Behind the choreographed trials of the wife of the Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, Gu Kailai, for the murder of a British businessman, and his former police chief and associates lies a matter of utmost importance to the Chinese leadership. By finally expelling Mr Bo from the Communist Party and announcing the date of the party jamboree as November 8, the stage is set for his prosecution and presumed long-time hibernation.
A chain of events leading to the errant police chief spilling the beans to a US consulate has been a saga that the Communist leaders would rather forget because it exposed as never before the underbelly of a capitalism the leadership adopted while retaining and policing a one-party state. Thus the activities of Mr Bo and his family provided a rare glimpse of how the ruling elite behave and live. Mr Bo was a member of the politburo aspiring to be part of the Standing Committee of nine in once-in-a-decade leadership change at this autumn’s party congress. And, to cap it all, he was a “princeling”, the progeny of the great revolutionaries who rule the roost today.
While China’s enthusiastic espousal of capitalism, blessed by the legendary leader Deng Xiaoping, permitted the country’s new billionaires to flaunt their recently acquired wealth by buying or building great mansions and Ferraris, the princelings doing so on their rather meagre official salaries is quite another thing.
Indeed, the opening up of the Chinese economy has led to a tremendous rise in people’s protests of one kind or another, measured in the thousands. Sometimes, the authorities bend to the protesters’ wishes; at other times, the protests are suppressed. But the acts of Mr Bo not only in baring his ambitions by taking the route of a retro Mao era but also in broadcasting his style of living were quite another matter for the ruling party desperately seeking to cement its pre-reform authority, despite taking the capitalist road.
The questions posed were stark. How could a Communist Party apparatchik afford to send his son to Eton in Britain and later Harvard even as the latter’s social exploits fed the rumour mill at home? No doubt Mr Bo had his supporters at the top of the party pyramid to watch over his welfare, but once he abandoned discretion in promoting his own ambitions and his wife was caught in dubious financial dealings with the subsequently murdered businessman, he had to be made an example of, however painful the exercise for the leadership and fellow princelings.
Obviously, the scale of the corruption and skulduggery involved in Mr Bo’s case was of immense proportions. (India’s scams are not even a shadow of the kind of ill-gotten money changing hands). Traditionally, the sons and daughters of Chinese leaders study in elite British and American universities (Harvard being the favourite) and they are not on scholarships. But as a rule they adopt a low posture and often assume new surnames. In the case of Mr Bo’s son Guagua, he was widely known for his flashy sports cars, elite American girlfriends and champagne parties. Somewhat like his father, who bought his popularity through populist measures, the son set out to make a splash on the Harvard social scene.
The uncomfortable truth of how the high and mighty of the party live is doubly distressing to the party in the midst of a leadership change. While China’s fantastic economic growth has decelerated at a time of worldwide downturn, the flaunting of wealth and privilege by the favoured in a supposedly Communist state rankles all the more. Other princelings are less indiscreet than Mr Bo and his son, but the moral of the story cannot be lost on the newly rich middle class feeling the pinch of the times and their less fortunate rural fellow citizens.
The Communist leadership has learnt to live with the growing army of netizens who have taken to social media like ducks take to water. Despite legions of censors the state employs to filter unpleasant truths on the Chinese equivalents of Twitter and on Facebook and YouTube, the newly empowered middle class gets its message through. At one level, the netizens are snatching their democratic rights; at another, they are learning an uncensored version of the outside world by circumventing the censors.
At a deeper level, the Chinese leadership is wrestling with the problem of bottling up an open economy, largely free foreign travel and a technology-savvy young population within the confines of a one-party dictatorship. For one thing, despite his pedigree, Mr Bo has to be made an example of, if only to show the people that even the mightiest are subject to the rule of law. How many are convinced of the impartiality of law as practised by the Chinese state is another matter.
Thus the list of charges slapped upon Mr Bo is lengthy: “violated organisational and personnel disciplines”, position was “abused” by his wife and family for profit and property and maintaining improper sexual relationships with many women. All this happened without anyone in the higher Communist hierarchy knowing anything about it while Mr Bo made millions in illegal gratification, bought property abroad and philandered — or so the leadership would have the people believe. However, the Chinese leaders seek to cover up; Mr Bo was not the exception to the rule. He might have been more foolish but high-level corruption of mind-blowing proportions is viewed by princelings, among others, as perquisites that go with their positions.
Which brings us to the central question: Can a dictatorship, however defined, coexist with the amazing transformation brought about by the country’s opening up to the world? Nationalism can be one solution to knit the people together, but as we have discovered in the dispute with Japan, it can be a dangerous medicine impacting its economic relationship with an important partner. The Chinese leaders prefer to avert their gaze from the longer-term viability of their hybrid model as they race to the future.