A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel Read online

  In July 2010, the day before Wang put Wen Qiang, his predecessor at the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau and an anticrime hero like him, on death row, Wang held an hourlong conversation during which Wen was said to have told Wang, “In a few years, you’ll end up like me. I know it.”

  Upon hearing Wen’s words posted posthumously online, Professor He Weifang with Beijing University also posted an open letter to Wang Lijun in April 2011. He warned:

  If the government employs means that are illegal, such as extraction of confession by torture, violating suspects’ rights in litigation, or even intimidating lawyers for the defense in criminal cases, the future consequences of this will be serious. Employing illegal means to strike out against illegal elements leaves people with the unfortunate impression that might is right, that injustices can be used to deal with injustices.

  One important measure of rule of law in a country is the limiting of police power by the courts. Police must respect the courts, and they must accept the independent examination and supervision of prosecutors, and protect the independence of courts and judges.

  Actually, respect for judicial independence is just as important for those who hold major power in their hands. While he was still in favor, Wen Qiang no doubt had little idea of the value of this independence, but once he had fallen afoul of the authorities, he must have had a rude awakening, realizing only too well that without judicial independence, no one at all is safe.

  Professor He’s words proved to be prescient. Wang’s own fall came eighteen months after Wen Qiang’s.

  As the police chief in Chongqing, Wang Lijun constantly had criminal suspects or political dissidents “disappear” for months without telling their relatives where they were imprisoned. During his investigation, he was afforded the same treatment. Wang’s wife and his brother, Wang Lihui, who headed the security department at a mining company in Liaoning province, flew to Chongqing in February, requesting information about Wang’s whereabouts from the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau. Officials shunned them. The two traveled to Beijing and learned only that “we have nothing to share with you at the moment.” Without any leads as to Wang’s personal safety, Wang’s father reportedly fell ill, refusing to believe that his son had taken refuge at the US Consulate. One of his relatives complained to an overseas media outlet, “This is an unfair system and I guess we just have to deal with it.”

  During Wang’s incarceration, many analysts and Wang’s victims had speculated and hoped that he would receive tougher sentencing. A journalist in Beijing stated her reasons: “Since the Communist takeover, Wang Lijun’s defection was unprecedented. The leadership will have to punish Wang Lijun severely to stop future copycats within the Party. Moreover, when Wang served as the police chief in Tieling and Chongqing, more than eight hundred people were executed. While some deserved the death penalty, many were deprived of due process. Wang’s hands are stained with blood. Third, as the head of law enforcement, he committed a serious offense by covering up Gu Kailai’s [crime]. Lastly, while many senior leaders hate Bo, they feel equally threatened by Wang’s betrayal. They wonder if their own subordinates are also secretly plotting against them.”

  Fortunately for Wang, he fared better in the end. His highly publicized defection at the US Consulate made it hard for his foes to execute him in secret and ignore proper legal procedures. In addition, investigators at the State Security Ministry, China’s KGB, adopted a relatively humane approach to gain Wang’s active cooperation—his testimony helped convict Gu Kailai and will be critical to the pending trial of Bo Xilai. Politically, Wang’s defection and his revelations of Heywood’s murder provided ample justification for the leadership to oust a formidable foe before the Party Congress.

  In September 2012, Wang stood trial on charges of bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse of power, and bribe-taking in Chengdu, where the US Consulate is located. He received a sentence of fifteen years, but not the suspended death penalty for which many of his victims had hoped.

  “Wang’s lighter sentencing has offered us a valuable lesson,” wrote Li Gang, a Chinese blogger. “For senior Communist Party officials, when you deliver your anti-American speeches during the day, don’t forget to figure out the exact location of your nearest US Consulate after you get home at night. If you have offended your boss, the party won’t be able to protect you. Run to the US Consulate, creating an international incident. In this way, you can effectively destroy your boss and save your life.”

  Even before his sentencing, the city where Wang ruled as police chief for three years launched a cleansing campaign, both physically and metaphorically. Starting in March 2012, many of the glowing media reports about Wang’s heroic deeds were expunged, his portrait inside the Municipal Public Security Bureau complex was taken down, and the two eagle statues in front of the office building have been removed—Wang used to compare himself to an eagle flying over the Mongolian prairie. Two of Wang’s handwritten quotes in large wooden frames used to hang inside the building for the bureau’s investigative team. “We promote the interests of ordinary people through every small thing we do,” said one, and the other, “Each single one of our actions is as critical as life.” Now they are gone.

  In May, as more scandals of illegal detention and the use of torture during Wang’s rule surfaced, the new leaders of the Chongqing government announced the municipality was investigating each charge and any police involved in mistreating suspects should come forward and confess.

  Wang’s former friends and confidantes, who had been transferred from northeast China, have been either detained or convicted. Since his arrival in Chongqing, about 1,800 police officers were fired or sent to reeducation camps. Fear pervaded the police force. When news of Wang’s “vocational style” treatment was announced in February, many police officers could not contain their excitement. The lit firecrackers and drank champagne at home to celebrate his departure, despite the new leadership in Chongqing specifically banning any form of celebration. As of now, about 80 percent of the officers who lost their jobs have been reinstalled.

  Meanwhile, the Chongqing municipal court reversed its verdict against Fang Hong, who had served one year at a reeducation camp for calling Wang’s lawsuits against a defense lawyer “a pile of shit” on a Weibo posting in April 2011. At present, many businesspeople who were convicted for or charged with colluding with organized crime are now petitioning the government to revisit their cases. The government has also returned previously seized assets and properties to some of Wang’s victims, even though a large amount of the money originally taken by police has inexplicably disappeared.

  Wang’s supporters remained unswayed by these changes. Between February and September 2012, blogs were swamped with pro-Wang comments. A person from Huaihua city, Hunan province, wrote, “The state media are demonizing Wang, portraying him as a ruthless devil. Ordinary people are not easily deceived. Many still have sympathy for him. He might have problems, but he was one of the officials who truly sought justice for people.” When my co-author visited Chongqing in November 2012, a resident at a petrol station in the city’s Yubei district said, “Wang Lijun is a hero. He helped us wipe out corrupt officials and greedy businessmen. We need Wang Lijun . . . because we have too many corrupt officials in this country and we are short of people like Wang Lijun. The government propagates on TV and in newspapers every day about serving people’s interest, but how many officials truly care about ordinary people? After Wang Lijun’s downfall, the crime rates have gone up and bad guys are back with a vengeance.”

  Many political commentators also defended Wang’s legacy: “Regardless of what Wang has done in the past and regardless how radical and reckless he was during the so-called anti–organized crime campaign, he has successfully used the Neil Heywood murder case to stop the radical Left from assuming a position at the Politburo Standing Committee and prevented the emergence of another Mao,” Fang Yan, a Beijing-based journalist, wrote on Mingjing New
s. “In this sense, Wang Lijun’s dramatic, three-year stint in Chongqing and his melodramatic exit changed the future of Chinese politics and contemporary Chinese history. This is something neither we nor Wang could have expected.”

  My favorite was a comment by a resident in Chengdu:

  I advise the US Consulate to open a new window for senior government officials at the visa section to handle their walk-in political asylum requests. Wang Lijun was not the last one. More Wang Lijuns are waiting in line.

  Even though Wang Lijun’s supporters are still vigorously defending his legacy, they agree on one undisputable fact—their hero was a mere kuli, who, like many before him, was destined to become a pawn in a larger political intrigue. In an editorial I wrote on February 12, 2012, one week after Wang Lijun’s flight to the US Consulate, I predicted:

  At this moment, Wang Lijun is firmly under the control of the secret political machine in Beijing and we are awaiting the Party to cook up some convincing explanations for Wang Lijun’s actions. At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that the episode inside the US Consulate is only a prelude to a bigger political drama. The main characters have not yet revealed themselves. The senior leaders are frantically scripting and plotting the next episode, which, I am certain, will bring more political surprises. So, sit back and enjoy the show.

