A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel Read online

  As Wang Lijun was spilling out the astonishing details about how Heywood was allegedly murdered, an equally captivating drama was unfolding outside the US Consulate.

  The minute Wang had walked into the consulate, Chinese staff inside reported the information to officials at the Sichuan provincial State Security Department, who immediately alerted senior officials in Beijing, including Zhou Yongkang, who headed the Central Politics and Law Commission. Zhou telephoned Bo Xilai, urging Bo to “get Wang out at any cost.”

  The deputy director of the Sichuan provincial police department, who helped arrange Wang’s meeting with US Consulate officials, also sensed that something had gone wrong after Wang failed to emerge from his private meeting after four hours. He reported Wang’s activity to Liu Qibao, the Sichuan provincial party secretary, who promptly contacted senior leaders in Beijing. President Hu Jintao instructed Liu to send armed police to the US Consulate to prevent Wang Lijun from slipping away.

  Meanwhile, the exasperated Bo Xilai decided to resolve the situation before Beijing could get its hands on the documents in Wang’s possession. He first sent Huang Qifan, the mayor of Chongqing, to the consulate to bring Wang back. Huang hurried over with an assistant and requested a meeting with Wang inside. The mayor talked to Wang for nearly an hour, trying to persuade him to leave the consulate building, but Wang refused. No matter what promises the mayor made, Wang wouldn’t return to Chongqing.

  After sending the mayor to Chongqing, the hotheaded Bo also dispatched what many witnesses claimed were seventy cars carrying armed policemen to Chengdu, but the provincial armed police intercepted Bo’s people five blocks away from the US Consulate. The two sides got into fierce arguments. A Chongqing police officer who witnessed the incident said Bo Xilai was sitting in one of the police cars. When Bo learned that the mayor failed to get Wang out, he turned hostile. With the excuse that the Chongqing police had received tips that terrorists had planted a bomb inside the US Consulate, Bo ordered his men to break the blockade set by the provincial police, force their way into the American mission, and seize Wang. As the confrontation was escalating, members of the US Marine Corps Embassy Security Group set up a line of defense inside. Three armed forces, each answering to a different command, buzzed around the consulate.

  News of possible attacks on the US Consulate quickly reached President Hu Jintao, who was said to be alarmed by what he called an “armed revolt.” He was also embarrassed and angry at Bo’s reckless behavior, which had broken international laws and exposed the Communist Party’s internal division to the outside world. President Hu personally phoned Liu Qibao, the Sichuan party secretary, requesting that he use whatever means possible to protect the US mission. Liu first ordered the provincial armed police to take up positions in front of the US Consulate, facing Bo’s policemen. Then he cobbled together additional members of the armed police and the provincial State Security Department in Chengdu to keep Bo’s police at bay. A retired US official who was briefed on the situation told me that about seven hundred police officers were outside the US Consulate that night.

  To defuse tension, the Sichuan provincial policemen stationed in Chengdu even offered their counterparts in Chongqing local snacks and persuaded them not to act irrationally. The confrontation lasted five hours.

  Around midnight on February 7, a small delegation, led by the deputy minister of state security, flew in to Chengdu and immediately headed to the consulate. They handed Wang a letter from Zhou Yongkang, who promised, “Your political career won’t be affected and we’ll protect your safety and conduct a fair investigation if you voluntarily leave.” With asylum becoming a remote possibility, Wang saw Zhou’s offer as his only choice. Before his departure, consular officials emphasized the US government would closely monitor his situation.

  As Wang stepped out with officials from the State Security Ministry, China’s intelligence agency, he caught a glimpse of the fully armed US Marines deployed inside the consulate walls and a large number of Chinese armed police outside. Wang must have realized the grave consequences of his action. As he was about to get in the car, Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan rushed over, trying to wrestle Wang away. The deputy minister from Beijing stopped him and in the process, the two men got into a scuffle. At one point, they parted and stood on opposite sides of the street, each contacting his respective boss. The deputy minister reached Zhou Yongkang, who in turn called Bo Xilai, asking him to withdraw. Bo ignored him. President Hu Jintao finally stepped in and phoned Bo, assuring him that Wang’s attempted defection was an isolated incident and Wang’s investigation would in no way affect Bo’s work in Chongqing. Bo gave in and ordered his men to withdraw.

