So at 7 o'clock on Friday night before the start of the week long National Day holiday the Party unloads on its errant son. And boy does it ever unload: abuses of power, taking huge bribes through himself and his family and 'inappropriate sexual relations with multiple women'. The allegations go back from his time in Chongqing, through his role as Commerce Minister and back to his days as Mayor of Dalian. Evidence of other unspecified crimes has also been uncovered, allegedly.
Bo's been expelled from the Party, which paves the way for him to face criminal charges. So I was pretty badly off point when I predicted that he'd be permanently sequestered in the manner of Zhao Ziyang. The trends seemed to point towards leniency early on, but the fact that charges against him got back at least as far as the early nineties shows that the CDIC people decided to go over his career pretty thoroughly. They clearly didn't like what they found. And though we don't know what specific charges he's going to face it's also clear that the Party want him buried enough to allow some incredibly embarrassing stuff to bubble up in a court.
Incidentally, the point about Bo taking bribes through his family flags up another British connection. How did the family get hold of the tuition fees to send young Guagua to Harrow and then Oxford? We may be about to find out.
In other news, the date of the 18th Party Congress has now been set for November 8, in line with the 17th Party Congress statement that it would take place in the last half of this year, but later than the various floral displays and block hotel bookings in Beijing would indicate. Perhaps there was a last minute decision to get Bo finally out of the way before striding boldly on into the glorious future.
And now reports that he's being charged with participation in the Heywood murder too.
OT: I almost went to the Alexander Cockburn memorial last weekend and now reading this I really wish I had.
In other memorials, it was Petrov day a couple of days ago.
And it was 70 years ago yesterday that the brave Sgt. Pavlov and an understrength platoon took his eponymous house and held it for two months against incredible odds.
Posted by: Barry Freed | September 28, 2012 at 07:47 PM
Not quite re: Sgt. Pavlov - an unquestionable act of heroism, but most of the story as its normally told isn't quite true, as per Michael K Jones' Stalingrad - Pavlov was probably the most junior officer there after the first few days, and the garrison was closer to 70-100.
(there's still two survivors from it too, or there were in 2007.)
Posted by: Richard J | September 28, 2012 at 08:33 PM
Very good book, incidentally; a revisionist history that actually reveals the truth was more heroic than the propaganda...
Posted by: Richard J | September 28, 2012 at 08:39 PM
Thanks, I've just ordered it. I've put off reading anything new on Stalingrad for a while out of a vague sense that I really should read Glantz which is just not going to happen in this lifetime.
Posted by: Barry Freed | September 28, 2012 at 09:06 PM
Glantz has many virtues, but sadly readibility is not one of them.
Posted by: Richard J | September 28, 2012 at 10:58 PM