China’s central leadership has moved to bolster control over the southwestern city-province of Chong-qing after ousting its contentious yet popular chief, Bo Xilai (薄熙來), with state-run media yesterday urging officials and residents there to toe the line.
The demands for unity with the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s central leadership appeared in Chongqing newspapers that did not even mention Bo, who was removed this week after a scandal when his vice mayor, Wang Lijun (王立軍), took refuge in a US consulate last month until he was coaxed out and put under investigation.
Until that episode, Bo was widely seen as an ambition-fuelled contender for a spot in the next central leadership to be settled late this year. However, now the message to Chongqing officials and residents amounts to: Forget about Bo, even if he was China’s most high-profile province-level leader.
The Chongqing Daily reported that city officials on Friday effectively pledged loyalty to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Chongqing’s new boss, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang (張德江).
“All unanimously declared that they will sincerely embrace the central leadership’s decision on adjusting the municipality party committee’s leader and handling the Wang Lijun case,” the paper reported of a meeting of Chongqing officials.
“Do not disappoint the sincere expectations of the central leadership,” the officials were told, according to the report.
The failure to even mention Bo Xilai by name in state media was another sign of the fall from grace for a man who, unusually among China’s poker-faced leaders, reveled in publicity.
After arriving in Chongqing in 2007, Bo, 62 and a former commerce minister, turned it into a bastion of Communist revolutionary-inspired “red” culture and egalitarian growth, winning national attention with a crackdown on organized crime.
His self-promotion and revival of Mao Zedong (毛澤東)-inspired propaganda irked moderate officials.
However, his populist ways and crime clean-up were welcomed by many residents and others who hoped Bo could try his policies nationwide.
Chongqing newspapers said residents promptly embraced Bo’s successor.
“The broad mass of Chongqing residents resolutely support the central leadership’s decision and sincerely welcome Comrade Zhang Dejiang coming to work here,” the Chongqing Daily said.
“They are full of hope in Chongqing’s future development,” it added.
Many residents of the riverside city, however, voiced dismay at the dumping of Bo.
“It’s hard for us to understand this,” said Xia Hao, a businessman in his thirties. “The problem is that Chongqing had party secretaries before who came and left, like Wang Yang (汪洋) and He Guoqiang (賀國強), but nothing about the city changed much then.”
“But after Bo Xilai came here, we could see and feel all the changes, so people don’t understand what he did that was so wrong,” he said.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS