaders, including the long-retired Jiang Zemin, age eighty-six, who had hovered over Hu for years after retirement. “It was a courageous move by Hu Jintao,” claimed the paper. “Hu’s action led to a second tidy transition since the Communist takeover in 1949, making it easier for the new leadership to initiate reforms.”

To some Beijing observers, such as journalist Gao Yu, Hu’s full retirement might have been forced—in the months leading up to the 18th Party Congress, Hu had indicated numerous times that he would stay around for two years. Gao Yu wrote:

       
Over the past two decades, the Communist Party leaders and minions have accumulated a large amount of economic gains while they were in power. They see themselves on a big boat trying to navigate in treacherous water. Oftentimes it is not up to the leader to decide whether he leaves the boat or not. He is controlled by members of his own interest group. If he plunges headlong into the water, others would also drown.

Even though Hu might have been reluctant to relinquish power, the Ling Jihua scandal had weakened Hu’s bargaining power, leaving him without many choices.

Throughout his career, Hu expressed no desire for posthumous fame. He was a technocrat who wanted only to complete his tenure peacefully and smoothly, without triggering an internal implosion. His famous slogan
Bu-zhe-teng
best illustrates his philosophy: “Don’t rock
the boat, don’t make any changes.” But what Hu has passed on to his successor is a country rife with scandal and on the verge of political collapse.

S
OME TRADITIONS are so deeply rooted that even the Chinese Communist Party knows better than to mess with them. The Ghost Festival is one such tradition, honored wherever Chinese people live, be it San Francisco or New York, London or Bangkok. By the Western calendar, it occurs around mid-November, when the spirits of the dead can cross over and visit the living. On that day, ancestors are honored with food and burning incense, and people burn stacks of fake money, intricately cut paper clothes, even paper TVs and exquisitely made paper houses at the graves of loved ones or on street corners (if the offerings are being made far from the hometowns). The Ghost Festival in 2012 marked the first anniversary of British businessman Neil Heywood’s murder. Perhaps Wang Lulu, Heywood’s Chinese widow, and his two children, twelve-year-old Olivia and eight-year-old Peter, followed the Chinese tradition and burned fake paper money for him, a man whose greed had led to his tragic end in Chongqing. At the time of writing, Wang and her children lived in London, but she has received promises from the Chinese government that she is free to visit China whenever she wants.

A week after the Ghost Festival, my coauthor paid an anonymous visit to the Lucky Holiday Hotel, which outwardly seemed to maintain an air of normalcy. A young female clerk at the front desk shook her head warily when asked if she had heard about Heywood. An insider later said all the staff members had been replaced after the murder was made public. At the villa where Heywood was killed, it was business as usual but when my coauthor poked his head into a downstairs room, the maid, who was making the bed, seemed quite nervous—almost as if Heywood’s ghost had just appeared. She dialed the manager immediately.

It is part of Chinese traditional belief that if a ghost is angry, it will not leave the world of the living until it has exacted revenge on its enemies. One can only wonder whether Heywood’s ghost has been lingering in Chongqing. Would he be able to find a medium and unveil the whole truth about the November 15 murder?

Would Heywood take comfort in the fact that his death triggered one of the biggest political crises in the history of Communist China? That his murder set in motion a sequence of events that toppled Bo Xilai, a ruthless political maverick, and almost derailed China’s once-in-a-decade power transfer?

If this were a Shakespearean play, the convictions of Gu Kailai and Wang Lijun would set the stage for Bo, the main character, to reveal himself. Bo’s dismissal from his powerful official posts in March 2012 and his detention in April heightened public suspense and fueled speculation. How would Bo’s political foes finish him off? Would his career end with a bullet in the back of the head?

In late August 2012, political observers and Bo supporters published articles on
Mingjing News
speculating that Bo would make a soft landing. He would simply be kicked out of the Politburo and the Party Central Committee, in addition to losing his position as the Chongqing party chief—serious punishments for one who had devoted his life to climbing the party hierarchy, but also a slap on the wrist in comparison with the prospect of years of languishing in jail. The assumption was not completely off-base. During Gu Kailai’s trial, Bo’s name was never mentioned, as if he had never existed. In addition, no corruption charges were filed against the Bo family. An analyst commented that Bo was not aware of his wife’s crime until later and that investigations into Bo’s family finances had not yielded any concrete evidence. In September, Wang Lijun’s lighter sentencing prompted more analysts to suggest that Bo would not face a criminal trial.

“Members of the Politburo are very divided over Bo’s future,” said an official to
Mingjing News
after the Wang Lijun trial on September 17:

       
Bo’s friends, including many princelings, still believe that he was unjustly punished for his courageous pro-people programs. Some
powerful figures, such as Zhou Yongkang, and even President Hu Jintao, are reluctant to punish Bo. Even though Bo’s enemies want to destroy his chances of a comeback, they worry that an expanded investigation would implicate more people and create new political rivalries. Besides, with the volatile political situation in China, many officials understand very well that they could all end up like Bo someday. Come to think of it, who doesn’t have a skeleton in their closet?

Such optimistic assessments pervading the Internet and private conversations must have energized Bo’s supporters. On September 18, 2012, anti-Japan protests swept across China, with thousands of young people smashing made-in-Japan products and surrounding the Japanese Embassy and consulates to mark the anniversary of Japan’s brutal invasion eighty-one years before. Demonstrators used the occasion to protest Japan’s sovereignty claims over the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands in Japan), which the Chinese insisted were theirs. As Chinese security forces turned out en masse to contain demonstrations, they noticed some unexpected images: several hundred protesters, dressed up in Red Guard uniforms, carried portraits of Mao Zedong.

“The spectacle of hundreds of Mao portraits held aloft recalled the days of traumatic upheaval during China’s Cultural Revolution and appeared to shock some,” said the
Washington Post
when describing a demonstration in Beijing.

During an interview also with the
Washington Post
, a retired worker vigorously defended Bo Xilai: “In the history of the party, lots of cadres, including Chairman Mao, they all made mistakes, but everyone deserves a chance to correct the mistake. A comrade who has corrected his mistake is still a good comrade.”

In Chongqing, protesters held banners that read, “Diaoyu Islands belong to China and Bo Xilai belongs to the people” and “We kick out the Japanese and welcome back Bo Xilai.”

Such a show of support for Bo Xilai was said to have spooked China’s senior leaders, who realized they had underestimated Bo’s popularity. An official connected with the Central Party Committee revealed in a secure e-mail to
Mingjing News
that those pro-Bo images
and slogans strengthened the position of the hawkish wing of the anti-Bo alliance, making them believe that severe punishment would send a stern message to Bo’s supporters that the party was united in its decision against Bo. Any attempts to bring Bo back would be futile. “Those protesters meant to pressure the senior leadership to release Bo Xilai, but they ended up harming him,” said the official.

A source close to Xi Jinping, the new party general secretary, doubted that the appearance of Bo supporters at the anti-Japan demonstrations had any impact on the party’s decision relating to Bo’s punishment. During our conversation at a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan on September 22, the source acknowledged that Bo’s case had caused division among senior leaders in the early phase of the investigation, but many Politburo members were appalled by the mounting evidence of corruption presented by the Central Inspection and Discipline Commission. They changed their minds and opted for tougher punishment. Additionally, Wang Lijun shared with his handlers more negative information about Bo’s conspiracy against several Politburo Standing Committee members to seek leniency after charges against him were published.

Two days later,
Mingjing News
, based on another tip provided by a senior official traveling in Europe, announced that Bo could face “double expulsion”—he would be expelled from the party and removed from public office. This meant that Bo could face criminal charges. Meanwhile, I had learned from three journalists with state media that Bo’s double-expulsion request had been submitted to the Politburo for approval at an upcoming meeting. If the twenty-five Politburo members endorsed a decision, the state TV would broadcast the news on the night of September 29, 2012.

Over the next three days, news about Bo’s upcoming double expulsion spread quickly on Weibo, rattling many of Bo’s supporters. “I won’t believe it until I hear it on CCTV,” tweeted one person from Chongqing. “When Bo Senior was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, Mao kept his party membership.”

On the late morning of September 28,
Mingjing News
confirmed that the Politburo had approved Bo’s double expulsion. After the story was posted, the stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen
jumped 1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, in afternoon trading, following a sluggish start in the morning. Investors believed that the consensus by the Politburo on the Bo case meant that the power struggle would soon be over, and the country’s focus would be redirected to its economy.

As expected, detailed charges against Bo headlined CCTV’s prime-time news program that evening. Based on the state media, Politburo members “deliberated over and adopted an investigation report submitted by the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.” The report listed six charges against Bo Xilai:

       
1.
  
Bo seriously violated party disciplines while heading the city of Dalian, Liaoning province, and the Ministry of Commerce and while serving as a Politburo member and as party chief of Chongqing municipality.

The report did not dwell on the specifics of Bo’s violations, but the line conveyed clearly that the party had negated his whole political career, from 1984, when he became the deputy party chief of Jin County, to his most recent stint in Chongqing. Ironically, Bo had been touted as an official of “integrity” as recently as 2007, when he was transferred to Chongqing. At the changeover ceremony, the head of the party’s personnel department presented Bo as a person who was “honest, upright, and dedicated to his career” and who was “politically mature; possessing strong principles and pioneering spirit.” Over the past decade, the state media carried numerous features about Bo, portraying him as a rising political star. “What a difference six months make,” commented an editorial on
RedChinaCN.net
, a popular leftist website in China. “It seems only yesterday that Bo was a core member of the senior leadership team. Overnight, he has turned into a total villain.”