Stalinist policies won’t help China in long run

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China must go beyond one-party system

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In the early 1970s, the CIA published for its agents, a manual entitled: “The Art of China Watching”. At that time, the CIA wrote, “by most standards, China is a peculiar country”. Forty years later, China has not changed much; it remains difficult to grasp the moves and motives of a self-proclaimed ‘more transparent’ leadership.
For the watchers, the latest episode was enthralling to follow; I speak of the ‘public’ trial of Bo Xilai, a former Politburo member and Chongqing’s Communist Party Secretary.
Bo’s trial has been the object of immense speculation on the part of the ‘watchers’. Will it demonstrate some progress by the new leadership led by President Xi Jinping in the Art of Transparency, or will it be an old style drama à la Mao Zedong, enacted by a State which has understood the importance of using the modern means of communication such as Internet and micro-blogging. Old wine in new cyber bottles!
John Garnaut, the author of The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo wrote: “It would be a suitably jaw-dropping postscript to one of the most remarkable political shows on earth if Bo Xilai turns out to be the man who saves the Chinese legal system.”
But Bo has not really saved a system which has not witnessed major reforms and taken a step forward towards constitutionalism, the normal rule of law?
Probably not!
Garnaut explains that “as celebrity drama it doesn't get much more riveting than a fallen neo-Maoist, …brawling with his former right hand man and his current wife over infidelity, insanity, defection, a $3.2 million mansion in France, the murder of an Englishman and a ‘princeling’ child marooned in the United States.”
There is no doubt that the Intermediate People's Court in Jinan in the eastern Shandong province witnessed a historical event. All the ingredients were there: the ‘fallen’ hero, brilliantly defending himself and denouncing his wife Gu Kailai, who had ‘gone mad and always lies’; ‘sex’, with Bo stating that Gu was angry with him over an affair that the Red Prince had with another woman (Gu herself apparently had an affair with the Police Chief); but more interestingly, the relative transparency of the Court which regularly published transcripts of the proceedings. There was, of course, no way to check the veracity of the released documents as live transmission was not permitted by the Court (read the Party).
There is no doubt that the leadership has scripted the ‘show’ in detail during the previous week and the ‘transparency’ was a carefully calculated risk; knowing that it would be watched by hundreds of millions of avid spectators in the Mainland and abroad.
The Party had perhaps not planned such a spirited defence from the side of the fallen leader, but it remained within manageable limits for the new leadership. It has not always been so.
In his youth, President Xi Jinping must have heard (he was too young to remember ut ) about the fate of his father Xi Zhongxun, a vice-Premier, who during the Lushan Conference in July 1959 sided with Marshall Peng Dehuai, Mao’s old companion (more or less his equal). Peng had the courage to present a report on what was happening in the countryside; he spoke on the (today) infamous Great Leap Forward. During his inspection tour, the Old Marshal had seen peasants dying by millions. He told Mao in no uncertain terms that China was on the brink of the greatest man-made disaster; Mao never forgave Peng for having spoken against the Great Leap Forward and his lieutenant Xi Zhongxun also paid the hard price for having taken Peng’s side.
In September 1962, Mao, who had remained in the background after the Lushan Conference, decided to come back on the front stage. During the annual Plenum, he reemphasized class struggle ‘to prevent the emergence of revisionism’; denounced 'the members of the bourgeoisie right in the party ranks' and reasserted that the Great Leap Forward was the right thing for China. Peng and Xi Sr. were sent to the ‘countryside’, an euphemism for a purge at that time, without TV cameras, newspapers, micro-bloggers to report about their fate. Such were the ways of the Party during those days.
Today China has changed, though the manner in which decisions are taken by the inner core of the Party remains shrouded in absolute secrecy.
Although many ‘watchers’ believe that Bo went beyond the prepared script, Xinhua reiterated the Party’s position: “During the trial, both prosecution and defense sides had opportunities to fully express their opinions. Also, the court released trial transcripts through microblog.”
It reminded us that on April 10, 2012, Bo was suspended from the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee, on suspicion of serious discipline violations and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC filed a case for investigation.
The Party mouthpiece gave what will probably be the final verdict: “Although the country's legal system has a principle of tempering justice with mercy, a heavy sentence in line with the law should be handed to Bo, as he committed very serious crimes and refused to plead guilty. …he is not subject to any terms of leniency by law." Thus the Party has decided.
But in China everything is linked and Bo’s trial should be seen in the largest context of the continuous power struggle at the top of the Party. Soon after the trial ended, the Politburo announced the dates of the Third Plenum of the Central Committee in November, during which the ‘deepening of the reforms’ will be discussed. Bo Xilai who represented the ‘leftist’ wing of the Party, is now out of the game.
Observers believe that the Third Plenum should give some clear indications about the leadership's new economic agenda and if deeper ‘political’ reforms can be envisaged in the near future; they are badly needed to tackle the difficult challenges facing the country, such as corruption, polluted environment, regional economic imbalance or the restive ethnic provinces.
But by most standards, China remains a peculiar country and India is still far ahead in the field of rule of law and transparent governance, even if rampant corruption and other problems cannot be denied.
To become ‘normal’, China needs to go beyond a one party system.

The Return of Hua Guofeng

Hua Guofeng

The Epoch Times, the publication of the Falun Gong Group compares the fall of the Gang of Four after Mao's death in 1976 and the current removal from power of former Party boss Jiang Zemin, Bo Xilai, former mayor of Chongqing, Zeng Qinghong,a former vice-president of the PRC and Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and security czar.
Xi Jinping may have met Han Zhijun, the wife of Hua Guofeng who was instrumental in arresting the Gang of Four, but it does not mean that a purge like like in 1976 will occur. 
The fact that the three associates of Jiang Zemin are 'formers' shows that they already are out of the way for Xi Jinping and the new team.
It is however true that they can continue manipulate behind the thick curtains of Zhongnanhai. 
Another article of The Epoch Times mentions another 'purge': hundreds of officials from the powerful Communist Party organ that controls almost all aspects of domestic security would have been secretly arrested in Party leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption sweep.

