2012-03-27
Authorities are bringing associates of the former Chinese princeling in for questioning.
Bo Xilai attends the closing ceremony of the National People's Congress in Beijing, March 14, 2012.
Authorities in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing have taken disciplinary action against officials linked to ousted municipal Party chief Bo Xilai, amid an unfolding political scandal which threatens to mar a key leadership transition at the highest ranks of the ruling Communist Party this year.
Investigators working for Bo's successor Zhang Dejiang are questioning a number of trusted former aides of Bo and his former graft-busting police chief Wang Lijun, whose Feb. 6 flight to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu was the first public sign of the scandal, official media reported.
Among them are Bo's former aide Wu Wenkang, who had also worked under Bo during his time as Party secretary of the northern port city of Dalian, and who followed him to Chongqing.
Also summoned was Nan'an district Party secretary Xia Zeliang, the first relatively high-ranking official to be questioned openly about Bo's rule in Chongqing, the Chongqing Daily newspaper reported.
An official who answered the phone at the Nan'an district government said "I don't know, I don't know," before hanging up, when contacted by RFA's Cantonese service on Tuesday.
Xia has been incommunicado since Bo's ouster on March 15.
Officials detained
The Economic Observer newspaper reported this week that the 51-year-old Xia was known to have a close relationship with Bo, and was taken away for questioning last Wednesday.
Other news sites reported that Yubei district police chief Wang Pengfei was also recently called in for questioning by Party investigators after he supplied the car in which Wang Lijun made his dash for the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, nearly four hours' drive away.
An officer who answered the phone at Wang's district police office was in the middle of speaking when the line was cut off. "No," she said, before the phone was hung up.
Chongqing-based labor activist Liang Mingyuan said the reports of Xia's detention were entirely credible, as they were published in Chongqing's press, which is entirely controlled by Bo's successor, Zhang.
"It's not surprising in China that a new leader would arrive and then take action against some officials from the previous era," Liang said. "What changes exactly are taking place we can't be sure."
"All we can do is be silent spectators, and wait to see what they do."
Changing leadership
A Chongqing resident surnamed Zhang said that many people in the city were grateful to Bo for cleaning up the city, although the lives of ordinary people hadn't changed much during his rule.
"Speaking personally from my own life experience, I would give him 60 percent, because our wages have fallen while the cost of living has continued to rise, and property prices are much higher," Zhang said.
"I hope the new leader can govern a bit more transparently," she added.
However, Chongqing-based petitioner Jia Changxin said that he and four other activists had recently climbed a cellphone mast in the capital Beijing to protest land grabs by local officials and a lack of justice for ordinary people.
He said he had scant hope that a change of leadership would greatly change the behavior of city officials.
"One organization rests on the back of another," Jia said. "They never do anything about the ones with official backing."
Scaling back
Meanwhile, Chongqing's local broadcasting company has changed its coverage of "red songs," a cultural feature of Bo's time in Chongqing harking back to the socialist morality of the Mao era, from a daily program to a weekly one, a spokesman said.
Retired Seton Hall University professor Yang Liyu said the incoming government in Chongqing appears keen to avoid the impression of a total break with Bo Xilai's adminstration, however.
"Revolutionary songs are in praise of Mao Zedong, who is the founding father of the nation and one of the creators of the Party," Yang said. "They can't just eliminate them totally ... and to do that would be to deny Mao Zedong."
He said the authorities would likely proceed slowly with Bo's case.
"I suspect that Bo's freedom is under threat right now, and the authorities won't announce his detention or trial all at once, either," Yang said.
Cai Yongmei, acting editor of the Hong Kong-based political magazine Kaifang, said Bo's revolutionary song campaigns didn't equate to a desire to return to the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), however, and were more of a political gimmick.
"It's the leftist, Maoist faction that wants to go back to the Mao era," Cai said. "I don't think that this was necessarily what Bo wanted to do."