  PART II

  The Princelings

  Princelings, or tai zi dang, refers to children of senior government officials and revolutionaries who fought in the early days of the revolution.

  SITTING TIGHT ON THE FISHING BOAT

  DIAN LAKE, the “Sparkling Pearl” in China’s southwestern Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, is a large inland body of freshwater reaching an elevation of more than 1,886 meters and covering 306 kilometers. With the misty mountain forest in the west, the lake looks idyllic in the warm winter sun. Every year, its rich aquatic resources and the perpetual spring weather attract large flocks of seagulls from Russia.

  On February 8, tourists tossing bread crumbs at the Russian seagulls on the shores of Dian Lake spotted a familiar figure: Bo Xilai, the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, whose name had become the most searched online after Wang Lijun’s flight to the US Consulate only days earlier. Accompanied by two deputy party chiefs from Yunnan, Bo leisurely fed the seagulls fluttering around him. “It is amazing that there is such a huge lake on the plateau,” said the tall, handsome, and photogenic Bo, dubbed by many reporters as the John F. Kennedy of China, to a television reporter. The 63-year-old Bo behaved like a tourist who had stumbled on an unexpected piece of treasure. “It is a crown jewel for the nearby city of Kunming,” he said.

  Local TV reported that Bo had led a Chongqing delegation to neighboring Yunnan to “learn from each other and to promote regional economic cooperation.” At an herbal medicinal shop, he praised the local leaders for commercializing the rich herbal resources in Yunnan and urged the company to set up stores in Chongqing. As Bo moved around Yunnan, political observers tried to decode everything he said or did to find clues as to what was happening. One online posting described Bo’s trip as “Sitting tight in the fishing boat despite the rising wind and waves”—a well-known proverb that Mao Zedong constantly quoted in his articles to admonish Communist leaders to act confidently during times of trouble. To many, Bo’s tour conveyed the impression that he was unaffected by the political storm swirling around him and he was invincible to attack.

  One imaginative blogger even saw Bo’s playful bird-feeding as a sign of defiance against those in Beijing who were said to have questioned his role in the US Consulate fiasco. In Chinese, the words for bird-feeding sound the same as “I’m not fucking afraid.”

  But beneath his seemingly jovial, even defiant appearance, Bo was afraid and concerned. After the attempted defection by his police chief was made public, there were many reports on Weibo and in the overseas Chinese-language media that Wang had told the Americans about how Bo had conspired with Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and planned to stage a coup to unseat Xi Jinping, the designated leader of the Party, before the upcoming Party Congress. One report stated that Bo’s wife had taken bribes and moved 100 million yuan of assets abroad. Bo’s playboy son, Guagua, had attended Oxford and then Harvard University with tuition paid from bribe money. At that time, the death of British businessman Neil Heywood had not yet been made public. Those media reports, mostly based on different sources inside the party, set in motion wild speculation about Bo’s political future. Several political analysts, such as Gao Yu, a renowned journalist in Beijing, predicted that Bo’s days as a Politburo member were numbered.

  On February 9, the Chongqing Daily, the Communist Party paper in Bo’s home city, carried a 2,000-word feature about Bo’s activities in Yunnan. The article mentioned briefly that Bo had stopped by a military exhibit at the 14th Group Army, which is based near Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan. Interestingly, a national newspaper editor picked up on that detail and played up its possible significance. The 14th Group Army, with about 50,000 personnel, traces its lineage to China’s resistance war against Japan in the late 1930s, when Bo’s father was one of its founding commanders. The editor posted the Chongqing Daily story under a new headline: “Bo Xilai Visits Military History Exhibition at Kunming Military Unit to Commemorate Revolutionary Veterans.” As expected, the headline stoked a new round of speculation. An unnamed military officer told the Wall Street Journal that Bo Xilai appeared to be flaunting his influence and courting support from his father’s friends in the army.