  On the early morning of February 8, Wang left Consulate Road with officials from the State Security Ministry. Because the airport was closed, they stayed in a nearby hotel guarded by armed police from Sichuan province, and flew out when the airport opened.

  In the afternoon, an airline insider posted online the scanned boarding passes of Wang and his handlers at the State Security Ministry, including the deputy minister. This revealed that Wang had taken China Airlines Flight 4113 for Beijing.

  News about Wang’s botched defection shocked his supporters. His trip to the consulate prompted Wei Ke, a well-known cartoonist, to post a sarcastic comment online:

  In the future, if any of those damn officials wish to escape, don’t go to the US Consulate. Didn’t you all hate Americans? Haven’t you deceived a large number of young pigheaded lackeys to rally around your anti-American causes? Why don’t you run to your North Korean friends? I advise US officials to kick out any bastards who show up in the future.

  After Wang was taken away to Beijing, his friends and foes continued to battle fiercely in the blogosphere. Insiders in Beijing fed startling information to overseas media to dispel the myth of Wang as a national anti-crime hero and silence his supporters.

  For example, on April 11, both Boxun and Hong Kong-based Wai Can carried articles on Wang’s surveillance programs. In the name of combating crime, an insider said Wang had partnered with the president of the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, one of the architects of China’s notorious Internet censoring system—the “Great Firewall”—and set up an extensive surveillance system that involved wiretaps and monitoring of Internet communications in 2009. Wang had bugged the phones of several senior leaders during their visits to Chongqing.

  Wang found out that President Hu Jintao communicated regularly via a secure hotline with his friend Liu Guanglei, who served on the Chongqing Municipal Party Standing Committee. He began to wiretap their conversations. The surveillance device was later uncovered by the technical staff at the Central Party Committee’s general office. Tapping leadership phones is considered the number-one taboo in Beijing. In the Mao era, Yang Shangkun, who served as Mao’s chief of staff in the 1960s, installed listening devices in Mao’s train cars and recorded Mao’s many womanizing activities. Yang ended up with severe punishment during the Cultural Revolution. The source who supplied the story surmised that Wang would be dealt with similarly.

  After the story was released, I interviewed an IT expert, who did not think the surveillance was technically possible. So, I posted his comments as a follow-up to Wang’s wiretapping story, questioning the authenticity of what had been reported. However, the subsequent indictment against Wang Lijun showed that the insider’s information was largely accurate. According to the court, Wang had violated the country’s laws and regulations “by using technical reconnaissance measures on a number of people since 2010, either without the approval of authorities or by forging approval documents.”

  In an article by Nandu Weekly, a popular newspaper owned by the one of the most liberal newspaper chains in Guangzhou, the Chongqing police department, under Wang Lijun, budgeted more than US $300 million to purchase surveillance equipment from Germany and Israel, and to construct what Wang describes as the “Big Intelligence Center.” At a conference in January 2010, Wang bragge
d that his “Big Intelligence Center” could check the whole population in China in 12.5 minutes. In addition, if a targeted person surfed the Internet, bought an airline ticket, or shopped with credit cards, police would have that information immediately. The Chongqing police could also use GPS technology to monitor the activities of criminals and political dissidents. During the Chinese New Year celebration in 2010, about 4,000 out-of-towners with criminal records entered the city of Chongqing. Within six hours, police tracked down 3,400 of them and advised them to leave Chongqing.

