This is potentially massive. Wang Lijun, the Chongqing vice-secretary and police chief who was removed from his duties last week, has disappeared on "stress leave" after attempting to defect via the US consulate in Chengdu, where he reportedly tried to claim political asylum and was refused by the Americans.
Story going around is that his original removal was prompted by his attempt to expose the corruption of Gu Kailai, wife of blog favorite Bo Xilai, the Party boss of Chongqing and mother of Adam Smith Institute member and mediocre Oxford/Harvard student Bo Guagua - or that he tried to use information on her corruption to prevent an investigation into his own corruption. Wang got a lot of press praise in the last couple of years because of his role in cleaning up previous police corruption and organized crime in Chongqing; Bo, of course, is making a pitch for a central leadership role this year.
So the fallout from this could be huge. At the least it's a big embarassment to Bo Xilai, whose bid for power is very tied up with his reforms in Chongqing. His style - personality-driven, populist-nationalist - isn't popular with a lot of the more conservative upper echelons of the Party, and both him and his wife are scions of old Party families. If he falls, it'd be massive, if he gets sidelined, that's still pretty big.
UPDATE: Jamie here. and now this:
In Washington,US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Wang sought and had a meeting at the consulate and later left "of his own volition." She declined to comment on whether he had sought refugee status or asylum.
Well, either he was seeking asylum or he just dropped in to the Consulate for a chat. If he was seeking asylum, the week before Xi Jinping's trip to the US was probably the wrong time to do it.
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