What the Incident of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai teaches

What the Incident of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai teaches

Today we around the world see the deepest downfall of a famous powerful couple. It is as much dramatic as the movie-like personal lives of the couple overlapped with the contradiction of the rising Chinese power system.

As Bo Xilai’s father was purged from all the positions during the Cultural Revolution, he had also experienced sufferings in the countryside in his adolescent teen age, estranged from the prestigious high school in Beijing. After the Death of Mao Zedong, his father, Bo Yibo, was rehabilitated and held vice premier to the peak,

Bo Xilai showed his ability markedly during the mayoral office of Dalian City. But he deserted his first wife, the taboo of Eastern Confucian customs. Also he seemed to go against the main stream, running the Red Culture movement. Especially, his style seemed to remind the present opposite power group of the past fearful and ominous foreboding of the Cultural Revolution.

Certainly the Authorities will expose the truth and a few causes in detail. The Chinese political recruitment for the Politburo has been a mystery for a long time to the outside. Bo’s incident shed light on the dark side of the Politburo and members. What are its implications to us?

It is, one person should not have both political power and wealth simultaneously. Because what the politicians earn much money means they use their power of the official positions and networks, make unfair or arbitrary implementation of regulation and law.

Business as a tool of surviving or secular success has a nature of a living organism, which exploits the most advantageous and efficient one among all the resources available. If the political power (which is in fact most effective) is mostly available for the business persons, the profitable model is naturally developed into the political power-centered connections.
In the democratic societies, too, the scandals like this kind of incidents sometimes break out. In Korea, now two big figures who are reckoned respectively mentor and former powerful assistant close to the contemporary President are being investigated in suspect of bribery by the Prosecution.

There is nothing but transparency for the solution. The transparency is to check and balance among the political powers, and freedom of speech and publishing.

If the bad connections are not revealed in public and cut out at the earlier stage, the connections are institutionalized and proceeded in a criminal phase. (The end)