“The Meaning of Bo Xilai’s Dismissal”

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“The Meaning of Bo Xilai’s Dismissal”

March 19, 2012

The Financial Times called the purging from the Party’s Politburo of Bo Xilai, one of China’s most high profile Communist Party officials, as “the most momentous political upheaval in the Country in two decades.” And, what happens in China, the world’s second largest economy, has to concern us. The Wall Street Journal described Mr. Bo as the Party’s “most charismatic and controversial figures.” Mr. Bo, who was the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing municipality, a member of the Politburo as well as a Princeling , was an advocate of the state playing a stronger role, both in the economy and the state. He was a hard-liner who cleaned up crime, but did so, allegedly, employing methods not dissimilar to those he was arresting.

A government built on the concept of an authoritarian group of elite leaders, who must reach consensus, felt imperiled by the charisma of one man. Better to nip it in the bud, place him under house arrest (punishment has yet to be determined), than to risk him using his personal popularity to seize control of the Party. One might conclude that the dismissal of Bo Xilai from China’s Politburo suggests that the good guys are winning. I suspect the answer is more complicated.

Since the death of Mao Tse Tung in 1976, China has been essentially ruled by a twenty-five member Politburo, and more specifically by its nine-member Standing Committee. There are three other centers of power – the state government bureaucracy, which with its broad reach is administered by China’s Premier; the People’s Liberation Army, which reports to the Politburo, and the National People’s Congress, the latter generally conceded to be the weakest of the three. The head-of-state is generally chosen from the Standing Committee. According to reports over the weekend, Bo Xilai has earned the enmity of Wen Jiabao, the current Premier, and Hu Jintao, President and Communist Party chief. Mr. Hu, according to Saturday’s Journal, was the only member of the Standing Committee not to have visited Chongqing, since Mr. Bo took power in 2007.

In a Friday essay in “Seeking Truth”, the Party’s main ideological publication, Xi Jinping, China’s Vice President and heir-apparent, warned of individual leaders cultivating their own style and courting the media, so as to divide the Party and sow the seeds of a Western-style democracy. In the essay, purportedly written on March 1, Mr. Xi did not specifically mention Bo Xilai, but its warning was clear. Reports suggest that Mr. Xi is treading a narrow path, trying not to alienate either side.

There appears little question of Mr. Bo’s popularity among ordinary citizens. The FT quotes one internet message: “Good Uncle Bo Xilai, the people will always remember you and can distinguish between good and evil.” His “anti-mafia” crackdown on crime was popular; though his disrespect for the legal process and allegations of torture concerned liberals and human-rights activists. Mr. Bo was especially popular with those who prefer greater government control, both in the state and in the economy. To the extent that China’s economic growth is losing steam, Mr. Bo’s populism assumes greater importance.

The political machinations in China are difficult for us in America to understand. Individual freedom is inherent to our system, which thrives on an educated citizenry, individual initiative and a capitalist-based economy. However, we have a history, during difficult economic times, of being tempted with state run economies. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, many in the Roosevelt administration came to admire Stalin’s Soviet Union, feeling it was more responsive, in dealing with the Depression, than our democratic capitalist society. Later, during the same decade, people whose politics ranged from Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s right-wing America First movement to Democrats like Joseph Kennedy fell under the spell of Hitler’s Nazism, as militarism pulled Germany from economic chaos.

Like Ulysses and the Sirens, such temptations are best avoided. First, comparisons with China are really not material. China has one third our GDP with four times as many people. Second, it is a mercantilist economy with no substantive rule of law, and with little, if any, transparency or accountability. Third, the central government has monopolistic powers and fourth, since the economic reports they issue largely reflect state-owned industries, one should be skeptical as to their veracity.

Many political philosophers believe man has an inherent desire to be free. But first he must concern himself with food and shelter. It is only prosperity that gives people the time and opportunity to consider such measures. The lifting of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe provided people the chance to improve their financial well-being, and with it came political freedom. Repressive regimes almost always rely on keeping the mass of their people uneducated and in relative poverty. As incomes increase, so do desires to freely speak, assemble and to question authority. China is approaching that point – maintaining authority, yet letting their economy expand. Democracy by its very nature is inherently unstable, allowing individuals to flourish – an anathema to those like the Chinese leaders who value political control and stability.

It is a delicate balance that China’s leaders must maintain and the arrest of Mr. Bo show that fears of another Tiananmen Square are ever-present in their minds. The two seminal events in the lives of China’s new generation of leaders were the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when they were in their adolescence, and Tiananmen Square (1989), when they were in their early thirties. They would like to keep the ship steady. Mr. Bo’s personal popularity and subsequent arrest indicate fissures in the foundation.