Amid official silence over the graft case against Shanghai's disgraced Communist Party chief, unlicensed tomes are stepping into the void with what they claim is the inside scoop on his downfall.
Sold by sidewalk vendors or under-the-counter at legitimate bookstores, the paperbacks, with lurid, glossy covers and stand-out titles like Chen Liangyu (陳良宇), His Tragic Fate From Beginning to End appear hastily assembled. Their titillating details are mostly unsourced and unverifiable.
China's secretive leadership bans public dissent and censors most sensitive political news, keeping the public largely in the dark over what's really going on in the highest echelons of power.
That vacuum of information feeds a lively "alleyway news" grapevine of political gossip, nurturing a small but lively market in political pulp fiction. Figures such as Chen, in hot water over alleged misuse of city pension funds and other offenses, are in no position to fight back.
"Where there is demand, there's a supply," said Sun Wenguang (孫文廣), a retired professor at Shandong University and frequent government critic.
At least half-a-dozen backstreet books have appeared on the Chen case, which broke on Sept. 25 with an announcement by the Xinhua News Agency that he had been fired as Shanghai party secretary.
Chen was also ousted from the party's powerful Politburo. The party's anti-graft watchdog is investigating him for allegedly aiding illegal businesses, shielding corrupt colleagues and abusing his position to benefit family members.
A wider investigation centers on allegations over misuse of at least one-third of a US$1.2 billion city pension fund that is said to have been invested in potentially risky real estate and other projects. At least 17 others have been implicated in the case, including the head of the National Statistics Bureau, Qiu Xiaohua (邱曉華).
Chen's downfall was considered a coup for president and party chief Hu Jintao (
The Shanghai chief's removal "sweeps away a major political obstacle," another unauthorized book, Who Dares Protect Chen Liangyu? asserted in a statement far too direct to appear in official media.
"There is a huge market for reliable information and the party's control is creating a kind of `yellow journalism' of unreliable information," Bandurski said.
There is something of a tradition for this genre of political literature in China. A decade ago, the downfall of another Chen -- former Beijing party chief Chen Xitong (陳希同) -- spurred sales of a best-selling allegorical novel about his alleged exploits, mistresses and opulent villas.
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