Beijing on edge amid coup rumours

[Dari]

China is far more unstable than it appears to the rest of the world. Since the purging of a former member of the Politburo last week the country's top leadership has gone deeper, getting rid of his allies.

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Beijing on edge amid coup rumours

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

The Chinese capital is awash with speculation, innuendo and rumours of a coup following the most important political purge in decades, with even some of the most well-informed officials in the dark about what comes next.

Since Bo Xilai, one of China’s most powerful leaders, was removed from his job last Thursday, the bureaucracy and the public have been on tenterhooks, awaiting the next twist in the gripping political saga.

Besides a one-line statement on Mr Bo’s dismissal published late last week, China’s heavily censored media have not mentioned his name, let alone provided any clues about what will happen to him.

But the country’s netizens, in particular those using hard-to-censor Twitter-like microblogs, have been flooding the internet with information ranging from highly implausible to apparently authentic.

In one rumour that spread rapidly on Monday night, a military coup had been launched by Zhou Yongkang, an ally of Mr Bo’s and the man in charge of China’s state security apparatus, and gun battles had erupted in Zhongnanhai, the top leadership compound in the heart of Beijing.

But when the Financial Times drove past the compound late on Monday night, all appeared calm and by Wednesday evening there was no indication that anything was out of the ordinary.

However, one person with close ties to China’s security apparatus said Mr Zhou had been ordered not to make any public appearances or take any high-level meetings and was “already under some degree of control”.

The same person said Mr Bo, who was Communist Party chief of Chongqing until last week, was under house arrest while his wife had been taken away for investigation into suspected corruption, a common charge levelled at senior officials who have lost out in power struggles.

Although this information could not be immediately confirmed, documents and audio recordings circulating on the internet appear to substantiate the claim that members of Mr Bo’s family were under investigation for corruption even before his trusted police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to a US consulate and requested asylum in early February.

The documents and recording of a preliminary government report on the case, which Chinese officials say appear to be genuine and probably leaked intentionally, suggested Mr Wang fled after Mr Bo fired him and tried to arrest him to head off a corruption investigation.

Jon Huntsman, a former Republican presidential hopeful and US ambassador to China who met Mr Bo a number of times, said his demise revealed serious rifts among the top leadership of the country.

“The splits in the standing committee [over reform] are as pronounced now as they were during the [1989] Tiananmen Square period,” Mr Huntsman said. “Politics in China is a rough and tumble business. This is an open and public evidence of this and what happens behind the velvet curtain that the world never sees.”

Adding to the air of intrigue in the capital, a report of a fatal car crash on Sunday involving the son of a top leader and a Ferrari appeared on the internet but was quickly removed by official censors.

Netizens and one source with close ties to China’s top leaders said the illegitimate son of a politburo standing committee member was killed in the crash and two young women were badly hurt.

Additional reporting by James Lamont

 

[Fern]

Wow.

I haven't heard any of this before.

Thanks

Fern

 

[ElFenix]

i love how you copied this:

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but didn't abide by it.

 

[lothar]

Much ado about nothing.

 

[werepossum]

Wasn't Bo Xilai supposedly one of those behind Xi Jinping being exiled and his father jailed during the "Cultural Revolution"?

 

[soccerballtux]

Much ado about nothing.

companies invested in china because they believed it was a politically "stable" environment.
A coup would turn that head / heals and turn investors shy.
Definitely far from being not a big deal.

 

[Sinsear]

Will the prices at walmart go up now?

 

[gsaldivar]

i love how you copied this:

but didn't abide by it.

The use of the word "please" indicates a request, not a condition of use.

Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article.

Additionally, the full text of the article is available by simply entering the title into Google...

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Wow.

I haven't heard any of this before.

Thanks

Fern

Same. Guess I won't be volunteering for any projects that use chinese extruders or winders in the near future. I'd hate to be stuck over there if all hell broke loose.

 

[Albatross]

One more argument for democracy.
If not ,you need academics to guess WTF is going on:Kremlinology

 

[Craig234]

A couple political points I've heard on China's politics:

The government is more vulnerable than most here think; while it's a dictatorship, it doesn't have the iron control we think of as with a Stalin or a Mao. The government made a deal with the Chinese people that they could have prosperity if they do not try to take political power from the government. That's how it's worked for years.

Thing is, that seems unstable to me in the long run - prosperity bings political power.

