Bo Xilai

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Bo.

Bo Xilai 薄熙来
2nd Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China
In office 2004–2007
Preceded by	Lü Fuyuan
Succeeded by	Chen Deming
CPC Chongqing Committee Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office 2007
Deputy	Wang Hongju (Mayor)
Preceded by	Wang Yang
Personal details
Born	July 1949 Beijing
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse	Gu Kailai (谷开来)
Relations	Bo Yibo (father)
Children	Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜)
Alma mater	Peking University Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Bo Xilai (simplified Chinese: 薄熙来; traditional Chinese: 薄熙來; pinyin: Bó Xīlái; born July 1949 in Beijing), is the current CPC Chongqing Committee Secretary, first-in-charge of the Western interior municipality and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China. Between 2004 and November 2007 he was Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. He is believed to be one of the emerging leaders of China's 5th Generation of Leadership.

Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo, a Communist revolutionary elder, and his rise to fame came from his tenures as the Mayor of the coastal economic hub of Dalian and subsequently the Governor of Liaoning. Bo is a representative figure for China's new generation of leaders who are casual in front of the media, a shift away from the deeply serious focus of Chinese politics. Bo's reputation is known in Mainland China, Hong Kong and abroad, and since his installation as Minister of Commerce has become a political star.

Early life

Bo Xilai was the son of Bo Yibo (薄一波), one of the Eight Elders of Communist Party of China. Bo began work in January 1968 and joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 1980.

During the Cultural Revolution, when Bo was 17 years old, he was imprisoned along with members of his family for five years, after which they were placed in a labour camp for another five years. The Gang of Four were officially blamed for the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, prompting their release in 1978. During the Cultural Revolution, Bo's father was imprisoned and tortured for ten years; his mother was beaten to death.

Bo worked at the Hardware Repair Factory for the Beijing Second Light Industry Bureau before he was admitted to the Peking University Department of History, majoring in world history, in 1977. He later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1982, he graduated from the Postgraduate Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with a Masters degree.

Political career

Bo then successively worked with the Research Office of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat and CPC Central Committee General Office. Given Bo's father's authoritative position in the party, he decided to avoid allegations of nepotism by transferring to one of the most underdeveloped counties in China and starting at the very bottom of the political hierarchy. Bo thus became Deputy Secretary and Secretary of the Jinxian County Party Committee in Liaoning. Then Deputy Secretary and Secretary of the Party Committee of the Dalian Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Secretary of the Jinzhou Prefectural Party Committee in Liaoning, rising through the ranks to become a member of the Standing Committee of the Dalian Municipal CPC Committee, the city's decision making body. He became the Vice-mayor of Dalian in 1990, and deputy secretary of Dalian Municipal Party Committee.

He took up the post of acting Mayor of Dalian in 1992 and then Mayor of Dalian in 1993. The modern city was built upon the colony of Port Arthur during the late Qing Dynasty. He was elected as deputy secretary of CPC Dalian Municipal Committee in June 1995, the city's second-in-charge. In January 1998, he was re-elected mayor of Dalian. And in September 1999, he served as secretary of the CPC Dalian Municipal Committee, the city's number one figure. His term in Dalian was marked by the city's phenomenal growth into a modern metropolis representative of China's economic growth. The Shenyang-Dalian Expressway was built in the early 1990s, becoming China's first expressway. Dalian has since then been known as one of the cleanest cities in China, having won the United Nations Habitat Award, and has a very good overall reputation. However, despite the economic growth and significant improvements on GDP per capita, Bo's tenure in Dalian has sometimes been accused of too focused on aesthetic development projects.

Bo spent seventeen years in the city of Dalian, thus serving the longest time in a single region among the officials of China. Although his popularity with the people was well-known, he was denied promotion by then President Jiang Zemin. In January 2001, under the pressure of strong public opinion, Bo was transferred to the province as the vice governor, which happened to be equal rank to his municipal position. In the aftermath of the Liaoning 'Mu & Ma' corruption scandal, a major reshuffle of the Liaoning provincial government took place, and Bo was appointed the Acting Governor of Liaoning Province. In January 2003, Bo was elected as Governor of Liaoning at the first session of the tenth Liaoning People's Congress. However, during the same year Bo was denied by the Communist Party Central Committee members a seat in the party's central leadership.

Bo oversaw Liaoning's development into one of the most economically strong provinces in China, and unlike his predecessors, was clean in terms of moving public funds and other allegations of corruption. Some accused Bo, however, of being fake, a "talker" rather than a "doer".

