• China seals fate of disgraced politician Bo Xilai ahead of key leadership congress

    How Hwee Young / EPA

    Bo Xilai, who had been a candidate for top office in China until caught up in a scandal that included a murder, will face charges for abuse of power, bribe taking and improper relations with a number of women.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    BEIJING - China's ruling Communist Party accused disgraced politician Bo Xilai of abusing power, taking huge bribes and other crimes on Friday, sealing the fate of a controversial figure whose fall shook the country's looming leadership succession.


    The once high-flying Bo faces a criminal investigation and will almost certainly end up in jail.

    "Bo Xilai's actions created grave repercussions and did massive harm to the reputation of the party and state, producing an extremely malign effect at home and abroad," the official statement from a party leaders' meeting said, according to a report by the official Xinhua news agency. 

    The Politburo statement also said that Bo took huge amounts of bribes directly or through his family and that he "maintained illicit relationships with numerous females." 

    The criticisms and allegations against Bo amount to throwing the book at him: The wide-ranging charges go back more than a decade to when he was mayor of Dalian and continue through his removal as Chongqing party secretary in March. 

    The Politburo panel said that the 18th Party Congress would begin on Nov. 8, paving the way for a once-a-decade leadership change at the highest levels of the Communist party. 

    The 204-member Central Committee, a cross-section of the national party elite, usually convenes about a week before the congress to approve decisions already made by the Politburo. Privately, the committee will also approve the incoming leaders and a policy blueprint for the next five years. 

    China closes in on Bo Xilai after jailing ex-police chief

    The congress had been expected to take place in mid-October, though the preparations were overshadowed by the Bo scandal, China's biggest in a decade. 

    The late start -- relative to past party congresses -- could allow for Bo to be dealt with before the congress starts and give the next generation of leaders a relatively clean political slate to work from.

    China's most politically explosive trial wrapped in a matter of hours when Gu Kailai, the wife of Chinese politician Bo Xilai, did not object to murder charges against her. ITV's Angus Walker reports.

    The scandal was set off when a trusted Bo aide disclosed that Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, had murdered a British businessman.

    Bo was sacked as party chief of the city of Chongqing; Gu Kailai was given a suspended death sentence after confessing to the murder; and the aide, Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, received a 15-year prison term for initially covering up the murder and other misdeeds. 

    The official statement also said that Bo had been expelled from the party as well as the elite, decision-making Politburo and Central Committee "in view of his errors and culpability in the Wang Lijun incident and the intentional homicide case involving Bogu Kailai." Bogu is his wife Gu Kailai's official but rarely used surname.

    Wang Lijun, the Chinese police chief who exposed the murder of a British business man, has been sentenced to 15 years in jail after being found guilty of abuse of power, bribery and defection

    It was not immediately clear what was meant by the reference to Bo's responsibility in the murder, although the abuse of power charges against Bo could be related to obstruction of justice in the case.

    It was the first direct mention of Bo in state media in months. His name was not mentioned for both Gu's and Wang's trials. 

    The end of those trials cleared the way for the party to decide whether to charge Bo with criminal wrongdoing.

    The wife of a disgraced Chinese politician has been given a suspended death sentence for her role in the death of British businessman, Neil Heywood.  ITV's Angus Walker reports.

    Bo's ouster from the leadership early this year opened a window into the divisive jostling for power that took place as president and party leader Hu Jintao prepared to retire to make way for younger leaders. 

    After wife's conviction, what next for Bo Xilai?

    The government is grappling with a rapidly slowing economy and a bitter territorial dispute with Japan that has sparked violent street protests and is having an impact on trade ties.

    Labor unrest, a growing urban middle class, and anger over corruption and illegal land seizures are fueling demands for reform.

    NBC News' Ed Flanagan, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • City divided by disgraced Communist leader's legacy

    The murder of an English business man and corruption scandal, involving one of the China's most powerful men, has gripped the country. NBC's Ian Williams reports.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    CHONGQING, China – Everywhere you go in Chongqing, you can see traces of the complicated legacy of Bo Xilai, the former Communist party chief who ran this municipality of 30 million people until scandal derailed him. 

    At one time destined for a top post in China’s highest echelon of power, the standing committee of the politburo of the Communist Party, Bo aggressively poured money into this municipality in pursuit of his populist agenda.

    To drive through the windy roads that snake around this hilly metropolis is to see a city in constant transformation. Towers of low-income housing complexes dot the skyline. These social housing projects were meant to address a major national issue: the lack of affordable housing, and provided homes that cost just a few hundred dollars a year to rent. And Bo had gingko trees, said to be one of his favorites, planted across the city.

    But these city improvements came at a cost: His heavy investment in capital construction projects forced the city to borrow so much money to pay for it that Chongqing owes $20 billion to the China Development Bank, according to a news report on Wednesday. The tree planting saddled the city with a $1.5 billion bill just for 2010 alone.  

    The improvements weren’t the only controversial aspect of Bo’s reign over this important gateway city to the western half of China, and since his demise his critics have stepped out of the shadows to talk about the darker side of life in what had become the former leader’s personal fiefdom.

