Bo Xilai

Sinocentric Cosmology: China has a long history of regarding itself as the centre of the world due to its ignorance of the existence of the other parts of the world that were much larger and even stronger than it.

It paid dearly for such ignorance and arrogance in being bullied for more than a century by foreign powers.

When China defeated the United States in the Korean War due to General McArthur’s arrogance, Mao Zedong’s ego inflated. China again wanted to be the centre of the world. Mao contended with the Soviet Union for leadership of the communist world and advocated world revolution to turn the whole world communist.

Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in order to surpass the United States and Soviet Union economically, but it backfired and resulted in one of the worst famines in human history.

However, Mao did not repent. Like Hitler, he still had lots of followers who were willing to fight bravely in order to rule the world.

Exploiting his popularity, he made Red Guard youngsters and rebel workers mad to carry out his Cultural Revolution in order to be world leader not economically but politically and ideologically.

As China was poor and weak, Mao’s ambition to rule the world did not bring much harm to people outside China. As a result, some people still regard Mao as an idealist. Some even believe that Mao advocated a mass line as he thought that it was vitally important to understand their views.

No, Mao wanted all Chinese people to obey his instructions and be his good pupils! The Great Leader, Great Teacher, Great Commander and Great Helmsman did not want to understand your view. He wanted you to obey him blindly.

“Chairman Mao’s instructions must be implemented no matter you understand them or not!”

Mao was dead, but the Sinocentric cosmology revived by him remains popular among a large number of Maoists and leftists.

That is why when China becomes strong, books and articles advocating such cosmology have cropped up with a vengeance. Some of the books became best sellers.

In one best seller “China Is unhappy: The Great Era, the Grand Goal, and Our Internal Anxieties and External Challenges” (2009), Song Xiaojun, a retired PLA officer, tried to be more arrogant than Mao by calling America “an old cucumber painted green” instead of “paper tiger”.

In another best seller “China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era” (2010), Liu Mingfu, a senior colonel and professor at China’s National Defence University, is so mad as to reject China’s “peaceful rise” advocated by Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping and advocate China’s “military rise”.

With such cosmology popular among a large number of Maoists and leftists in China, what will happen when China has become as powerful as the United States and is ruled by a tyrant like Mao with the ambition to rule the world?

Danger of the Reemergence of a Tyrant

Under the current system of the CCP Dynasty, as there are no rules or standards with respect to the qualification of the candidates for succession to the top post, the number of succession contenders can be very large. Due to the preference to plucking a person from obscurity as succession candidate to ensure his gratitude to the one who chooses him, the chance is much bigger for a clever potential tyrant well versed in intrigues to win succession.

If such a tyrant has reemerged, there is no mechanism in China to remove him. With the support of those who advocate Sinocentric cosmology, he will seek world hegemony and like Mao has no scruple to fight a nuclear war.

Like Chinese people, world people may be forced to obey the tyrant’s instruction blindly.

China Has Just Removed a Potential Tyrant

Bo Xilai is precisely such a potential tyrant. What he did in Chongqing in ignoring the rule of law, persecuting defence lawyer and all those who dared to criticise him, torturing entrepreneurs and robbing them of their wealth proved that he would have absolutely been a tyrant if he had succeeded in replacing Xi Jinping and manoeuvred to become the core of the CCP leadership

He was well qualified as a Hu Jintao’s successor, but he failed to be aware of his potential before Xi Jinping had been chosen as Hu Jintao’s successor because he never expected that person1 moral integrity was so important for Jiang Zemin in selecting successor.

Bo can use his father’s influence in the powerful conservative faction to become the leader of that faction and has the faction as his power base. He believed that Jiang might allow him to substitute himself for Xi Jinping if he had turned a new leaf and made impressive achievements in running Chongqing. After all, Bo’s father did Jiang tremendous favours in helping Jiang establish himself as the core of CCP leadership.

Bo Xilai is born a playboy and has been chased by lots of beautiful women. He is not greedy for wealth, but is only fond of playing with women. However, one has to have some money to please women. Secretly, he got some money. What is wrong with that? “Who does not play with women when he is an official?” he thought. “Who will know that if it is a well-kept secret?” It left no trace if he avoided giving birth to any child in doing so. Besides, the women came to chase him instead of he chasing them. If they quarrelled, he only needed to stop the quarrel and make them live in harmony. He knew how to do that. He was a skilled womaniser. There was nothing to worry. His wife was greedy, but she did that for his son. He did not blame her.

Who knows that he had played away the right of succession to benefit Xi Jinping. He did not mind if anyone else got the right. Losing that to Xi Jinping who looks so naïve! He just could not accept that. He decided to cease playing and achieve something to impress the elders in order to grab the succession and seize power. “Doesn’t Xi Jinping look like Hua Guofeng? Hua Guofeng was naïve and was soon replaced by Deng Xiaoping. So will Xi Jinping by me,” he thought.

He had proved himself really talented in running Chongqing. In addition, with a little effort, he became foreign and Chinese media’s favourite due to his handsome looks, charm, charisma, eloquence, perfect Putonghua and fluent English. He took all the limelight and cast Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and Xi Jinping all into the shade.

He had studied hard Mao Zedong’s works and Marxism-Leninism, but had no idea that in China, one had to have good mastery of the art for being an emperor to become the top leader. In the power struggle between him with the support of the powerful conservative faction and the various reformist factions, he was a miserable loser.

Quite interesting intrigues and tricks were played in the power struggle and made it one of the most fantastic stories in Chinese history. I cannot give the story here as it is too long. There is a detailed description of it in the second edition of my book “Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements”.

Therefore, I said in my post South China Sea dispute: Who is bullying who?, “The world can only be safe when China is a democracy!”

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Categories: Politics & Law

Tags: Bo Xilai, China, Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong, Sinocentric cosmology, Soviet Union, United States, Xi Jinping