Since local party boss and rising star Bo Xilai's stunning ouster from the Chinese Communist Party in April for "suspected serious violations of discipline," some of the world's best China watchers have been given room in the mainstream press to compare Bo to other top Chinese officials. We've learned much about the "princelings" -- leading cadres whose status in the political pecking order is a function of their parents' allegiance to Mao -- and the collateral damage that could be done to reputations by family members.
But in the long run, the more telling comparison about the nature of power in China today may be between Bo Xilai and Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who last week escaped house arrest in Shandong and made his way to Beijing, where he is reportedly seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy. It isn't that Bo and Chen have similar agendas or found themselves in similar circumstances. It's that these two cases lay bare the extraordinary unpredictability inherent in authoritarian rule and the lengths to which people will go when they are utterly desperate.
Chen, blind since birth, began his journey through China's sometimes Kafka-esque politico-legal system in 2005. After unsuccessfully attempting to file a class-action lawsuit about abuses of the family-planning regime in Linyi City, he and his family members were subject to collective punishment and confined to their home for six months. In March 2006, authorities forcibly removed Chen from his home, telling the family nothing about his whereabouts or legal status for another three months. In June of that year, officials finally acknowledged Chen's detention, but threatened his lawyers and his family and initiated formal legal proceedings on ludicrous charges of damaging property and disrupting traffic. In August 2006, after legal proceedings that could be most charitably described as a kangaroo court, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months. But after he served his time and was released in September 2010, he and his family were again confined -- with no legal basis -- to their home.
Over the course of 2011, Chen, with the help of activists, released a video documenting the abuses to which he and his family were being subject by the dozens of guards who watched them around the clock. At the same time, growing numbers of concerned individuals and activists, as well as some courageous foreign journalists and foreign diplomats, attempted to visit Chen and his family; all were turned back by local thugs with varying degrees of violence. The alarming news kept coming: Chen's health was declining. His young daughter was prevented from attending school; after diplomatic intervention, local authorities "compromised" and allowed her to go -- accompanied by guards. Arguably most disturbing, Chen's young son, who was living elsewhere with other relatives, reportedly cut himself in order to be hospitalized, believing that his mother would finally be allowed to see him. She wasn't.
And so this year, the plan developed for Chen to break out of his and his family's surreal confinement. Last weekend, he slipped past his guards and made his way to Beijing, where he released a video calling on Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to investigate his situation, and pointing out what unnerves Chinese leaders more than just about anything else: that there is growing popular interest in his fate. Chen now appears to have sought sanctuary in the U.S. Embassy -- just days before the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings in Beijing -- and retributions are already being directed at those who helped him "escape."
Central government officials, when pressed about Chen's confinement, occasionally offered up variations on an extraordinary lie: He was free, having completed his sentence. He didn't want visitors, or was too poor to travel. At no point did they intervene or discipline those who held Chen. They were too busy with more important matters, such as the anticipated leadership change in late 2012.
Bo Xilai's star rose in part on the putative success of his similarly twisted interpretations of the law. During his tenure as mayor of Chongqing -- a city-state of 30 million people -- Bo cracked down relentlessly on some organized crime to generate local support. He tried to burnish his national political credentials with economic policies designed to reduce socioeconomic disparities and a neo-Maoist campaign that featured, among other things, schoolchildren singing Cultural Revolution-era "red" songs. Like many others jockeying for positions on the Politburo's Standing Committee -- the body, often consisting of nine members, that effectively runs the country -- he too was a "princeling." And along the way he too allowed the silencing of people like Chen. Bo's corruption drew the attention of veteran journalist Jiang Weiping and lawyer Li Zhuang; the former was sentenced in 2001 to eight years in jail for violating state secrets laws, while the latter was framed, tortured, and sentenced to 18 months in prison for defending a suspected crime syndicate boss.
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