    Told a Bo joke, got a year in a labor camp

    In Chongqing, NBC News spoke with Fang Hong, a 51-year-old former forestry officer who made news earlier this week when he filed an appeal with a local court seeking compensation for what he alleged was an unfair sentence he served at a labor camp.

    According to Fang, he was imprisoned for posting a two-line joke about Bo on his microblog that quickly went viral. Soon after, Fang said he was dragged in by police for questioning and later brought before a police tribunal where he was sentenced for “fabricating facts and disturbing public order.” 

    Fang served his sentence at a labor camp where he said he was forced to assemble thousands of Christmas ornaments for export for one year.

    Released earlier this year, Fang was emboldened by the criticism that has shrouded Bo following his high-profile falling out with his vice-mayor and former police chief, Wang Lijun, who famously sought refuge at the American embassy in Chengdu. That move by Wang sparked an international political scandal that now includes a murder mystery. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, is a murder suspect in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood; Bo has been officially disowned by the ruling Communist Party and has disappeared from public view.

    Ed Flanagan / NBC News

    A crowd gathers around Fang Hong in Chongqing to hear his story on Tuesday.

    Boisterous debate on Bo
    Fang agreed to do an interview with NBC News on an outside promenade with commanding views of Chongqing’s skyline and the mighty Yangtze River below. Fang spoke confidently, eager to tell his story about the deprivations he faced while interned at the labor camp.

    Between the presence of a foreign camera crew and his loud denouncements of Bo Xilai, Fang quickly drew a crowd of onlookers.

    The first indication that things were going to get contentious with the crowd was when one short, middle-aged man standing next to the camera started muttering under his breath as he listened to Fang. 

    Taking jagged drags from his cigarette and nervously flicking ash between puffs, the man’s voice rose incrementally to voice his protestations of Fang’s opinion about Bo. Those near to the man shushed him as they strained to hear what Fang was saying, but after one particular statement, the man clearly had enough.

    “That’s bull---! Bo Xilai has done so much for Chongqing!” bellowed the man as he waved his cigarette at Fang.

    The crowd erupted into a loud, boisterous debate on Bo, prompting NBC News correspondent Ian Williams to wrap up the interview so that Fang could quickly leave with his lawyers.

    But before he left, Fang feistily told the man what he thought of his opinion, triggering a shouting match. One of Fang’s lawyers and some of the crowd had to separate the pair.

    David Lom / NBC News

    Angry pro-Bo Xilai supporter voices his opinion to the crowd in Chongqing.

    ‘Since Bo Xilai took power I feel more secure'
    Not everyone had negative feelings about the disgraced former party chief.

     One older woman in the crowd said:, “Before, I was worried to wear earrings because I was worried I’d get robbed, but since Bo Xilai I feel more secure seeing more police on the streets.”

    Finally, a line of security guards rolled up and broke up the crowd. The guards were not forceful and they exchanged a few knowing nods with the throng of people who were loudly voicing their support for Bo.

    Bo’s fall has clearly given his critics the opportunity they’ve long desired to voice their criticisms of him.

    However, despite the accusations that paint Bo’s Chongqing was something akin to a modern-day Tammany Hall, the populism and perhaps most importantly, the pride he instilled in this mega-city suggest his popular legacy may last far longer than Communist Party officials would like.

    As one driver told us, “Yeah, Bo might have been corrupt, but at least he did something for us – which is more than those corrupt officials who do nothing at all.”   

    NBC News’ Bo Gu contributed to this report.


  • For these interviewees, job search ends with a hiccup

    Netease

    Young job candidates in the southwestern city of Chongqing were found drunkenly passed out on a popular square on November 8th, 2010 after a “liquid lunch” with a potential employer

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING - In college I once attended a career week event nicknamed, “Don’t Order the Spaghetti,” which was supposed to educate us soon-to-be graduates on how to approach a business lunch with a potential employer.

    None of it would have prepared me for the binge drinking round of the interview process.

    In a story put out by Netease (Click here for rest of gallery) last week, 4 young men – 2 of whom are due to graduate from university next year – in China’s southwestern metropolis of Chongqing were found passed out drunk on a popular city square after a boozy lunch with their leader-to-be.

    Following their second round of interviews, the company manager invited the four interviewees out for lunch, where the men pulled out all the stops to impress their potential boss to be:

    Eager to impress the boss, they competed in drinking more alcohol. In the end they were wasted. At first, they just sat on the ground chatting, but soon three of them lied down and passed out. The fourth guy leaned against a telephone pole, standing unsteadily, occasionally muttered some words out his mouth [sic] and shivered non-stop.

    No news yet on whether any of them got the job.

    China has a long history of heavy work drinking and “liquid lunches” that has been a source of embarrassment in recent years. Just last year, a senior police officer in the southern city of Shenzhen was declared a revolutionary hero after he “died in the line of duty” binge drinking at a banquet with government officials.

    Don’t expect a similar hero’s return for these poor boys from their families.

    Thanks to China Hush for the link.