Book Review
John Garnaut, The Rise and Fall of
the House of Bo
ISBN: 9780143569350
When I lived in Beijing in
2005-2009, all I heard about Bo Xilai was good.
At the time, he was everything any Chinese people would possibly asked
for in a Minister of Commerce. He was
handsome, well dressed, and appeared very much at ease in engaging officials
from any part of the world. He was the
poster boy for a China that was opening up its economy more and more. His image symbolized a proud, promising, and
modern nation, ready to be among the other economic giants of the world.
Indeed, Bo Xilai was at the
time China’s fast-rising political star.
I remember visiting Dalian in 2007 and marveled at how awesome the city
felt. Not only was it clean and orderly,
Dalian was such a nice break from the grey pavements of Beijing. The sea, the breeze, the greenery, the
food, the sights… The city also felt worldly, seemingly ready to open its doors
to international engagement. I remember
eating really good Korean BBQ there, and shopping products that had been
destined for other parts of Asia. And
throughout my time there, I couldn’t help but recognize that much of this could
be attributed to Dalian’s former Mayor, Bo Xilai.
But in 2013, as I watched the
news coming out from China from the comfort of my home in Jakarta, I was
astounded by the political drama that was unfurling with Bo Xilai as its
central figure. He was on BBC, CNN,
ChannelNews Asia; he was even on Indonesia’s MetroTV and TvOne. And the drama was beyond my belief. China’s most popular politician had fallen
from grace. Not only has he lost his
position as one of the contenders in China’s future leadership, the political
rock star was found guilty of corruption,
bribery and abuse of power. His
sentence: life imprisonment.
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| Colourful fans in Dalian, 2007 (Private Collection) |
How did this all happen? And how did it all happen so fast?
Indeed, although the news did make the
headlines in Indonesia, it never really grabbed the regular political
observers’ attention. Of course, it’s
probably different if you were someone who is particularly keen on developments
taking place in China.
But in the western media, the Bo Xilai
drama was dissected left, right, and center, and used as an examination of the
problems that China was facing internally.
Moreover, Bo Xilai was many times portrayed as a someone who was willing
to stand up to the heavy-handedness of the Chinese leadership at the time, led
by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
Everyone knows that the all-powerful
Chinese Communist Party is rife with problems.
But the cruelty of Bo’s political assassination demonstrated just how
dangerous politics is in this one-party country. And for the western media and academia, this
gave reason to comment on the high likelihood of political implosion in
China. A political implosion that could
bring this gigantic economy to its knees, the way the Soviet Union unraveled
and disappeared into history.
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| Hanging out in downtown Dalian, 2007 (Private Collection) |
In his book, The Rise and Fall of the
House of Bo, John Garnaut gives an excellent account of the Bo Xilai’s
political successes, and of course, failures. Garnaut not only revealsthe
nastiness that lies behind the rule of Bo Xilai and his family in Chongqing
(where Bo was Party chief), but goes back into China’s history to outline the
beginnings of Bo’s rivalry with the present Chinese leadership.
Through careful research,
Garnaut provides a rich, flowing, and highly engaging narrative of how Bo Xilai
came into power, and then lost it. Whatever
good image I had previously had of Bo immediately became questionable, as
accounts after another are revealed about Bo’s strong-hand rule. On screen, Bo played the personae of a
down-to-earth leader who is willing to stand for the rights of the people and
the glory of the Chinese Communist Party.
However, behind the screen, Bo not only bended, but knowingly broke laws
and regulations in order to gain financial profits for himself and his close
inner circle.
Garnaut also describes the
rivalries that exist among China’s political elite today. Rivalries that have existed not only in the
post-Deng Xiaoping reform period, but those that went as back as the times of
the People’s Republic’s first foundation.
Rivalries that began between Bo’s father, Bo Yibo, and Xi Zhongxun, the
father of China’s present top leader, Xi Jinping. And most of all, the rivalries that have
pitted reformists and conservatives within the Chinese Communist Party in a
cross-generational power struggle.
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| Taichi at Chongqing's central square, 2007 (Private Collection) |
I recommend this book to anyone
even slightly interested in China. For
many, the Chinese Government is seen as an impenetrable juggernaut. Not only that, the totalitarian nature of
China’s Stalinist state has created an image in which everyone in the
government has a common voice on anything even remotely important in the
country.
The
Bo Xilai drama reminds us all that divisions do exist among the Chinese
elite. And more so, these divisions run
very deep, originating from decades before any of the present leaders were even
in power. For some, this may be an
indication that democracy is well and alive in China, even if it is only within
the Communist Party (as in, no public participation). Meanwhile, for others, this drama clearly
indicates the inexistence of any form of democracy in China. Not only that, China is
also devoid of other norms and principles that go hand-in-hand with democracy,
such as transparency, equality, human rights, and anti-corruption.
