"This month, senior party officials had warned that disunity was “not in anyone’s interest,” said Zhang Lifan, a prominent historian. Shortly after, former president Jiang Zemin, who was seen as close to Bo, praised Xi’s leadership during a rare public appearance to meet former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger."
For some reason the linked phrase seems to have been removed from the article.
"It has been called China’s biggest court case since the trial of the Gang of Four in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in 1980. Testimony in the trial of former high-level Chinese politician Bo Xilai touched on infidelity, embezzlement, and murder. And Harvard. Among the claims presented at the trial, which ended Monday, was that a billionaire who bankrolled the Bo family’s lavish habits paid for plane tickets and hotel rooms for 40 students from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to visit China during their 2011 spring break. Bo Xilai’s son, Bo Guagua, whose extravagant international lifestyle is said to have hurt his father’s image in China, earned a degree from the Kennedy School last year."
Related: In Chinese politician’s trial, specter of a murder looms
Some sort of intriguing power struggle from what I saw.
In trial, Chinese politician launches vigorous defense
In Chinese graft trial, surprises in defiance and online access
"Ex-Chinese official’s trial ends with soap opera twist; Bribery charges take back seat to hints of an affair" by Edward Wong | New York Times, August 27, 2013
JINAN, China — Concluding a trial that has riveted China, Bo Xilai, a former elite Communist Party official, attacked elements of the prosecution’s case Monday and said his former top deputy and his wife, both of whom provided evidence against him, had a passionate relationship with each other.
Bo said the charges of bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of power against him were deeply flawed because they depended on evidence from his wife, Gu Kailai, and his former top deputy, Wang Lijun, who he suggested were themselves involved with the abuses Bo was accused of committing — and with each other.
Wang and Gu “were stuck together as if by glue,” he said in his closing comments.
Bo’s final testimony added to the soap opera-like twists in a trial that provided an unusual showcase of how China manages its legal system....
The trial was carefully stage-managed by the ruling Communist Party to focus on narrow criminal charges....
The trial appeared to substitute drama for completeness....
Considering all the show trials and special treatment for certain intere$ts and ethnic groups regarding AmeriKa's justice $y$tem I find the pot-hollering-kettle crap media most distasteful and disgusting. I think is why the analysis is lacking these days because this is all superficial and sensationalist surface $hit.
In previous days, testimony showed that Bo’s wife and son had taken lavish gifts from a billionaire; that Gu had told Wang, who was the police chief of Bo’s metropolitan region, Chongqing, that she had poisoned a British businessman; and that Bo had punched or slapped Wang in the face after Wang confronted him with that news two months later.
The trial was the most closely watched in China since that of the Gang of Four, which included Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, was televised live in 1980. Bo’s trial is taking place in the social media age, and the party is learning to harness the power of microblogs for information control.
That's what the Zionist media machine thought it was going to do when it opened up the Internet and look what happened instead.
Journalists, barred from the courtroom, sat in hotel rooms for hours reading transcripts released via the court microblog....
Just like their AmeriKan counterparts taking official handouts.
--more--"
Also see:
"It was an example of the way that China’s major state-approved news portals were presenting a unified voice to highlight the prosecution’s evidence against Bo or, as in the case of the affair, taint him with scandal."
AmeriKa's mouthpiece media must feel like it is looking in a mirror!
"It was an example of the way that China’s major state-approved news portals were presenting a unified voice to highlight the prosecution’s evidence against Bo or, as in the case of the affair, taint him with scandal."
AmeriKa's mouthpiece media must feel like it is looking in a mirror!
Former Chinese official gets life sentence
"Disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai has appealed his guilty verdict, a person close to the case said Tuesday, in a rare move that is consistent with his defiant stance but unlikely to change the outcome. The provincial court is expected to make a ruling within two months, and it is expected to stick to the Jinan court’s verdict because it is believed to be orchestrated by China’s highest leadership. The Sunday verdict has effectively ended the political career of Bo, who was once an up-and-coming political star."
Before he started cooperating with foreign intelligence agencies.
UPDATE:
"Bo is expected to serve his term at Qincheng Prison, north of Beijing, which houses offenders from the political elite and is plush by Chinese prison standards. The former Politburo member had fallen from power in a scandal that became a volatile distraction for the Communist Party, unleashing tales of murder and betrayal in the highest ranks."