New Epoch Weekly has learned from a highly placed official in Beijing. The ultimate goals of this purge are the arrest of former security czar Zhou Yongkang and the dismemberment of the organization he headed.
According to the source, a former senior official of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) recently delivered copies of a report to former party heads Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, informing them of mass arrests within the PLAC during the past three months.
The report stated that 453 PLAC officials from all levels have been detained for interrogation, including 392 from the Public Security Bureau, 19 from the Procuratorate, 27 from the court system, and 10 from nonpublic security bureaus.In addition, it said that 12 high-level officials had committed suicide.
...Since taking over as head of the Party, Xi Jinping has repeatedly talked about reform and the need to root out corruption in the Party, in particular speaking of the need to target both 'flies' and 'tigers'. Though a few arrests have been made publicly, they seemed scattered and unable to accomplish anything substantial. However, the large-scale secret arrests of PLAC officials suggest that Xi has chosen the PLAC as his specific target.
The Beijing source said that many observers believe that this is a purge of the PLAC by the new leadership. Many public security police and cadres are unsure of the spirit of the anti-corruption drive, and the arrests have caused a huge shock inside the PLAC and the “stability maintenance” system, the source said.

One will have to await further confirmation to see if we are witnessing a real purge; in any case, it is clear that the power struggle will continue for a few more weeks, at least until the end of the Two Meetings (the National People's Congress or NPC and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference or CPPCC).

Chinese Regime’s Xi Prepares to Deal With New ‘Gang of Four’
The Epoch Times
Cheng Jing
February 14, 2013
Communist leader Xi Jinping invoked memories of the “Gang of Four” at an official Chinese New Year’s eve event, when he honored the wife of Mao Zedong’s short-lived successor with a handshake and bow. Commentators are speculating on the meaning of what was undoubtedly a carefully orchestrated act.
With over 2,000 senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials gathered for a Chinese New Year’s celebration at the Great Hall of the People on Feb. 8, Xi extended a high-profile greeting to Ms. Han Zhijun, the elderly wife of late Chinese leader Hua Guofeng.
Hua succeeded Mao in October 1976. He played a major role in ending the Cultural Revolution, and helped begin what has been called the “reform era.” He was also a key figure in arresting the “Gang of Four,” a group of Party officials, including Mao’s last wife Jiang Qing, who controlled the CCP’s power organs during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution. The four were tried for treason, labeled a major counter-revolutionary force, and blamed for deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
On Feb. 10, Chinese New Year’s day, Yanhuang Chunqiu, a liberal political journal, carried a lengthy article on Hua Guofeng, including how he orchestrated the arrest of the “Gang of Four” after Mao’s death.
Many observers have identified a new “Gang of Four”: ousted princeling Bo Xilai, former Party leader Jiang Zemin, ex-Politburo member Zeng Qinghong, and Zhou Yongkang, former security chief.
Sun Wenguang, a former Professor of Shandong University, told the Sound of Hope (SOH) Radio Network: “There are now struggles going on inside the CCP, such as the arrest of Bo Xilai. Can this sort of thing be extended to others? Can it bring about similar effects as the arrest of the ‘Gang of Four’ did in the past? There are still some higher ups in the CCP who adhere to the conservative ways. Bringing out Hua Guofeng is a reflection of such changes. So I think it could have very symbolic significance.”
Hua Po, a mainland political analyst, says a massive cleansing within the Party is inevitable.
Hua Po told SOH: “Xi looks very composed right now. I think this is the calm before the storm. Within the CCP, the corrupted elements are in fact a vested interest group; they’re the biggest enemy on the path to reform. They are mainly from Jiang Zemin’s faction. But there are great difficulties associated with such a Party cleansing before the storm, so Xi is sitting tight and is trying to first win the majority public opinion—so he shakes hands with Han. First is to win the leftists and some moderates, second is to make friends with many others in preparation for the massive cleansing.”
Epoch Times commentator Zhou Xiaohui interprets the event as an attempt by Xi to win over Party moderates and combat conservative forces. He also predicts that the Party is likely to start cleaning out the remnants of the Jiang faction...

When Mao's train was bugged

According to The New York Times and several other newspapers, Bo Xilai was sacked because he taped the conversations of senior Party leaders, including President Hu Jintao.
Did Bo Xilai spied on Vice-President Xi Jinping’s when the latter paid a brief visit to Chongqing in December 20120?
We will probably never know.
In any case, bugging is not something new in China.
Dr Li Zhisui, Mao's Private Physician reported in his book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao that it happened to the Great Helmsman in 1961.