  In addition, an official in Chongqing told Mingjing News that Wang lived a decadent lifestyle: he wore a watch that cost 500,000 yuan (US $80,000), and he collected limited editions of name-brand suits, with one costing 200,000 yuan (US $32,000). When workers moved him out of the police chief’s office, they had prepared forty boxes to package his personal belongings but ended up using eighty, the majority of those boxes containing expensive gifts. In 2010, Wang set up the “Heroes and Martyrs Fund” with money he had confiscated or extorted from private businesspeople and relatives of those who had been arrested or detained. The foundation, which was supposed to provide financial subsidies for families of police officers who had been killed in the line of duty, sometimes sponsored Wang’s pet projects. One time he purchased hundreds of tickets with the foundation money for a concert given by a singer who was known to be former president Jiang Zemin’s favorite. Many of these corruption-related claims, which were initially discarded as rumors, appeared in Wang’s indictment. However, Bo supporters also dished out bogus claims to discredit his records.

  On February 13, I received an e-mail from a source in Chongqing, who rehashed the story that Wang suffered from intermittent delusional disorder. He said Wang was neurotic and paranoid, and had become obsessed with his security matters. Each time he went on an inspection, he would use a helicopter, even for trips of less than thirty kilometers. When he moved around in the city, he would be escorted by a large contingent of police cars. When he stayed at a hotel, his bodyguards, most of whom were female in red uniforms, were stationed in the hallway.

  Another source provided a similar example to illustrate Wang’s mental disorder. On January 6, 2012, a thief killed a customer in front of a bank in the southern city of Nanjing, snatching 200,000 yuan. Subsequent investigation found that the same person had perpetrated similar crimes in two other cities, including Chongqing, killing seven people, injuring two, and stealing 480,000 yuan in cash. The Ministry of Public Security ordered police chiefs in the three cities to coordinate their investigations and capture the criminal before he killed again. Over the course of the investigation, the police chief in Nanjing received a call from Wang, who claimed to have caught the suspect. Excited by the news, the Nanjing police chief flew over to Chongqing, only to find that it was only Wang’s fantasy.

  “If he truly suffered from a mental disorder, why would the leadership cover up his medical condition and continue to allow him to work in such an important law enforcement position?” I asked.

  My source didn’t answer.

  These mental disorder claims were said to have prompted Hu Jintao’s chief of staff to order doctors at a psychiatric hospital to assess Wang’s mental fitness after he arrived in Beijing. But, from his meticulously planned escape to his calculated testimony at his subsequent trial, one could see that Wang Lijun was not only mentally competent, but also possessed the acumen of a seasoned politician who, when cornered, successfully created an international incident to destroy his enemy and save his life.

  “INVITING THE GENTLEMAN TO THE URN”

  IN 700 CE, when China was under the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, there lived a man called Lai Shijun, who served as the imperial censor, in today’s terms the minister of justice. A devoted supporter of the empress, Lai used extreme means to torture and persecute political opponents or outspoken court officials who dared challenge the empress.

  Lai’s power grew significantly and he was said to have personally retained a staff of several hundred men whose jobs were to make false reports against other officials. Lai even cowrote a book known as the Classic of Accusation, teaching his subordinates how to accuse people of crimes and how to create details to make an alleged plot appear logical and likely.

  Legend has it that Lai invited a senior military officer to dinner one day. Over the course of the meal, Lai posed a seemingly innocuous question: “It is very hard nowadays to get criminals to confess. Do you have an idea on how to get them to open their mouths?” The general responded, “That’s easy. Find a big urn, gather a pile of wooden sticks, set them on fire, and put the urn on top of the fire. Then you put the accused in the urn. I’m sure it will get them to talk.” Lai nodded and beckoned to his assistants. Soon they brought in a big urn and put it on top of the stove. Lai turned to the general: “Her Majesty has received reports that you are plotting against her. What do you say if I ask you to get into the urn?” The general trembled in fear, knelt, and confessed.