Minister of Commerce

Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin in the presidency in late 2003, and ended Bo's 20 years service as a local official and Bo was appointed Minister of Commerce in Wen Jiabao's cabinet, replacing Lü Fuyuan, who had health problems with which he was unable to fulfill his duties. Bo concurrently served as a member of the 16th CPC Central Committee, in reality China's central decision making body.

Known for his good looks, articulate speech, open-minded work ethic, and a generally liberal outlook, Bo's phenomenal rise from a municipal official to the Central government has been of great media attention and has since elevated his status to that of a political star. The archetype of a politician Bo presents is seldom seen with a generally serious and conservative leadership in Beijing. He has a reputation of a Kennedy-esque figure, his charisma known to media from the Mainland, Hong Kong, and even abroad.

Bo's term as Minister of Commerce saw the general trend of attracting foreign investment continue. His daily schedule is dominated with receiving foreign guests and dignitaries. He speaks relatively fluent English, having told a not-so-fluent translator to rest for a while as an American delegation's comments were being translated into Chinese. In May 2004 Bo was one of the few hand-picked Ministers to accompany Premier Wen Jiabao on a five-country trip in Europe. Trade policy of the United States toward China has also sparked significant controversy, during which Bo kept a cool head as he headed for talks in Washington.

Bo also oversaw the restructuring of the Ministry, whose formation was the result of the amalgamation of the National Economics and Commerce Bureau and the Department of International Trade. Bo sought to balance the amount of attention given to foreign investors and domestic commercial institutions. He began tackling the imbalance from the retail sector, whose recent success was largely owing to foreign companies. He drew out various plans to protect Chinese industries so they would not lose their place inside the Chinese market.

CPC Chongqing Committee Secretary

It was widely speculated following the 17th Party Congress in 2007 that Bo would take over as party chief in Chongqing. Bo took over the position on November 30, replacing Wang Yang, who was sent to Guangdong. He was also elevated to the Politburo of the Communist Party of China. His move from the Northeast to the Southwest is another dramatic change for Bo in his political career.

Bo's tenure in Chongqing was dominated by a protracted war against the city's rampant organized crime scene. Since June 2009, some 2,000 people were detained in a sweeping campaign against gangsters in the city. In marked departure from other anti-mafia campaigns in China, Bo cracked down on the government officials who served as political back-up to gangsters, not just the gangsters themselves - some of the detained were officials in Bo's own administration, others were from the city's police force. Wen Qiang (文强), one of the most prominent figures implicated in the trials, had been at the top echelons of municipal power since the days of party secretaries He Guoqiang and Wang Yang. Reports from the Jamestown Foundation suggest that the final decision for such a large-scale crackdown originated from the central authorities and President Hu Jintao, and Bo has been careful to not make the case look as though Chongqing is "trying to set an example" for the rest of the country so he could benefit from the success politically.

Prior to the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China celebrations, Bo sent out "Red Propaganda Text Messages" (Chinese: 红色短信) to the city's 13 million cellphone users. According to Xinhua News Agency, Bo's text messages are usually quotes from Mao's Little Red Book, and include phrases such as "I like how Chairman Mao puts it: The world is ours, we will all have to work together."

Personal life

Bo married Gu Kailai in 1986, a prominent lawyer who was the first Chinese lawyer to have won a public case in the United States. Her father, Gu Jing Sheng, a Communist revolutionary and General who led the 12.9 Movement that propelled China to unite against Japanese invasion in World War II. She is also a descendant of the renowned Song Dynasty Prime Minister and Poet Fan Zhongyan.

They have one son, Bo Guagua. He was the first mainland Chinese to attend Harrow School for boys in the UK. He was accepted into Balliol College, Oxford University, where he studies for a PPE degree from 2006. He is set to graduate in June 2010 having taken a gap year abroad.

Additional source

• Template:Zh icon姜维平：由薄瓜瓜艳照想到的往事 Epochtimes.com
• Template:Zh icon姜维平：薄熙来在亚洲影响了什么？ Epochtimes.com

• Template:Zh icon内幕！薄熙来后悔没把姜维平“做了”Renminbao.com

External links

• News about Bo Xilai at China Digital Times.
• Biography and recent career data at China Vitae, an online biographical database of Chinese VIPs
• Template:Zh icon Article on Bo Xilai at Peking University's online forum
• Alibaba details Bo's charisma