Foreword

The downfall of Bo Xilai, one of China’s most powerful and electrifying politicians, provoked the biggest crisis in elite Chinese politics in a generation. It upset what the Communist party had been desperate to present as a seamless once-in-a-decade leadership transition. Instead, by depriving Bo of his expected seat on the all-powerful Politburo standing committee, the scandal shone an unwelcome light on the vicious infighting, both ideological and personal, raging within the upper echelons of China’s Communist party.

That Bo’s fall from grace should have involved the murder of a British businessman and the most serious defection attempt in the Communist party’s history made the story resemble a John le Carré novel. “Tinker, Tailor, Bo Xilai,” perhaps. The fascination of Bo’s story is that it is both a ripping yarn and a high political drama that has profound implications for Asia's biggest economy, and hence for the whole world. As Jamil Anderlini, the author of this ebook and the FT's Beijing bureau chief writes: “If this were a spy novel it would probably be dismissed as unconvincing melodrama.” But Anderlini, drawing on 10 years’ reporting experience in China, puts the events into historical and political context in a way that distinguishes FT reporting across Asia.

The scandal riveted China, where millions of internet users – deprived of a traditional free press – pored over the salacious details of Bo’s corrupt and often violent reign in Chongqing as they bubbled into cyberspace. In a nation where people know little about their politicians, the revelations about Bo and his glamorous wife, Gu Kailai, were spellbinding. Among other things, they lifted the veil on the corruption that threatens to corrode the Communist party’s legitimacy in the eyes of its people. It is fitting that a drama largely played out on the internet should be the subject of the FT’s first ebook from Asia.

Bo is much more than a stage villain. Known as a “little Mao Zedong” because of his history as a red guard and his revival of Mao nostalgia, he was nevertheless among the most popular politicians in China. As Anderlini writes, Bo ruled over Chongqing “like a king”, gaining huge support for his public housing endeavours, massive tree-planting programmes and his crackdown on crime. Even Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who flew to Chongqing to attend a mass support rally for Bo in 2011, was an admirer of his political style. But there was a more sinister side. At Bo’s side was Wang Lijun, the feared police chief, who led the “smash black” campaign against criminal elements as well as against Bo’s business and political rivals. It was Wang’s flight to the US consulate in Chengdu, where he spilled details of Neil Heywood’s poisoning by Bo’s wife, that sparked the entire crisis.

Anderlini, one of the most gifted and fearless reporters working in China today, brings out the full drama of events. Over months of painstaking research, he pieces together an extraordinary narrative and puts the story in its broader historical and political context. This ebook is a much longer version of an article that appeared in the Weekend FT in July. It brings the story up to date, incorporating Gu Kailai’s sentence and the charging with defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking of Wang Lijun. This full-length version also fleshes out the fascinating, and sometimes horrific details of three decades of drama and intrigue that culminated in Heywood’s murder in a grimy Chongqing hotel room. For Heywood, it was the end of a colourful, quixotic and ultimately short life. For China, it was the beginning of a new political era.

David Pilling

Asia Editor

Financial Times