Other tales of Chinese corruption:
Rape trial casts attention on China’s elite
Communists oust Chinese leader
China expels 3 officials from party
Another corruption case in China
Maybe there are some things we can learn from the Chinese. Life imprisonment for business corruption a lenient sentence? Sounds good to me!
"China’s secretive courts tap social media; System opens up, a bit" by Didi Tang | Associated Press, October 02, 2013
BEIJING — China’s notoriously opaque courts have suddenly embraced social media to provide a window into their proceedings, to boost a skeptical public’s confidence in the country’s Communist Party-controlled legal system.
Nearly 1,000 Chinese courts have set up microblog accounts. One in central China released a blow-by-blow account of a murder appeal last week, complete with a photo of the convict signing his verdict in handcuffs....
China’s courts are releasing information online to build an image of transparency and improve accessibility. Chinese legal scholars and lawyers applaud the moves but warn they may be more about propaganda than transparency.
Then they are acting like AmeriKa?
Courtroom audiences remain tightly controlled, and the courts can easily filter sensitive information as they release details via Twitter-like feeds. Lawyers are barred from live microblogging their cases.
‘‘If they are sincere, why not open the court trials to all on a first come, first served basis and open up the docket after the trial for all to see?’’ asked Shanghai lawyer Wu Pengbin.
Legal experts also say there is no reason to believe that the changes are a step toward judicial independence, because the Communist Party remains firmly in control of the courts....
Public attendance at high-profile trials is tightly controlled.
Like it is not here in AmeriKa!
The courts assign seats to trusted persons while turning down journalists and members of the public on grounds of limited courtroom space.
Oh, I see. This reporter must have been denied a seat.
The opaqueness and the lack of independence of the Chinese courts has hurt their credibility among members of the public, and officials have taken note....
I didn't know China had a FISA court.
--more--"
"China targeting corruption protesters; Tightens rules on official buildings" by Simon Denyer | Washington Post, July 24, 2013
BEIJING — Even as China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, talks about rooting out corrupt officials, he has simultaneously launched a serious crackdown on citizens daring to raise the same subject in public.
At least 16 activists have been arrested or detained since banners were unfurled in Beijing in March and April demanding that officials ‘‘publicly disclose assets.’’ The arrest last week of prominent activist Xu Zhiyong heightened the sense of despair among leading liberals about China’s new leadership and prompted open letters of protest.
The crackdown dramatically illustrates the Chinese leadership’s paranoia about street protests. The government seems haunted by memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the Arab Spring.
Pot mouthpiece, kettle, black.
It also signals that any moves to crack down on corruption will be on Xi’s and the Communist Party’s own terms.
‘‘From the ruling party point of view, they think anticorruption is an internal affair — citizens have no right to judge them, they are fighting corruption on their own,’’ said lawyer Liang Xiaojun, who is representing one of the arrested activists. ‘‘But the one-party system has never been good at fighting corruption on its own. The contradictions just get increasingly sharpened.’’
Hey, look at the sorry-a$$ shape AmeriKa is in now.
President Xi’s moves to battle corruption have so far been largely symbolic, with a ban on lavish displays of wealth, such as the alcohol-fueled banquets that had been one of the hallmarks of Communist Party rule in recent years.
We have the $ymbolic moves here, but the War Party members still party.
In an apparent bid to soften popular resentment, Xi has pledged to catch the ‘‘tigers’’ as well as the ‘‘flies’’ responsible for stealing public money; some senior officials have been removed from office.
On Tuesday, China issued a directive banning the construction of government buildings for the next five years. Central authorities have periodically tried to rein in the widely mocked penchant among local officials for grand offices.
A few of these projects have been slowed or stopped, including the nearly Pentagon-sized headquarters started by a local government several years ago in an impoverished corner of Anhui province.
But Tuesday’s joint directive by China’s Cabinet and the Chinese Communist Party went much further — it also banned a long list of strategies that local leaders have used to circumvent more informal efforts.
The prosecutions of individual officials, however, have not convinced many Chinese people that the system is interested in cleaning house, observers say.
Replacing officials won’t change anything, said one commentator on the microblogging site Weibo, in a post that was widely circulated but has since been deleted. ‘‘The meat has always gone bad in the fridge,’’ the post said. ‘‘Should we change the meat or the fridge? What do you say?’’
I say check the lion to see if it's dog, make sure the chicken is not cat, the lamb not rat, and avoid the pork -- then wash it down with some Bo Xilai.
--more--"