Extracts from The Private Life of Chairman Mao:
After a few days in Hangzhou, we headed west by train toward Wuhan, stopping briefly so Mao could meet with Zhang Pinghua, Hunan's first party secretary.
The meeting took place on the train, and Mao was late.
He was lingering in his compartment with the female teacher while Zhang and his deputy, Wang Yanchun, waited in the adjacent reception car. Wang was so rooted in his peasant ways that he squatted rather than sit on the sofa. When Mao finally emerged, I joined the teacher and several of his other female companions for astroll outside the train. The young technician responsible for secretly recording Mao's conversations, joined us in our meanderings.
"I heard you talking today," the young technician suddenly said to the teacher, interrupting our idle chatter.
"What do you mean you heard me talking?" she responded.
"Talking about what?"
"When the Chairman was getting ready to meet Zhang Pinghua. You told him to hurry up and put on his clothes."
The young woman blanched. "What else did you hear?" she asked quietly.
"I heard everything," he answered, teasing.
The woman was stunned. She turned and bolted for the train as the rest of us followed quickly behind. The other women were also distressed. If he had heard one conversation with Mao, surely he had heard others as well.
Mao's meetings were concluding as we returned to the train, and the teacher went immediately to his compartment, demanding to speak with him. She reported the entire conversation with the technician.
Mao was livid. He had never suspected the bugging. The revelation came as a shock. He called Wang Dongxing [Head of the Bodyguard Regiment] into his compartment, where the two stayed behind closed doors in intense conversation for an hour. Wang, so recently returned from exile, said he did not know about the bugging devices, either. When he emerged from the meeting, he ordered the train to proceed immediately, at top speed, to Wuhan.
As the train sped north, Wang called the technician and Mao's confidential secretary to meet with him, informing them that the Chairman wanted to know who had ordered the bugging. Wang claimed that since this was the first trip he had taken with the Chairman since his return, he simply took all the staff members who ordinarily accompanied the Chairman, including the recording technician. Wang began interrogating the young men and told the technician that Mao had ordered his arrest.
But Wang did not arrest the technician. "You have no place to ron," he told him. But he demanded to know who had ordered the bugging. ,
The confidential secretary pleaded ignorance. He said the bugging had started when Ye Zilong was in charge. Ye was the man to consult. But Ye was away doing labor reform. .
The technician also claimed not to know. He was just doing his job, he said, acting under orders from "the leadership”.
"And did the leadership order you to record the Chairman's private conversations, too?" Wang Dongxing demanded, glaring at the young technician. "Don't you have anything better to do? Why were you looking for trouble? Why didn't you tell Chairman you wanted to record his talks? You recorded all sorts of things you never should have. What am I supposed to tell Chairman?"
The young man was speechless.
By the time our train reached Wuhan and we had settled into the Plum Garden guesthouse, it was four o'clock in the morning. Wang Dongxing roused a local electrician and went immediately to remove all the bugging equipment from the train. I went to bed.
When I woke that afternoon, the bugging equipment — recording machines and tapes, speakers and wires — had been put on display in the conference room, and the staff was gathered around examining the paraphernalia. The Plum Garden guesthouse had also been bugged, and that equipment was on display, too. Mao ordered photographs taken as evidence, with Wang Dongxing, Kang Yimin, the secretary and the technician standing behind the table.
Kang Yimin, the deputy director of the Office of Confidential Secretaries who had worked just under Ye Zilong, had come from the General Office in Zhongnanhai [in Beijing] to discuss the matter with Wang Dongxing. Kang was a simple, honest, but uneducated man, and he and Wang quickly came to blows. Kang knew that the real decision to record the Chairman's conversations had come from higher up than Ye Zilong. Bugging the Chairman was far too serious a matter to be decided by Ye. Why they-or l-ever thought it could be gotten away with, I will never understand.
Confronted with Mao's discovery and not wanting to bring unknown higher levels into the dispute, Kang wanted Wang Dongxing to find some convincing way to explain the whole thing away. But Wang was determined to find out where the order had originated. Mao wanted an investigation, and Wang Dongxing was determined to conduct it.
In the end, though, the two men compromised. Wang Dongxing agreed to tell Mao that the bugging had been ordered to provide material for a party history.
Mao was infuriated. "So they're already compiling a black report against me, like Khrushchev?" he bellowed. A "party history" based on bugging his private conversations could only be used against him, and nothing bothered him more than ~he possibility of the type of attack Khrushchev had launched against Stalin. The attack against Stalin had also been full of damaging personal detail, and Mao did not want the details of his own personal life recorded on tape.
But it was not these revelations he most feared. His private life was an open secret among the party elite. His greatest fear was the potential threat to his power. Mao's frequent travel to other parts of China, where he met alone with local leaders, was part of his political strategy, a tactic designed to leap over the cumbersome bureaucratic machinery of the party and state and to maintain direct contact with local-level leaders. He did not want the central authority to know what he said to the provincial and local-level leaders. His role as the source of all policy would be diminished were representatives to carry his words back to Beijing, where central leaders could devise policy based on his conversations outside the capital. Mao wanted the central authorities to be more directly dependent on and loyal to him. If they knew what he said when traveling, they could pay lip service to their loyalty without having to be dependent. That was what he was trying to avoid.
He ordered Wang Dongxing to burn the tapes immediately. "Don't leave a single one," he commanded. "I don't want them providing material for any black report." Faced with Mao's fury, the technician confessed that other places, including the guesthouse in Hangzhou that we had just left, were also bugged. Mao ordered Wang to dispatch a team to remove that equipment and destroy those tapes, too.
Several people lost their jobs as a result of the incident. Ye Zilong's lieutenant Kany Yimin and Mao's confidential secretary were both fired. Kang went to work in the People's Bank. The latter was transferred to the Second Ministry of Machine Building and was replaced by Xu Yefu, the confidential secretary who had earlier lost his job when he talked openly about Li Yinqiao's accusation that Jiang Qing was running away to Hangzhou to avoid being criticized. The witless technician whose teasing of Mao's girlfriend had precipitated the discovery, was sent to Shaanxi for labor reform.
Mao never believed that the underlings who lost their jobs in 1961 were the real culprits. "They don't understand what this is all about," he said. "They don't know anything."
Mao, like Kang Yimin, believed that the orders to listen in on his conversations could have come only from leaders at the highest level. The Ministry of Public Security would have to be involved, too. Mao was convinced that they had been spying on him as part of a plot. His growing belief that there was a conspiracy against him within the highest ranks of the party dates from here. The differences between Mao and the other party leaders were still hidden, but the rift that would explode with the Cultural Revolution was quietly widening. Mao was biding his time.


Ousted Chinese Leader Is Said to Have Spied on Other Top Officials
The New York Times
April 25, 2012
By JONATHAN ANSFIELD and IAN JOHNSON
BEIJING — When Hu Jintao, China’s top leader, picked up the telephone last August to talk to a senior anticorruption official visiting Chongqing, special devices detected that he was being wiretapped — by local officials in that southwestern metropolis.
The discovery of that and other wiretapping led to an official investigation that helped topple Chongqing’s charismatic leader, Bo Xilai, in a political cataclysm that has yet to reach a conclusion.
Until now, the downfall of Mr. Bo has been cast largely as a tale of a populist who pursued his own agenda too aggressively for some top leaders in Beijing and was brought down by accusations that his wife had arranged the murder of Neil Heywood, a British consultant, after a business dispute. But the hidden wiretapping, previously alluded to only in internal Communist Party accounts of the scandal, appears to have provided another compelling reason for party leaders to turn on Mr. Bo.
The story of how China’s president was monitored also shows the level of mistrust among leaders in the one-party state. To maintain control over society, leaders have embraced enhanced surveillance technology. But some have turned it on one another — repeating patterns of intrigue that go back to the beginnings of Communist rule.
“This society has bred mistrust and violence,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, a historian of Communist China’s elite-level machinations over the past half century. “Leaders know you have to watch your back because you never know who will put a knife in it.”
Nearly a dozen people with party ties, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution, confirmed the wiretapping, as well as a widespread program of bugging across Chongqing. But the party’s public version of Mr. Bo’s fall omits it.
The official narrative and much foreign attention has focused on the more easily grasped death of Mr. Heywood in November. When Mr. Bo’s police chief, Wang Lijun, was stripped of his job and feared being implicated in Bo family affairs, he fled to the United States Consulate in Chengdu, where he spoke mostly about Mr. Heywood’s death.
The murder account is pivotal to the scandal, providing Mr. Bo’s opponents with an unassailable reason to have him removed. But party insiders say the wiretapping was seen as a direct challenge to central authorities. It revealed to them just how far Mr. Bo, who is now being investigated for serious disciplinary violations, was prepared to go in his efforts to grasp greater power in China. That compounded suspicions that Mr. Bo could not be trusted with a top slot in the party, which is due to reshuffle its senior leadership positions this fall.
“Everyone across China is improving their systems for the purposes of maintaining stability,” said one official with a central government media outlet, referring to surveillance tactics. “But not everyone dares to monitor party central leaders.”
According to senior party members, including editors, academics and people with ties to the military, Mr. Bo’s eavesdropping operations began several years ago as part of a state-financed surveillance buildup, ostensibly for the purposes of fighting crime and maintaining local political stability.
The architect was Mr. Wang, a nationally decorated crime fighter who had worked under Mr. Bo in the northeast province of Liaoning. Together they installed “a comprehensive package bugging system covering telecommunications to the Internet,” according to the government media official.
One of several noted cybersecurity experts they enlisted was Fang Binxing, president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, who is often called the father of China’s “Great Firewall,” the nation’s vast Internet censorship system. Most recently, Mr. Fang advised the city on a new police information center using cloud-based computing, according to state news media reports. Late last year, Mr. Wang was named a visiting professor at Mr. Fang’s university.
Together, Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang unleashed a drive to smash what they said were crime rings that controlled large portions of Chongqing’s economic life. In interviews, targets of the crackdown marveled at the scale and determination with which local police intercepted their communications.
“On the phone, we dared not mention Bo Xilai or Wang Lijun,” said Li Jun, a fugitive property developer who now lives in hiding abroad. Instead, he and fellow businessmen took to scribbling notes, removing their cellphone batteries and stocking up on unregistered SIM cards to thwart surveillance as the crackdown mounted, he said.
Li Zhuang, a lawyer from a powerfully connected Beijing law firm, recalled how some cousins of one client had presented him with a full stack of unregistered mobile phone SIM cards, warning him of local wiretapping. Despite these precautions, the Chongqing police ended up arresting Mr. Li on the outskirts of Beijing, about 900 miles away, after he called his client’s wife and arranged to visit her later that day at a hospital.
“They already were there lying in ambush,” Mr. Li said. He added that Wang Lijun, by reputation, was a “tapping freak.”
Political figures were targeted in addition to those suspected of being mobsters.
One political analyst with senior-level ties, citing information obtained from a colonel he recently dined with, said Mr. Bo had tried to tap the phones of virtually all high-ranking leaders who visited Chongqing in recent years, including Zhou Yongkang, the law-and-order czar who was said to have backed Mr. Bo as his potential successor.
“Bo wanted to be extremely clear about what leaders’ attitudes toward him were,” the analyst said.
In one other instance last year, two journalists said, operatives were caught intercepting a conversation between the office of Mr. Hu and Liu Guanglei, a top party law-and-order official whom Mr. Wang had replaced as police chief. Mr. Liu once served under Mr. Hu in the 1980s in Guizhou Province.
Perhaps more worrisome to Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang, however, was the increased scrutiny from the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which by the beginning of 2012 had stationed up to four separate teams in Chongqing, two undercover, according to the political analyst, who cited Discipline Inspection sources. One line of inquiry, according to several party academics, involved Mr. Wang’s possible role in a police bribery case that unfolded last year in a Liaoning city where he once was police chief.
Beyond making a routine inspection, it is not clear why the disciplinary official who telephoned Mr. Hu — Ma Wen, the minister of supervision — was in Chongqing. Her high-security land link to Mr. Hu from the state guesthouse in Chongqing was monitored on Mr. Bo’s orders. The topic of the call is unknown but was probably not vital. Most phones are so unsafe that important information is often conveyed only in person or in writing.
But Beijing was galled that Mr. Bo would wiretap Mr. Hu, whether intentionally or not, and turned central security and disciplinary investigators loose on his police chief, who bore the brunt of the scrutiny over the next couple of months.
“Bo wanted to push the responsibility onto Wang,” one senior party editor said. “Wang couldn’t dare say it was Bo’s doing.”
Yet at some point well before fleeing Chongqing, Mr. Wang filed a pair of complaints to the inspection commission, the first anonymously and the second under his own name, according to a party academic with ties to Mr. Bo.
Both complaints said Mr. Bo had “opposed party central” authorities, including ordering the wiretapping of central leaders. The requests to investigate Mr. Bo were turned down at the time. Mr. Bo, who learned of the charges at a later point, told the academic shortly before his dismissal that he thought he could withstand Mr. Wang’s charges.
Mr. Wang is not believed to have discussed wiretapping at the United States Consulate. Instead, he focused on the less self-incriminating allegations of Mr. Bo’s wife’s arranging the killing of Mr. Heywood.
But tensions between the two men crested, sources said, when Mr. Bo found that Mr. Wang had also wiretapped him and his wife. After Mr. Wang was arrested in February, Mr. Bo detained Mr. Wang’s wiretapping specialist from Liaoning, a district police chief named Wang Pengfei.
Internal party accounts suggest that the party views the wiretapping as one of Mr. Bo’s most serious crimes. One preliminary indictment in mid-March accused Bo of damaging party unity by collecting evidence on other leaders.
Party officials, however, say it would be far too damaging to make the wiretapping public. When Mr. Bo is finally charged, wiretapping is not expected to be mentioned. “The things that can be publicized are the economic problems and the killing,” according to the senior official at the government media outlet. “That’s enough to decide the matter in public.”
Edward Wong contributed reporting.

L'Affaire Bo and India's Security

As this article of the South China Morning Post shows, Bo Xilai, Chongqin former Party boss has (had?) very close relations with the 14th Group Army based in Kunming in Yunnan as well as the Chengdu Military Region looking, amongst others, over  the Tibetan 'stability' and the border with India (see map).
Early February,  Bo Xilai paid a visit to Kunming to inaugurate an exhibition organized by the 14th Group Army, founded by his father Marshall Bo Yibo.
It is said that it was Bo Xilai's 8th visit to Yunnan and the 14th Group Army.
There are different definitions of a Group Army, but it usually corresponds to a Corps. The People’s Liberation Army has 18 regular 'Group Armies'. Each of the PLA’s seven military regions is assigned with 2 or 3 group armies. 
The fact that General Guo Boxiong , vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, had to go to Chengdu and speak to the senior Army staff there tend to prove the seriousness of the situation.
On March 28, 2012, the People’s Liberation Army General Political Department and China’s National Defense University issued a communique about the importance of utmost discipline in the PLA.
The article stated that regardless of the changes and new challenges ahead, the military must be under the absolute leadership of the Party and “firmly follow the orders of the Party’s Central Committee, the Central Military Committee, and President Hu, under all circumstances.” If the military is not politically correct, “it will likely lose direction amidst complex and confusing political struggles. … For every Party member, following the Party’s discipline is a political requirement; the most important requirement is to be in compliance with political discipline.”
India should closely follow L'Affaire Bo which has a lot of ramifications for its own security.

Bo's links to armed forces probed
South China Morning Post 
Choi Chi-yuk
Apr 15, 2012
Bo Xilai has long had a close relationship with the military.
Links between senior officers in the Chengdu military region and the disgraced Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai are being investigated by five inspection teams sent in by the Central Military Commission, which controls China's armed forces.
Bo, who is embroiled in China's most serious political scandal in decades, is well known for his close ties with the People's Liberation Army.
Last week he was suspended from the powerful politburo for "serious violations of party discipline" and his wife and an aide are being investigated for the murder of a Briton, Neil Heywood, with whom she had business dealings.
The Sunday Morning Post has also learned that two more senior police officers in Chongqing have been detained for their roles in an alleged cover-up of the Heywood case.
The Chongqing Daily, mouthpiece of the municipal government, meanwhile hinted Bo could face criminal charges - the first time the state media has said as much.
Xinhua yesterday reported that General Guo Boxiong , vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, visited the Chengdu Military Command recently and delivered a strongly worded warning to military personnel not to listen to or circulate political rumours.
Guo called on the military to "closely rally behind the party's central leadership led by Comrade Hu Jintao ". Guo also said the army should take precautions against "any serious incident that may disturb the overall situation".
It remains unclear if Guo's visit was related to the probe.
A source in Chengdu said: "Five task forces have been sent to the Chengdu Military Command to look into whether, and to what extent, any senior officers and troops were involved in Bo's case."
The source gave no details of who was being investigated, but there has been speculation that several generals in the Chengdu command are close friends of Bo.
The Chengdu Military Command oversees the southwest, including Chongqing; the provinces of Sichuan , Yunnan and Guizhou ; and the politically sensitive Tibet Autonomous Region .
The same source said there was intense speculation that senior officers of the 14th Group Army, based in Kunming , the capital of Yunnan, were being investigated by the Central Military Commission.
The 14th Group Army was founded by Bo's late father, Bo Yibo , one of the so-called eight immortals of the revolution, a title granted because of his influence and status in the Communist Party.
Bo Xilai made a high-profile visit to the 14th Group Army the day after the attempted defection of Wang Lijun , the Chongqing police chief and vice-mayor, at the United States consulate in Chengdu was made public. Wang's visit to the consulate on February 6 triggered the crisis surrounding Bo.
Bo has a close relationship with the army. Chongqing journalists said Bo stayed in a PLA garrison for his own safety during the early stages of his crackdown on organised crime in the municipality two years ago. Last month, when Bo made his last public appearance in the National People's Congress, PLA delegates shook his hand and saluted him as he stood on the podium in front of hundreds of journalists, hours after Bo gave a two-hour press conference that turned out to be his swan song.
The Chongqing Daily yesterday ran a commentary saying both Bo and Wang Lijun had broken the law - the first hint that Bo may face criminal charges. "People like Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun have violated the law and party discipline … and seriously tarnished the image of the country and the party," it said.
Meanwhile, Guo Weiguo , the deputy police chief of Chongqing, along with the head of the municipal criminal police team, Li Yang , were detained for investigation early this month on suspicion of covering up details of the Heywood murder case, according to a source in Chongqing, who said officials above county level were notified.
British newspaper the Daily Mail has reported that Wang Lulu, Heywood's widow, visited the British embassy in Beijing seeking its help to leave for Britain with her two children because she feared for her safety.
In a written reply yesterday to the Post, Britain's Foreign Office said: "We are continuing to provide the full level of consular assistance we would in the case of a British national's death overseas. However, we are not able to comment on the personal details of Mrs Heywood."
At the same time, there are conflicting reports as to the whereabouts of Bo Guagua , the Oxford- and Harvard-educated son of Bo Xilai. The Daily Telegraph in London reported that Bo had been taken away by US law enforcement officers from his residence at Harvard on Thursday. But he is also said to have returned to Beijing some time ago.
chiyuk.choi@scmp.com Copyright (c) 2012. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Succession War is not over

