Bo Xilai suspended from Chinese Communist Party top ranks

Sources say China's Communist Party have decided to banish the former party chief of Chongqing municipality from its leadership ranks.

|
Jason Lee/REUTERS/File
China's former Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai looks on during a meeting at the annual session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in this 2010 file photo.

China's Communist Party has suspended former high-flying politician Bo Xilai from its top ranks, four sources said on Tuesday, after a scandal that has shaken a looming leadership succession.

The decision to banish Bo from the Central Committee and its Politburo effectively ends the career of China's brashest and most controversial politician, whose downfall has kindled ideological tension and sparked opposition from leftist sympathisers who insist he is the victim of a plot.

"Officials were told that Bo Xilai's Politburo and Central Committee memberships were suspended. He cannot attend Politiburo and Central Committee activities," said one of the sources, who was briefed on the matter.

"The Central Committee will have to hold a plenum to formally strip him of his Politburo and Central Committee memberships," added the source.

The Central Committee is a council of about 200 senior officials who meet about once a year and the Politburo is a more powerful body of about two dozen Central Committee members.

The sources, who all requested anonymity, said the ruling party had made the decision after investigating Bo, the former party chief of Chongqing municipality in southwest China, over a scandal that emerged after his vice mayor, Wang Lijun, fled into a U.S. consulate for 24 hours in February.

Wang's flight triggered a series of revelations, including questions about the death of a British businessman close to Bo's family. Bo was dismissed as Chongqing party chief in mid-March.

The party settles on a new top leadership late this year, and Bo was widely seen as pressing for a top post in the Politburo Standing Committee, the innermost core of power.

"The central leadership's decision means Bo Xilai's hopes for surviving politically are finished," said another one of the sources, who said senior government officials were told of the decision on Tuesday.

"There is also sure to be further investigation of Bo Xilai and his family," the second source said.

AMBITION

The brash Bo had earlier exuded ambition to enter the next Politburo Standing Committee. A party congress later this year will unveil the new leadership line-up.

"This means that Bo's political career is effectively over," said Chen Ziming, an independent political scholar in Beijing who said he had heard rumours of an impending announcement but could not confirm them.

"But a decision to formally expel him would have to be made by the full Central Committee, which would have to receive a report from the Central Discipline Inspection Commission," said Chen.

The discipline commission is an elite body that enforces party rules and investigates officials accused of corruption and other abuses.

Wang's flight to the U.S. consulate and his allegations prompted the British government to urge an investigation into the death in November of the Briton, Neil Heywood, who Wang said was close to Bo's family and had a dispute with Bo's wife, Gu Kailai.

Bo, 62, and his wife have disappeared from public view since his removal as chief of Chongqing, and they have not responded publicly to the reports. Nor has Wang, who is under investigation.

Handsome and smartly dressed in a party of bland conformists, Bo arrived in Chongqing in 2007 and promoted it as a bold egalitarian alternative model of growth for China.

He vowed to narrow the gap between rich and poor, kindling hopes among supporters that he could nudge the whole country in a similar populist direction if he entered the central leadership.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Bo Xilai suspended from Chinese Communist Party top ranks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0410/Bo-Xilai-suspended-from-Chinese-Communist-Party-top-ranks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe