Salacious, Scandalous, And Totally Unsubstantiated Rumors Regarding Bo Xilai

"Give me your your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle." Photo by Feng Li / GETTY IMAGES
By RFH With all the stuff going around about Bo, Bogu, Guagua, Gu and, of course, Neil and Nick Heywood, it’s getting hard for even the most Burroughs of media junkies to keep up. Every time I tell myself I’m done with it, Malcolm Moore at the Telegraph or Jeremy Page of Wall Street Journal turn up offering another... Read more »

The Day After The Day After And Such: Bo Xilai’s Family And Associates, As Depicted In Media

Gu Kailai
Here are the more interesting bits in a day of frenetic media coverage of the Bos. THE SON “Very beautiful” apparently just means “has big baps.” “Mr Bo has been romantically linked to Chen Xiaodan, the daughter of the governor of the China Development Bank and the granddaughter of Chen Yun, one of the Communist party’s... Read more »

Mid-Week Links Corollary: Bo Xilai Edition

Bo Xilai
Via Time’s Global Spin blog Tonight’s BBC’s radio show World Have Your Say invited me to participate along with Tom of Seeing Red in China, blogger/researcher Isaac Mao and a student in London whose name we didn’t catch. Feel free to give it a listen over links, if you will.

“On BXL” Is A Phrase You Cannot Text In Beijing Right Now [UPDATE: Other Prepositions Fail Too] [UPDATE 2: It's No Coincidence: Text Messages Are Being Blocked]

iPhone message "on bxl"
This may not have anything to do with Bo Xilai, but then again… maybe it does? [UPDATE 2, 4 pm: 薄熙来, GKL and BGG (Bo's Chinese name and the initials of his wife and son) all get blocked, too -- see screenshot after jump.] It doesn’t matter if you’re using an iPhone or a plain... Read more »

Bo Xilai Is In Big Trouble, And Yes, It Is Because Xinhua Says His Wife And Aide May Be Linked To Neil Heywood’s Death

Bo Xilai
Over the past month, there’s been a lot of smoke regarding Bo Xilai, some of which we’ve been happy to fan here, but when it comes to Chinese politics and media, you know there’s definitely a fire when that smoke is being blown by none other than Xinhua. A little more than an hour ago, the... Read more »

Corruption, Murder, And Intrigue In The Middle Kingdom: Neil Heywood, Bo Xilai, Xi Jinping, And An Asian Playboy In Harrow

Wang Lijun, Neil Heywood and Bo Xilai
Via China’s Forbidden News (NTDTV.com) By RFH When Hu Yaobang, the reformist Party General Secretary whose death two year laters would spark the Tiananmen demonstrations, was purged for the second time in 1987, it was Bo Yibo who drew up the official charges. The only Politburo member who backed Hu was Xi Zhongshun, a member of the Standing... Read more »

Bo Xilai, Be Well, And Godspeed

Bo Xilai
Earlier today, Bo Xilai was ousted from his post as party secretary of Chongqing, a stunning — if not altogether unexpected — end to an unusually public saga that began when Wang Lijun showed up at the US embassy in Chengdu on February 6 with dirt on his former boss. At 11:43 am, a film... Read more »

Does Anyone Know What Happened To Pages 25-26 In The February 18 Issue Of The Economist?

The Economist pages ripped out
Via Anlicia Li In the January 28 issue of The Economist, the editors wrote: “In this issue we launch a weekly section devoted to China. It is the first time since we began our detailed coverage of the United States in 1942 that we have singled out a country in this way.” Two weeks later, BJC reader Anlicia... Read more »