While leaving the United States after a five-day tour, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping stated that his visit was a ‘full success’. After completing official calls on the US President and other dignitaries, the visit ended in a relaxed way in Hollywood. Further, Xi termed his meetings with President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden as ‘fruitful’.
Before the visit, Jeremy Page in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had correctly analyzed the future Chinese President’s personality. He spoke of his “unusual ability to get along, and to work with people across regional, ideological and functional divides—a personality trait that friends say dates back to his formative years in the village.”
A family friend of Xi told Page: “He's a very balanced character. He's not the kind to take revenge on anyone—he sees the big picture, and the importance of working with all kinds of people.”
Sidney Rittenberg, an American ex-Communist who knew Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun, an associate of Deng Xiaoping, explained to the WSJ: “I can't help but think that some of his father's personality rubbed off on him. There's one trait common to both father and son: they never made life hard for their opponents.”
Only the future will tell us if this is true for Xi Jr., though in the case of Xi Sr., he rubbed Mao up the wrong side by being too close to Marshal Peng Dehuai, who dared criticize the Chairman after the Great Leap Forward. Xi Zhongxun was purged for 16 years for his ‘crime’.
Except for the demonstrations by Tibetan supporters protesting in different us cities against the repression in Eastern Tibet (more than 20 monks and nuns have immolated themselves), the visit went rather well, at least as far as the forthcoming succession to the top of the Communist Party is concerned.
Xi had earlier travelled to Iowa with a business delegation and agreed to buy more than US $ 4 billion of soybeans from the US; watching a NBA basketball match between the LA Lakers and the Phoenix Suns at the Staples Center in LA, further endeared him to the American public.
The situation is less euphoric in China where the succession war rages.
While the powerful Chongqing’s Party Secretary, Bo Xilai is trying hard to make it to the ultimate Paradise for a Chinese politician, the Politburo’s Standing Committee, the Wind seems to have recently changed direction.
The New York Times reported: “Here in Chongqing, the Communist Party’s secretive, stage-managed process of installing a new generation of leaders has become a more open and sometimes brutal contest, with fortunes of leaders of broadly different inclinations at stake.”
The newspaper which quotes Wang Kang, a local writer and commentator: “What’s going on in Chongqing is a battle over the future course of China. It is about how China should be run”, comments: “unlike Mr. Xi, seen as humble and deft, Mr. Bo is a tenacious fighter and showman.”
Unfortunately for Bo, his right hand man, Wang Lijun, the Police Chief of the port city had to be demoted (or did he try to defect?).
The foreign press extensively covered the incident, but it is still not very clear what happened. Everyone agrees that Wang Lijun visited the US Consulate General in Chengdu (Sichuan province) and after an over-night stay, Wang is said to have left ‘of his own volition’ (says the US spokesperson).
Had Bo conspired to spoil Xi Jinping's leadership succession prospects?
Was Wang refused political asylum to avoid derailing Xi’s visit to the US?
Did Locke consult the Chinese authorities in Beijing before taking a decision?
There are different answers to these questions.
Voice of America quoted an article of the Washington Free Beacon saying that Wang told the US Consul General in Chengdu that Bo was corrupt and maintained close ties with crime syndicates. Wang could also have disclosed tactics and strategies adopted by China's public security agencies to crack down on political dissidents.
Has Wang given any information on the power struggle in China a few months before the leadership change?
Some speculate that hardliners like Bo and Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, conspired to prevent Vice President Xi Jinping from taking over the presidency later this year.
The Chongqing municipal government issued a statement saying that Wang was on ‘vacation therapy’, being over-stressed. Nice formula!
The US-based author Xujun Eberlein has another theory, using ‘informed speculation’, she wrote that Wang Lijun was not seeking asylum in Chengdu, he simply wanted the Central Party’s protection. Wang would have used the US consulate as a safe house, where he waited until officers sent from Beijing could arrive. He then walked outside the US consulate, where seventy police vans sent by Bo Xilai had come to arrest him, but the State Security agents managed to take him away to Beijing after a short scuffle.
Whatever the truth is, this incident shows that everything is not smooth in the Middle Kingdom.
Another news piece is rather worrying and related to the October succession; hardliners are trying to impose their ‘leftist’ policies once again.
An article written by Zhu Weiqun, the Deputy Director of CCP's United Front Work Department in The Study Times (Xuexi Shibao), unnoticed by the Indian press may have serious implications.
Zhu, who is the interlocutor of the Dalai Lama's Envoys in the so-called Beijing-Dharamsala negotiations, argues that China must change some aspects of its present political and educational system in order to achieve 'national cohesion'. He expects a discussion on this issue to take place at the forthcoming annual National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March.
Zhu raises the possibility of abolishing special privileges and preferential policies offered to minority nationalities, taking the nationality name off all IDs cards and passports and removing nationality names from provinces.
Does it mean that autonomy will be deleted from the Constitution in the name of promoting a 'greater cohesion'?
This would be a radically new policy. In 2005, China's State Council had published a White Paper on Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China which stated: "The People's Republic of China is a united multi-ethnic state founded jointly by the people of all its ethnic groups. So far, there are 56 ethnic groups identified and confirmed by the Central Government."
Zhu’s and his mentors’ move should seriously worry the Tibetans. In 2008, the Dalai Lama's Envoys had given a Memorandum to Mr Zhu; and a year later, they presented a Note on the Memorandum. The Tibetan Envoys offered amongst other things, to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the PRC and of its Constitution, as well as the Dalai Lama’s ‘full cooperation for a mutually beneficial solution’.
Zhu Weiqun rejected the Memorandum and the Note.
The latest essay of Zhu will have serious consequences for the Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols and other minority nationalities as they may lose their identity guaranteed by the Constitution of China.
Zhu and his bosses in the Standing Committee of the Politburo probably believe that it is a way to solve the Tibetan issue once and for all.
But this could also create more resentment amongst the people of non-Han origin and increase the circle of violence.
For India, it will also have serious implications for the border talks as Delhi has always acknowledged Tibetan autonomy (within the People's Republic of China, since 1954).
This should be followed closely; but one thing is sure, the succession war is not over.