  In later years, Lai became more emboldened and began to target the crown prince and the empress’s daughters, charging them with treason. His blatant accusations angered other royal family members who felt threatened and decided to ally themselves against Lai. Using the same schemes that Lai outlined in his book, several members of the royal family reported that Lai was planning a coup and eventually convinced the empress to condemn Lai to death. Following Lai’s execution, people on the street celebrated and Lai’s former victims were said to have cut out his flesh and organs, consuming them in retaliation.

  Lai’s story gave rise to the Chinese proverb “Invite the gentleman into the urn”—meaning put a person into the trap he himself had set.

  In addition to Lai, another often-cited kuli was Shang Yang, who lived in the kingdom of Qin around 395 BCE. As an adviser to the king, Shang encouraged economic development and implemented tough legal measures, including torture and severe physical punishment, to keep law and order. He specifically targeted the old aristocratic families. A prince’s nose was cut off after he was found violating the law. Shang’s policies helped rejuvenate morale and the economy. However, after the king died, Shang lost favor with the new ruler. His former political enemies retaliated by ordering the execution of Shang and his family, on the charge that he had attempted to foment rebellion. Shang tried to hide at a hotel, but the hotel owner refused to take him in because it was against the law to admit a guest without proper identification, a law Shang himself had promulgated. Shang was executed by dismemberment—he was fastened to five chariots and his body was torn into pieces, and his whole family was killed or buried alive.

  As people started to reflect on the fates of Wang and Wen, several Chinese political commentators compared Wang with Lai and Shang, who were known in history as kulis—an ancient term referring to imperial officials or police officers who employed extreme means of torture and brutality to help their masters maintain power. The word was coined by a Chinese historian, Sima Qian, 2,000 years ago when he compiled a biographical sketch of ten notorious kulis in the Han Dynasty.

  In his blog, contemporary historian Li Xianzheng described what he called “three common characteristics” of kulis:

  First, kulis flourished under the authoritarian political system. Rulers employed cruel and extreme means to intimidate the public and maintain their control without regard for the law. During political struggles, which were common under a totalitarian system, different political factions hired kulis to protect their interests by torturing and randomly assassinating opponents.

  Second, kulis were closely associated with despotic kings or political leaders. For example, notorious kulis emerged during the time of Emperor Wu in the Han Dynasty and Empress Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, both of whom were notorious for their tyrannical, cruel, and suspicious nature. On their way to the throne, they both hired kulis to help them consolidate power. During the reigns of Emperor Wu and Wu Zetian, thousands of innocent officials died in the hands of kulis.

>   Third, most kulis met tragic endings. The majority of them had risen from humble origins and acquired power through their attachment and loyalty to an influential political figure. As enforcers of the law, they were known for their uprightness and uncanny problem-solving abilities. They made their names by fighting the wealthy and the powerful, and bullies. However, they soon became assimilated into the system and turned into bullies themselves. To their victims, they were conniving, corrupt, ruthless, and misanthropic. Their brutality and corruption caused deep enmity, which ultimately contributed to their fall. Throughout history, notorious kulis in China were either discarded by their masters when they became a liability or persecuted by a stronger kuli with more power.

  China’s emperors were deposed and the monarchic system was abolished a hundred years ago, but the totalitarian system remains the same. Communist officials such as Bo Xilai rule like emperors. It is not surprising that kulis continue to flourish and fall.

  IN THE CASE OF WANG LIJUN, author Ji Weiren, who wrote China Coup, a book published in Hong Kong about Bo Xilai, noted:

  There is no doubt that Wang Lijun used to be a cop hero. He battled against organized crimes in society and fought his own internal demons. However, he did not realize that he gradually turned into one of the people he had executed. For years, Wang Lijun acted like he had unlimited power. He could file a criminal case or dismiss one as he wished. He could put surveillance on anyone as he wished. He could detain or release anyone as he wished. When he imprisoned other officials for embezzling public funds, he himself took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. When he learned that the wife of his protector had perpetrated a murder, he felt no qualms about covering up and destroying evidence.