  An official in Chongqing said this was an unfair characterization of Bo’s intentions. The trip to Kunming and the visit to the military museum had been on Bo’s schedule for months. Because Bo was a Politburo member, he was accorded special treatment—the key leaders of Yunnan province accompanied him throughout the trip. The visit to the military museum was purely ceremonial, the official said, and Bo hardly knew the commander. Bo’s father had retired in the 1990s and died in 2007. All of Bo’s father’s friends had long since left the military.

  The insider also mentioned the embattled Bo had intended to cancel his Yunnan trip after the crisis broke out. He was to fly to Beijing instead to meet with the Central Party Committee and explain Wang’s situation. But President Hu Jintao and other leaders turned down his request, saying his appearance in the capital could generate unnecessary attention and that he should come in March when the National People’s Congress would be in session. Meanwhile, a friend of Bo’s, who acted as a conduit between him and President Hu Jintao’s office, told Bo to go to Yunnan as planned. The friend would fly in to brief Bo on Beijing’s view relating to Wang’s case and advise him on what to do next. The faraway province of Yunnan was a perfect venue for such secret discussions—we found out later that the meeting had been arranged by President Hu’s chief of staff, Ling Jihua, also a Bo family friend.

  At the meeting, Bo received a stern message from Beijing: He needed to control the situation in Chongqing, making sure that nothing jeopardized Vice President Xi Jinping’s pending trip to the US or derailed the scheduled leadership transition later in the year. In return, President Hu Jintao and the Politburo Standing Committee might limit the scope of Wang’s investigation.

  An official at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection told me that President Hu Jintao, known for his prudence and his uncanny ability to navigate political intrigue, reportedly expressed initial ambivalence about punishing Bo. His tenure as the Communist Party chief would extend only until the end of 2012 and he wanted a peaceful handover to his successor without triggering an implosion in the party due to pent-up internal conflicts. Besides, Hu was sympathetic with much of Bo’s leftist ideology, and he too harbored a deep nostalgia for the Mao era. In addition, Hu felt the rise of Bo, regarded as something of a wild stallion, could check and challenge the powers of his successor, Xi Jinping, who belonged to a different faction within the party. Any challenge to Xi could benefit Hu’s friends after his retirement
.

  The account by the Beijing official about President Hu’s position proved to be accurate. Over the next week, the Chinese president said on several public occasions that Wang’s defection was “an isolated incident,” implying that Bo was not involved. When Huang Qifan, the Chongqing mayor, flew to Beijing in late February, President Hu met with him and reiterated his earlier promise.

  At the same time, Bo was said to have reached out to his friends in Beijing, who vowed to help, including Ling Jihua and Zhou Yongkang, who had reportedly tapped Bo as his successor at the Politburo Standing Committee. Zhou had a hidden reason to back Bo—his son operated several business ventures in Chongqing and had benefited from Bo’s generous patronage.

  These reassurances restored Bo’s confidence and allowed him to believe he would survive the crisis. A source in Chongqing said Bo became cocky. He even wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao, saying he welcomed an investigation by the Central Party Committee and if investigators found any wrongdoing, he would resign and take full responsibility.

  But Bo had grossly underestimated the situation.

  “HELLO, DEAR, IT’S YOUR WIFE CALLING”

  FOR TWO WEEKS every March, more than 3,000 delegates and hundreds of media organizations converge on Beijing for the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the capital enters a period of heightened security. Police round up petitioners who have come to Beijing with grievances, and Tiananmen Square is heavily patrolled to prevent any disruptions that might attract negative media coverage.

  Under the Chinese constitution, the NPC is the top legislative body in China. Whereas Western legislators debate their laws in ornate ancient or contemporary parliamentary buildings, Chinese NPC delegates meet in the Great Hall of the People on the western edge of Tiananmen Square, a gigantic concrete auditorium built in the functional style architecture of the former Soviet Union and devoid of any aesthetic appeal. Delegates review the annual government report, pass legislation, and formalize appointments of government officials.