Party May Be Long-Term Loser in Chinese Scandal

NYT ^ | 04/13/12 | MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE

[TigerLikesRooster]

Party May Be Long-Term Loser in Chinese Scandal

By MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING — The scandal that climaxed here on Tuesday when Communist Party leaders suspended the Politburo member Bo Xilai and accused his wife of murder seems poised to destroy a charismatic party leader who challenged President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s vision for China.

But for the Chinese leaders who purged Mr. Bo, there are threats as well.

In the view of some analysts and party insiders, that same scandal has raised the notion of high-level misconduct among China’s elite to a level that some say could have far-reaching and unpleasant implications for stability. It could cast a long shadow over one of the party’s linchpins: the notion that a handful of all-powerful officials and retired elders are better qualified to pick their successors than are ordinary citizens.

“I think that this could have a deep and delegitimizing impact on China, not now, but in the long run,” Joseph Fewsmith, a Boston University scholar of elite Chinese politics, said of the Bo family scandals.

“This has got to be shocking to the people of China,” he said. “I think the party has lost a lot of credibility.”

How revelations of murder and potential cover-up in the party’s highest echelons will resonate is unclear. But it seems plain that Mr. Bo’s rivals within the elite are trying to make the most of his travails.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[tanuki]

“It could cast a long shadow over one of the party’s linchpins: the notion that a handful of all-powerful officials and retired elders are better qualified to pick their successors than are ordinary citizens.”

It could-if anyone actually believed that BS. The Chinese I know are either getting out, or are too busy putting rice on the table to care.