The Chinese people, however, have bought into this deal more than we might expect - we tend to want to view every nation's people as 'like us, yearning to be free' and so they're always the 'cause' to support against a tyrannical government - which I have a lot of sympathy with - but I've heard mostly Chinese who support things like Tianemman Square, saying those are a few radicals sitrring up problems who needed to be shut down. A lot of chinese seems to have a different view of the balance with 'freedom'.

I don't mean to generalize and am not informed about overall Chinese public opinion, but I've heard enough of this from Chinese peope to make it seem a real issue.

We have a narrative ready for the 'masses who are oppressed' and they are in many ways, but listen to the people themselves as well for their view - it might surprise.

Funny enough, I view the Chinese government as a sort of place the Republicans are taking this country, where the people are serving the interests of the owners.

And I'm against that. I want a stronger middle class; the right wants the wealth of the people put in the hands of a few at the top, and without the power to change that.

How ironic, the right and the 'communist' Chinese government converging in substance if not rhetoric.

There's a reason the Republican candidates keep repeating words like 'liberty' and 'freedom' like they have Tourette's, but really seem to oppose them for the people.

 

[CallMeJoe]

...Funny enough, I view the Chinese government as a sort of place the Republicans are taking this country, where the people are serving the interests of the owners...

I'm certainly glad you're not given to hyperbole.

 

[AreaCode707]

My dad works over there about 60% of the time. Hope things stay stable...

 

[cybrsage]

I wish Jon Huntsman was still in the running for President.

 

[Infohawk]

The use of the word "please" indicates a request, not a condition of use.

Additionally, the full text of the article is available by simply entering the title into Google...

The word please is in the clause indicating they want you to share the article with a link. The next clause clearly states not to copy and paste.

Of course you can get the article through google, by being directed to the Financial Times website. That's the whole point. They want the traffic.

 

[rchiu]

Bo Xilai is not powerful enough to start a coup by himself. Chinese Communist Party is already taking him out of the power circle, even his name is not searchable now in the Chinese Internet.

This is related to Wang Lijun incident, both Wang and Bo beating each other up on corruption charges leading Wang tried to seek political asylum and Bo getting fired.

This is just a rumor, nothing more. Chinese Communist Party still have iron fist grasp on China. Bo is gone, no sane person in Chinese army would follow him and go against the entire CCP.

 

[Craig234]

I'm certainly glad you're not given to hyperbole.

I wish it were hyperbole. We not close to them now, but we've slipped a long way.

Look back at labor history in this country, and you realize how delicate a lot of the advances are.

We aren't going to literally match the Chinese - we've built too much wealth - but the principles of a lot fewer worker rights and share of wealth are where they're headed.

This is the first Generation in our 225 year history where the next generation is worse off than the one before. That's not 'hyperbole'.

Our public and private debt are at historic levels. And so on.

Thanks to technology, these problems are somewhat mitigated - we have the best transportation, medical care, media and more in our history.

So do the Chinese, by the way. How can you criticize things there when they were so horrific under Mao if you compare?

So, what you thought I said might have been hyperbole, but what I said isn't - that the 'less for workers, more for owners' issue/agenda is shared by China and Republicans.

We did this for decades in our 'economic satellite' countries - install dictators who killed any labor organizers and kept the people powerless and working cheap, backed by thugs.

Again we're not close to that here, but they have turned on American workers in policy matters, with the historic shifting of wealth to the top and workers not getting any share of the economic growth after inflation as the economy has more than doubled since Reagan. That's not 'hyperbole'.

 

[Michael]

Once again, craig234 turns one discussion into a chance to foam at the mouth and jump onto his soapbox.

I live in China and from talking to my local friends (which range from communist party members to younger students who dislike the system), there is a lot more interest now in the changing of the guard. Before, the only source of news was from official government sources. Now, they have Weibo and access to many more Western news sources.

For the most part, the Chinese I know only really complain about the corruption in the Communist Party. Otherwise they are comfortable in general with the way things are and I have not detected any desire to cast of any yokes. The ones that want to leave China are all driven by schooling for the 1 kid they can have. You can make plenty of money in China today, no need to leave to make your fortune anymore.

Even living there, my sample size is limited. I am taking Mandarin lessons, but my Mandarin is still quite poor. So I can only talk to English speaking people. I also live and travel in the "coastal" region which is much wealthier than the rest of the country. I cannot read Mandarin, so I have to rely on Google Translate. I have not detected any "tensions", but from daily experience, the Chinese do mobs quite well and there is a long tradition of the government ruling for a long time and then the Chinese people getting fed up and turfing them out, so who really knows?

Michael

 

[EagleKeeper]

<snip>
So, what you thought I said might have been hyperbole, but what I said isn't - that the 'less for workers, more for owners' issue/agenda is shared by China and Republicans.
<snip>

There are many Republicans that feel that the workers have the ability to grow; you do not take from them, but reward them for extra efforts beyond what was originally agreed to.

the harder you work; the more the company is able to profit and grow. And most places will share that growth profit with the worker in terms of profit sharing, bonus raises, etc.

Your complaint is that when every one gets 10% of their base; that is unfair because the bases are not equal.

Or that everyone should have the same base because the value should be considered equal.

Why should they be; the workers do not have a much invested into the company as the upper levels?

You want to destroy capitalism where one works for their wealth and instead want the equivalent of socialism where one gets an equal share even if they do not contribute equally.

 

[Atreus21]

China is far more unstable than it appears to the rest of the world. Since the purging of a former member of the Politburo last week the country's top leadership has gone deeper, getting rid of his allies.

link

I wish we could have a one-party government so that we could have political drama like this. Swashbuckling adventure, gun fights, coups, I smell a movie.

 

[gotsmack]

I asked my friend living over there. He is an expat that married a local girl. He asked his wife and she didn't hear anything or feel like there is a lot of tension. He did say that you can't trust the microblogs because lots of them are made by rebellious or crazy people, mostly college kids. They also have 4x the population so its reasonable to have 4x the crazies. He lives in Shenzhen so maybe things are different in rural areas.

 

[alphatarget1]

i love how you copied this:

but didn't abide by it.

lol qft.

 

[werepossum]

Bo Xilai is not powerful enough to start a coup by himself. Chinese Communist Party is already taking him out of the power circle, even his name is not searchable now in the Chinese Internet.

This is related to Wang Lijun incident, both Wang and Bo beating each other up on corruption charges leading Wang tried to seek political asylum and Bo getting fired.

This is just a rumor, nothing more. Chinese Communist Party still have iron fist grasp on China. Bo is gone, no sane person in Chinese army would follow him and go against the entire CCP.

You're undoubtedly correct. I'm curious though if this is Xi purging his opposition/competition, or just the Party purging corruption and dissent. I really have no handle at all on Xi Jinping. Either way I can't imagine anything of import coming from this.

 

[ky54]

I live in China...

I've been wanting to talk to someone that lives there and ask a question - I don't know where you live but how hard is it to find a place to live for a family of three and how expensive is it? I have seen a lot on CCTV and reading China Daily that in the big cities like Beijing the non-professional working class is being priced right out of the cities making it very difficult to secure work. Is this true and have you been able to detect any discord because of it? thanks.

 

[Dari]

You're undoubtedly correct. I'm curious though if this is Xi purging his opposition/competition, or just the Party purging corruption and dissent. I really have no handle at all on Xi Jinping. Either way I can't imagine anything of import coming from this.

This has little, if anything, to do with Xi Jinping.

Mr. Bo was trying to get in on the State Council, I believe, the highest board in the CHinese government with 9 members. 7 will resign in the fall. His primary competitor was the individual that preceded him in Chongqing. That person is now in a province on the southeastern board. His predecessor was a liberal so Mr. Bo tried to outdo him by having mass singings of old Communist songs and attacking "gangsters" in order to pay for his new socialist programs. These "gangsters" were millionaires and billionaires. Mr. Bo was very public in his ambition, unlike other Chinese leaders. He was telegenic too. To get so high within the Communist party you've had to have done some dirty things in your past. So, in order to beat him for the spot on the State Council, his political opponents decided on an extremely smart and shrewd move. THey shook the tree to see what fell by going after his number 2, the chief of police, Wang Lijun. As they dug up more dirt he panicked. Mr. Bo panicked too and fired him. Mr. Wang then fled to the US counselate where he spilled the beans for well over 24 hours. Afterwards Mr. Wang surrendered to police who had surrounded the counselate and took him to Beijing. They took him right to Mr. Bo's political opponents who were holding all the cards. They got #2 to squeal on #1. Mr. Bo had no escape.