A DICTIONARY OF CHINESE POLITICS

THE A TO Z OF CHINESE POLITICS

John Garnaut

The Sydney Morning Herald, October 29, 2012

AMERICA

A is for America, China's obsession, the measure of the country's achievement and the mirror in which the Chinese Communist Party defines itself. ''Since the very early days of the People's Republic of China, it has been a constant and strong belief that the US has sinister designs to sabotage the Communist leadership and turn China into its vassal state,'' as Wang Jisi, the dean of international relations at Peking University, explained in a candid report for the Brookings Institution earlier this year. Despite the collective leadership paranoia, the incoming president and premier have each sent their daughters to study in the US.

BO XILAI

Bo Xilai is - or was - the maverick princeling and Great Red Hope who had his sights set on a top leadership position. His spectacular demise - he was formally expelled from the National People's Congress Standing Committee, his last official position, this week - has shaken authorities in the lead-up to next month's leadership transition.

For all his now-evident flaws, Bo was the first to grasp that China's elite politics had entered a new era of political contest. He also had uncommon political courage. As a mere provincial leader he managed to set a national agenda by draping himself in neo-Maoist iconography and waging war against corruption, inequality and mafia-state collusion. Bo's empire in Chongqing began to crumble after his wife decided to poison an English family friend, and Bo's police chief - who had egged her on - went out and told the Americans all about it. Last month the Politburo decided to send Bo through a criminal process that will probably see him spend most of the rest of his life in jail.

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