CHONGQING, China — China’s leadership faced continued resistance on Friday in its efforts to hand down final judgment against deposed politician Bo Xilai, despite moving swiftly to wrap up a murder charge against his wife who now risks the death penalty. …
However, shutting the door on the political case against Bo, who still faces party disciplinary proceedings, could prove to be much more difficult, given the former party boss of Chongqing city retains some strong support at the party’s grass roots.
Despite months of unanswered allegations against the Bo family from police and party sources, Bo’s leftist supporters are uncowed and see the case as political revenge, said Zhang Hongliang, an influential far-left intellectual in Beijing.
“You ask why do so many Chinese leftists welcomed the policies Bo Xilai implemented in Chongqing. It’s simple: because those policies were welcomed by the vast majority of ordinary people,” Zhang said in an email exchange this week.
“Whatever personal problems Bo Xilai might have, that’s a completely different matter than his policies in Chongqing,” he said in comments emailed a day before Gu’s indictment.
In Chongqing on Friday, a sprawling metropolis of around 30 million people where Bo cast himself as a populist dedicated to fighting crime and helping the poor, vocal support was still easy to find despite his removal from all party posts in April.
All of Chongqing’s newspapers carried the official announcement of Gu’s murder indictment on their front pages, and one newspaper hawker said many residents were disbelieving.
“I can tell you that 100% of ordinary people or at least 95%, support Bo Xilai,” said the hawker, who asked only to be cited by his surname, Zhao, “so I can speak my mind.”
“He did many good things for people in Chongqing and gave us a sense of safety,” said Zhao, who added that he and his friends were skeptical about the charges brought against Gu.