"Bo and his entire family were the victims of the Cultural Revolution ... He just wanted to make use of a certain popular mood to gather people together and make some political capital out of it."
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese service, and by Yang Jiadai for the Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Investigators working for Bo's successor Zhang Dejiang are questioning a number of trusted former aides of Bo and his former graft-busting police chief Wang Lijun, whose Feb. 6 flight to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu was the first public sign of the scandal, official media reported.
Among them are Bo's former aide Wu Wenkang, who had also worked under Bo during his time as Party secretary of the northern port city of Dalian, and who followed him to Chongqing.
Also summoned was Nan'an district Party secretary Xia Zeliang, the first relatively high-ranking official to be questioned openly about Bo's rule in Chongqing, the Chongqing Daily newspaper reported.
An official who answered the phone at the Nan'an district government said "I don't know, I don't know," before hanging up, when contacted by RFA's Cantonese service on Tuesday.
Xia has been incommunicado since Bo's ouster on March 15.
Officials detained
The Economic Observer newspaper reported this week that the 51-year-old Xia was known to have a close relationship with Bo, and was taken away for questioning last Wednesday.
Other news sites reported that Yubei district police chief Wang Pengfei was also recently called in for questioning by Party investigators after he supplied the car in which Wang Lijun made his dash for the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, nearly four hours' drive away.
An officer who answered the phone at Wang's district police office was in the middle of speaking when the line was cut off. "No," she said, before the phone was hung up.
Chongqing-based labor activist Liang Mingyuan said the reports of Xia's detention were entirely credible, as they were published in Chongqing's press, which is entirely controlled by Bo's successor, Zhang.
"It's not surprising in China that a new leader would arrive and then take action against some officials from the previous era," Liang said. "What changes exactly are taking place we can't be sure."
"All we can do is be silent spectators, and wait to see what they do."
Changing leadership
A Chongqing resident surnamed Zhang said that many people in the city were grateful to Bo for cleaning up the city, although the lives of ordinary people hadn't changed much during his rule.
"Speaking personally from my own life experience, I would give him 60 percent, because our wages have fallen while the cost of living has continued to rise, and property prices are much higher," Zhang said.
"I hope the new leader can govern a bit more transparently," she added.
However, Chongqing-based petitioner Jia Changxin said that he and four other activists had recently climbed a cellphone mast in the capital Beijing to protest land grabs by local officials and a lack of justice for ordinary people.
He said he had scant hope that a change of leadership would greatly change the behavior of city officials.
"One organization rests on the back of another," Jia said. "They never do anything about the ones with official backing."
Scaling back
Meanwhile, Chongqing's local broadcasting company has changed its coverage of "red songs," a cultural feature of Bo's time in Chongqing harking back to the socialist morality of the Mao era, from a daily program to a weekly one, a spokesman said.
Retired Seton Hall University professor Yang Liyu said the incoming government in Chongqing appears keen to avoid the impression of a total break with Bo Xilai's adminstration, however.
"Revolutionary songs are in praise of Mao Zedong, who is the founding father of the nation and one of the creators of the Party," Yang said. "They can't just eliminate them totally ... and to do that would be to deny Mao Zedong."
He said the authorities would likely proceed slowly with Bo's case.
"I suspect that Bo's freedom is under threat right now, and the authorities won't announce his detention or trial all at once, either," Yang said.
Cai Yongmei, acting editor of the Hong Kong-based political magazine Kaifang, said Bo's revolutionary song campaigns didn't equate to a desire to return to the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), however, and were more of a political gimmick.
"It's the leftist, Maoist faction that wants to go back to the Mao era," Cai said. "I don't think that this was necessarily what Bo wanted to do."
"Bo and his entire family were the victims of the Cultural Revolution ... He just wanted to make use of a certain popular mood to gather people together and make some political capital out of it."
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese service, and by Yang Jiadai for the Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
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