By ZHENG WANG – The New York
Times
WASHINGTON — The trial of Bo Xilai, the fallen Chinese Communist Party official and former
member of the ruling Politburo, is attracting the world’s attention with its
tales of corruption, sex, murder and political intrigue. But while such details
are riveting, they divert attention from the real meaning of the case.
Mr. Bo’s trial has been dressed up by the Chinese
Communist Party as part of its anticorruption campaign. (As with Chen Liangyu
and Chen Xitong, two other high-ranking party officials who were tried for
corruption, Mr. Bo has met his fate most likely as a result of power struggles
within the party.) But the true significance of the trial is that it highlights
the urgent debate over what path China will take in the future — specifically, whether its
leaders will revive the disastrous tactics and policies of Chairman Mao.
Even though Mr. Bo and his family were themselves
victims of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Bo’s policies
from 2007 to 2012 as the party secretary in the megacity of Chongqing replicated
many of the methods Mao used to mobilize and govern the Chinese people. These
methods made Mr. Bo very popular and powerful but also created a dangerous path
along which the Communist Party could return to the old ways of Mao.
Like Mao, Mr. Bo used mass campaigns and grass-roots
mobilization to deal with the party’s governance problems. His most important
campaign in Chongqing was “changhong dahei” (singing red, striking black), a
grass-roots effort that encouraged people to sing patriotic and revolutionary
songs from the Mao era and to support the imprisonment and property seizure of
the city’s “black society” or “black mafia groups” — organized gangs, in theory,
though in practice simply rivals or obstacles to Mr. Bo’s hold on power.
Mao used similar strategies of targeting distinct groups
of people for attack and mobilizing the people against them, as with his
campaigns against capitalists and landlords. Though Mr. Bo did not use Mao’s
terminology of class struggle, many people who were labeled members of the
“black society” were owners of private businesses and members of Chongqing’s new
rich.
While he was mobilizing his campaign against “black
society,” Mr. Bo also initiated his own Mao-like “great leap forward” for
economic development in Chongqing to win over the poor. After taking office he
promptly conducted a huge increase in infrastructure and attracted a large
amount of foreign investment, bringing about a marked increase in gross domestic
product. But many of these projects were not economically sustainable: they
depended heavily on borrowing money and providing unsupportable incentives for
foreign companies to invest. Like Mao, Mr. Bo was good at giving the poor a
rose-tinted, falsely optimistic picture of their future.
Mr. Bo also learned from Mao to establish a cult of
personality. He regularly made emotional and inflammatory speeches at mass
gatherings and used the news media to present himself as a person of
extraordinary ability, vision and wisdom. During his tenure, his handwritten
calligraphy of political mottos and slogans could be seen everywhere in
Chongqing and on the news, and even today he remains popular within certain
parts of Chinese society.
Though Mao’s ideology and policies are anathema to most
people in the West, many Chinese still miss Mao and his era. They believe that
Mao, who died in 1976, was the one person who put an end to China’s century of
humiliation, and they still have not realized that his policies for a new China
in which everyone would be equal amounted to a utopian pipe dream. His inhumane
and criminal behavior and his ruthless methods of keeping the Communist Party in
power have never been fully discussed, debated and understood in China. To this
day Mao’s image for many Chinese is still largely that of a great leader who
made a few mistakes.
As a result, Mr. Bo was able to use Mao-like policies
and tactics to gain popular support. Pictures of Mr. Bo’s supporters protesting
outside of the courtroom show some of them holding pictures of Mao and signs
proclaiming reverence for old Maoist policies.
Without a full national reflection on Mao’s crimes, the
current Communist Party leadership may be able to remove Mr. Bo as a political
challenger while still embracing Mr. Bo’s political tactics to solidify its own
power. Modern Chinese history offers several examples of this “remove and
subsume” strategy. After the Empress Dowager Cixi cracked down on the reform
movement in 1898, she promoted aggressive policies that did not differ from that
of the reformists. After China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping removed Zhao
Ziyang, an advocate for market reforms, as party secretary in 1989, Beijing
conducted economic reforms that were bolder than Mr. Zhao’s. Now that party
leaders have removed Mr. Bo as a political rival, will they adopt Mr. Bo’s
revival of Maoist tactics?
Today China faces many internal crises. The rapid
socioeconomic transformation has created social tensions; the current economic
slowdown could lead to social unrest. In such an environment, Mao’s approach to
divide and mobilize the Chinese people in order to maintain the political power
of the Communist Party could once again be attractive to party leaders,
especially when Beijing does not have a clear idea of its future path.
So as you watch Mr. Bo’s trial, remember that the
scandalous charges, Mr. Bo’s defiant defense and the final verdict are less
important than whether the party can put an end to Mr. Bo’s tactics and policies
— and expel the ghost of Mao.
Hakuna maoni:
Chapisha Maoni