Peaceful and Harmonious Chongqing

This article of The South China Morning Post is fascinating.
Chongqing was already made the headlines after Bo Xilai, the CCP rising star and Chongqing Party boss  encouraged the population to sing 'red songs'. This has apparently become the craze all over the Middle Kingdom.
An Op-ed in the China Daily explains:

Younger generations, may not be familiar with 'red songs'. These songs praise, compliment and commemorate the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Republic of China, and the various revolutions led by the Party. On the mainland, it is common that those more than 50 years of age can sing at least one or two 'red songs'. Songs can have evocative titles, such as 'The East is Red', 'There would not be the New China without the Communist Party', and 'Unity is Strength'.

More and more Chinese may know about the 'glorious' past of the Communist Party, but can Chongqing build a 'harmonious society' based on 500,000 cameras made in the US? This is another question.
The article asked: "Should companies be held accountable if foreign governments use their products for political suppression?" 
Business is business. US companies will continue to seriously believe (or pretend to believe) that the cameras will only be used to built a peaceful society signing 'East is Red'. 
What a shame!

Censorship Inc.
Cisco Poised to Help China Keep an Eye on Its Citizens
By LORETTA CHAO in Beijing and DON CLARK in San Francisco
JULY 5, 2011
U.S. firms can sell surveillance gear in China, but not equipment that is used only for crime control.
Western companies including Cisco Systems Inc. are poised to help build an ambitious new surveillance project in China—a citywide network of as many as 500,000 cameras that officials say will prevent crime but that human-rights advocates warn could target political dissent.
The system, being built in the city of Chongqing over the next two to three years, is among the largest and most sophisticated video-surveillance projects of its kind in China, and perhaps the world. Dubbed "Peaceful Chongqing," it is planned to cover a half-million intersections, neighborhoods and parks over nearly 400 square miles, an area more than 25% larger than New York City.
Cisco Systems and other companies are poised to help build an ambitious new surveillance project in China, a citywide network of cameras that could prevent crime but that human-rights advocates say could target political dissent. Don Clark reports on digits.
The project sheds light on how Western tech companies sell their wares in China, the Middle East and other places where there is potential for the gear to be used for political purposes and not just safety. The products range from Internet-censoring software to sophisticated networking gear. China in particular has drawn criticism for treating political dissent as a crime and has a track record of using technology to suppress it.
An examination of the Peaceful Chongqing project by The Wall Street Journal shows Cisco is expected to supply networking equipment that is essential to operating large and complicated surveillance systems, according to people familiar with the deal.
The U.S. has prohibited export of crime-control products to China (for instance, fingerprinting equipment) ever since Beijing's deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. But the U.S. restrictions don't prohibit sale of technologies such as cameras that can be used in many ways—to tame, say, either traffic jams or democracy marches. This loophole troubles some critics. There is no indication that Cisco is selling products customized for crime control.
Western companies' pursuit of sales in China underscores a fundamental question for businesses and policy makers alike: Should companies be held accountable if foreign governments use their products for political suppression?
Cisco was brought in to the Chongqing project by Chinese security company Hikvision Digital Technology Co., the project's main contractor, Hikvision officials and others say. It is unclear whether Cisco's participation has been finalized, although one person familiar with the matter says it is close.
Officials at Cisco, based in San Jose, Calif., declined to discuss its possible involvement in detail. A company spokesman stressed that Cisco "hasn't sold video cameras or video-surveillance solutions in any of our public infrastructure projects in China."
The company has previously said—including in a June blog post by Cisco's general counsel, Mark Chandler—that the company strictly abides by the Tiananmen export controls and doesn't supply any gear to China that is "customized in any way" to facilitate repressive uses.
Cisco is the world's biggest maker of networking equipment, which includes routing and switching systems that send data between computers and connect systems to the Internet. The company has stirred controversy in the past for its China dealings.
The Chongqing project is also attracting interest from other U.S. companies, including Alabama software maker Intergraph Corp. Hewlett-Packard Co. also expects to bid on part of the project, according to a senior H-P executive.
The people familiar with the matter said H-P may be looking to supply servers or storage equipment for Peaceful Chongqing.
Another possible participant in the Chongqing project is Intergraph, a Huntsville, Ala., company that made a bid through Cisco to provide customized software for the effort, said Bob Scott, head of Intergraph's security group. It is unclear if the company, a unit of Sweden's Hexagon AB, will ultimately be hired.
Although sale of surveillance technology to repressive nations is permissible, some critics have harsh words for companies that do so. "The business community is only hearing what it wants to hear and disregarding the rest," said Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a nonpartisan rights group made up of members of Congress.
Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in southwestern China, is one of the most populous cities in the nation with an urban population of at least 12 million. The hillside Yangtze River port, famous for spicy hot-pot and often covered in fog, was China's capital from 1938 to 1945. Today, it is being developed as a gateway to the country's western hinterland.
Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in southwestern China, is one of the most populous cities in the nation with an urban population of at least 12 million. The hillside Yangtze River port, famous for spicy hot-pot and often covered in fog, was China's capital from 1938 to 1945. Today, it is being developed as a gateway to the country's western hinterland.
Chongqing has gained prominence the past two years because of its Communist Party chief, Bo Xilai, a rising political star who has led a controversial crackdown on organized crime that some lawyers have criticized for what they say are violations of legal due process.
Mr. Bo declined to comment. He is expected to become one of China's top leaders next year by being appointed to China's Politburo Standing Committee, the nation's top decision-making body.
Chongqing's government has said it plans to invest more than $800 million of its own in building the Peaceful Chongqing system. Another $1.6 billion is coming from other, unspecified sources, the city has said. Hikvision's president, Hu Yangzhong, said in an interview that government funds would go toward building the central surveillance network and installing a portion of the cameras, while more cameras would be installed by owners of residences, office buildings and others—all of which would be linked to the network.
Video-surveillance systems can serve many purposes and are routinely used for benign purposes by cities world-wide to fight crime and ease traffic. Still, civil libertarians raise concerns including in the U.S. that the technology can invade privacy and is poorly regulated.
Human-rights advocates say Chinese police have used surveillance footage to identify people in political protests. Jailed Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei, who was released last month, complained before he was apprehended on April 3 that police were using cameras to monitor him.
The Chongqing government declined to comment, as did China's Ministry of Public Security and the State Council Information Office. Chinese leaders have long argued that maintaining social stability and economic growth takes precedence over political rights.
Hikvision's president, Mr. Hu, said he believes the project's goal is to cut crime, not target political dissidents. "China has a very serious public-security problem," he said in an interview last week. He blamed an epidemic of robbery and other crimes on the flood of poor migrants into China's cities and a growing wealth gap.
Mr. Hu said Chongqing's new surveillance system will be tied in to an information network that Cisco is already building in the city, where Cisco has announced a high-profile alliance under a program it calls Smart+Connected Communities—an initiative under which Cisco consults with governments around the world to use technology to tackle civic problems such as transportation, healthcare and education.
According to the Chongqing government's website, Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers told the city's mayor in a meeting last year that he hoped the Smart+Connected project could create a "model in Chongqing which can be popularized in China."
Executives at Western companies say they must weigh the possibility that technology could be misused against the business risks of missing out on a lucrative market. "We do have concerns," said Intergraph's Mr. Scott. "On the other hand, we want to do business there," he said, noting that the company's software is also used for environmental and other projects in China.
"We're just the technology platform," he said, adding that it is the responsibility of the buyers "to meet and adhere to laws and policies" of their jurisdictions. Ultimately, Intergraph has "to manage the risk against the gain."
In an April interview with the Journal, Bill Stuntz, general manager of Cisco's physical-security business, said Cisco gives careful consideration to how its products are used in China and doesn't want them to be used for repressive purposes. He declined to discuss specific projects in China but noted that sales of security equipment there have been expanding rapidly. He said Cisco is providing products that include networking equipment and servers along with support for some large video-surveillance systems, though not video cameras.
China has become the fastest growing market for surveillance equipment, although it isn't yet the biggest, according to IMS Research, a U.K. firm that studies the market. The surveillance markets in the U.S. and Europe are growing at single-digit rates while surveillance-related revenue in China is growing at 23% a year. Surveillance-equipment sales alone, not including networking gear or software, totaled $1.7 billion last year.
Chongqing's government says on its website that its current surveillance system is outdated, allowing police to directly tap into just 15,000 of the total 300,000 cameras. It wants the new system to be among the world's most advanced.
Mr. Scott of Intergraph says Chongqing wants not only to increase camera count, but also to have video managed and delivered to dozens of police precincts and other organizations. The project presents challenges "that have not really been done anywhere else in the world," he said.
Mr. Scott said his company spent three years developing software that enables multiple agencies to control cameras and also analyzes video feeds for unusual situations like fires or the formation of crowds.
The number of surveillance cameras in Chinese cities including Chongqing appears to dwarf that of other cities around the world, though comparisons are tough because cities generally don't disclose their camera counts.
A 2008 report by the state-run Xinhua news agency said Beijing had some 280,000 cameras in its system. By comparison, privacy advocates in the U.S., including the American Civil Liberties Union, estimate Chicago has 10,000 cameras. The New York Civil Liberties Union estimated in 2009 that there were 8,000 cameras in New York.
Kersten Zhang, Yoli Zhang, Jason Dean and Cari Tuna contributed to this article.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576377141077267316.html#ixzz1RIZs1cYu