Report: Bo Xilai Blames Zhou Yongkang, Wants to See Hu and Wen

Everything former Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai did was first approved by China’s security chief Zhou Yongkang. This is what Bo told interrogators, according to a story published on the Mingjing News website—a website that reports supposedly “insider” accounts from China. 

 

According to several reports, Bo and Zhou had been plotting a smear campaign against future Chinese leader Xi Jinping, while planning to install Bo as a high-level official.

 

But Bo Xilai is now being investigated for “serious discipline violations.” His wife, Gu Kailai, is a suspect in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. 

 

The Mingjing report said that Bo didn’t cooperate with the investigation. Instead, he called Zhou Yongkang “the boss” and refused to take responsibility for his actions. NTD’s Senior China Analyst says that Bo’s claims about Zhou may be accurate.

 

[Zhang Tianliang, NTD Senior China Analyst]:

“Because Bo Xilai had ambitions, Zhou Yongkang chose him. So the two of them conspired together, they were one group. Of course, since Zhou Yongkang is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, he could come into contact with more information from the high levels of the Communist regime that Bo could, so in conspiring with Bo Xilai, there were things that Zhou got Bo to do, this is certain.”

 

The report also said that Bo demanded a meeting with Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao before he would reveal any more of the story. And that Bo is also requesting to be tried publically. 

 

Recently, Xinhua News Agency, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, has published commentaries in Chinese and English emphasizing the idea that top leaders are not above being disciplined.

 

It could indicate that Zhou Yongkang may be the next to be investigated. In that case, it would challenge an unspoken rule established after former leader Jiang Zemin came to power, that members Politburo Standing Committee, the top Party leadership, cannot be investigated.