Astral Codex Ten

Bo Xilai

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Bo Xilai

Article

Bo Xilai is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 06, 2022 and April 28, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “powerful Politburo member Bo Xilai was arrested on sensational corruption charges”; “the downfall of Bo Xilai was also a gradual process”. It most often appears alongside CCP, Central Military Commission, China.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: April 06, 2022
  • Last seen: April 28, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Dictator Book Club: Xi Jinping
April 06, 2022 · Original source
Finally, a few months before the “election”, powerful Politburo member Bo Xilai was arrested on sensational corruption charges. In a country where almost every high official was corrupt, Bo had gone above and beyond: while trying to cover his misdeeds, he’d killed a British national and threatened his own client, the chief of police. The chief fled to an American consulate and might have tried to defect to the US. We still don’t know the whole story, but the whole Chinese leadership got enraged and sentenced Bo to life in prison.
Inline links: still don’t know the whole story
The public trial and investigation had its intended effect: Bo Xilai and his faction were torn apart, their region of politics-space salted so thoroughly that nothing would ever grow there again. But it left the leadership nervous: the public was spooked about corruption. They needed to credibly signal that they took the problem seriously.
Xi Jinping was their guy. He’d made a focus of rooting out corruption in his previous posts, and had a reputation for being non-corrupt himself. He had already been a leading candidate to succeed Hu, but the Bo Xilai incident made him a shoo-in.
Highlights From The Comments On Xi Jinping
April 28, 2022 · Original source
At the same time, the downfall of Bo Xilai was also a gradual process that took months, which publicized fissures within the party unseen for decades. In addition, Xi was well-liked and had a stellar reputation. He was not seen as a close associate of the Shanghai gang, unlike Li Keqiang who was clearly in the CYL faction.