New Twist on BO Xilai

choi

(1) Jeremy Page, UK Seeks Probe Into China Death; Chinese leadership purge takes new turn; Police chief sought asylum from US. Wall Street Journal, Jan 26, 2012 (front page)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 03740612604260.html
(Mr Wang [Lijun] claimed to have fallen out with Mr Bo [Xilai] after discussing his belief with his boss that Mr [Neil] Heywood was poisoned, people familiar with the case said in interviews with The Wall Street Journal. Mr Wang also claimed that Mr Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was involved in a business dispute with Mr Heywood, according to one of those people.

My comment: The insinuation agaist Mr Bo Xilai is getting more and more bizarre.

(2) Tom Orlik, Political Risk Casts Shadow Over China. Wall Street Journal, Jan 26, 2012
("But the ousting of Chingqing Party Bo Xilai more than a week ago is a reminder China has bigger, more intractable problems [than economy]. It probably means the end of a political maverick who threatened the status quo. But Mr Bo's rise, marked by populist promises to fight corruption and provide housing for the masses, was possible only because the status-quo polical system was failing to deliver. That makes it fragile.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.

(3) Britain asks China to probe death of UK citizen in Bo Xilai's Chongqing. Telegraph, Mar 26, 2012 (text compiled from Reuters and Bloomberg)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ ... lais-Chongqing.html
carries a photo of Mr Neil Heywood (credit: AP). There is no need to read the text.

(4) Jamil Anderlini, Wall of Silence Around Bo's Fate; Chinese leader; Lack of word on purged chief's whereabouts reveals paralysis gripping the party. Financial Times, Mar 24, 2012.

Quote:

(a) "Bo Guagua is reported by some of his friends to be in the US, where he is enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard University, but credible sources say he [Guagua] and his wife have already been detained and are likely to face unspecified charges.

(b) The reporter describes the hutong near which Bo's residence (or mansion in the report). (Why I use "near which"?  See the first clause next.)

"Although the mansion is not visible is not visible from the alley, the giant tree that protrudes from the inner courtyard must be at least 100 years old and towers over a smaller, western-style mansion on one side and a ramshackle, mostly derelict traditional Chinese courtyard onthe other.

"In a tiny unheated room in the courtyard [in the same hutong], a poor migrant worker who has lived there for years reacts with shock to the suggestion that Mr Bo and his wife have been detained following his dismissal.

"'You can tell from his appearance that he is a good person, a good clean official and not corrupt in the slightest,' says the worker, who did not want to be named.

"When asked how he felt about Mr Bo living in a grand mansion in the midst of relative squalor, he says it is Mr Bo's right as a top communist official and as the son of Bo Yibo, a revolutionary general who had fought alongside Mao Zedong. 'Out there in Chingqing, he did some great things, especially smashing the mafia,' the man says.

"This is the challenge the party faces--after years of propaganda portraying Mr Bo as a crime-fighting, no-nonsense 'red-blooded' heir to the revolutionary tradition, it now has to explain why he has been moved from his position and possibly detained.

(c) The last paragraph:

"'The emperor is doing everything he can to convince the masses that he's wearing clothes,' says one successful businessman, who was a close observer of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations and, like, many of his contemporaries, believes what China really needs is to launch political reforms immediately.'He's doing everything except actually putting on some clothes.'

My comment:
(a) The first three paragraphs said the reporter knocked at the door of Mr Bo's residence to "ask[] if Mr Bo, his wife, Gu Kailai, or son, Bo Guagua, will speak to the Financial Times," "a young officer in full military, or paramilitary, uniform shooed him (reporter) away.
(b) There is no need to read the rest of the report.
(c) If you do, here is the list of vocabulary.
(i) sinecure (n: Medieval Latin sine cura without cure (of souls)):
"1: archaic : an ecclesiastical benefice without cure of souls
2: an office or position that requires little or no work and that usually provides an income"
(ii) flophouse (n; First Knonw Use 1916): "a cheap rooming house or hotel"
www.m-w.com