Bo Xilai’s 32 Million

October 26, 2010

When you hear about crime and corruption in China and how horrible it is, remember the name Bo Xilai, and what he is doing to combat that image.

In 1930, mountainous Chongqing was home to about 200 thousand people.  Today, this municipality is the fastest growing urban center on the globe with an eye popping 32 million. Seven and a half million live in the metro area.

Chongqing is not one of China’s bustling coastal cities as Shanghai is. It sits almost 900 miles inland west of Shanghai or more than 1400 kilometers from the sea. Chongqing is the biggest inland river port on the Yangtze in western China.

During World War II, Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist retreated here to set up their provisional capital—far from the Japanese front lines.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the city became notorious for organized crime and corruption well before the Communist era.


The word “alleged” means an assertion made by a party in legal proceedings that is still to be proven.

In Chongqing, gangsters oversaw businesses involving billions of yuan and the corruption reached into the law-enforcement and justice systems.

 In 2009, city authorities under the leadership of municipal Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai decided to do what none has accomplished before.

Foreign Policy magazine in Chicago on the Yangtze says the Chongqing Security Bureau cracked 32,771 criminal cases, arrested 31 mob bosses, sentenced six to death and gave the others long prison sentences.

Foreign Policy says that some of China’s political writers refer to Bo as an example of the “New Maoism” (I’ll write about “Maoism” in the next post).

Bo Xilai’s tough stand against crime earned him “Man of the Year” in a recent People’s Daily Internet Poll.  He is extremely popular among the working class and feared by corrupt officials and organized crime in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Sun Yat-sen’s Last Days – Part 3/3

October 26, 2010

Later, it was discovered that the medical report of Sun’s condition was incomplete. Some of the samples and part of the report had been stolen and no one knows why.

During World War II, after the Japanese invaded China, Japanese troops occupied the hospital where Sun Yat-sen’s liver samples were kept.

Chinese representative requested the liver samples and the report be turned over to them.

Some of the liver samples were given to Dr. Tang Qiping, who worked at the Sino-Belgian Radium Institute in Shanghai.

Another man, Chu Minyi, forced Dr. Tang to give him those samples.

In 1946, Chu Minyi would go to prison as a traitor to China. He tried to use Sun Yat-sen’s liver samples to save himself. However, Chu was still executed by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists.

Sun’s liver samples would be lost during the revolution between the Communists and Nationalists. Later, it would be discovered that the samples had been stolen again.

When the Nationalists launched their Northern Expedition to take China from the warlords, the warlord in Beijing, who met with Sun before his death, was their only ally.

When Sun died, his political advisor wrote, “If Dr. Sun Yat-sen had lived for a few years or even a few months longer, China’s situation would have changed completely.”

Soon after Sun’s death in 1925, the democratic government created by him after the 1911 revolution failed.

After a struggle, Chiang Kai-shek gained control of the Nationalists, because he controlled the army. Chiang then gave orders to his troops to execute all the Communists, which started the revolution and led to Mao’s famous Long March.

Return to Sun Yat-sen’s Last Days – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6/7

October 24, 2010

In parts 1 through 5, I provided evidence showing that China is building a republic that may last for centuries.

What is happening on the Internet offers more evidence that China is moving toward a more open society. In China, there are more Blogs than any nation and a free exchange of ideas via e-mails.

In fact, in China there are more people logging onto the Internet than America’s entire population.

China could have limited all Internet use as North Korea has, but China hooked up to the World Wide Web instead.

What are the real reasons China struggles to censor parts of the international internet like pornography, WordPress, Facebook and Blogger? 

Is it possible that China is doing this because they do not have the confidence that most of their people are sophisticated enough to deal with all the crazy ideas floating around in international cyberspace.

Instead, China is opening to the world like a slow blooming flower allowing the people to adapt instead of being overwhelmed, which might lead to a meltdown and a return to chaos and anarchy.

However, anyone who wants to sneak past China’s Net Nanny may do so.

I’ve known people in China who have slipped past the Net Nanny, which is more like a leaky dam getting ready to burst, and it isn’t that hard. It just takes some time. See Tech Crunch for more information about Internet use in China.

Deng Xiaoping was right. If China had the political gridlock and partisieanship that exists in America today, would the Chinese have achieved the goals to modernize that they have? 

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 4/7

October 24, 2010

In Part 3, I talked about the differences between the Constitutions of the United States and China.

Another sign of China becoming a more open society comes from the Global Integrity Report, which shows America’s overall score in 2009 as 85 compared to China’s overall score of 60.

China legal system had an integrity score of 76.

Consider that China didn’t have a legal system when Mao died— it was a shambles. China had to build a legal system from zero and make it fit the Chinese culture.

I doubt that China will end the death penalty, and I’m sure that China will lead the world in executions for many years to come.

However, recently, several crimes that led to the death penalty were removed from that list and the law was changed so only China’s highest court could hand out a death sentence to a convicted criminal.

Business law was developed first because of world trade and China’s entrance in the WTO.

China integrity score also has inched upward on an annual basis.

In 2007, China’s score was 55, which is considered very weak. However, in 2008, the score was 59 — up 4 points and in 2009, it improved a bit more to 60.

Progress with a country of 1.3 billion people takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 3/7

October 23, 2010

In Post 2, I talked about the importance of literacy in a democracy or republic.

To fix this problem, China leaders planned ahead fifty to a hundred years with this question in mind—what would it take to successfully modernize China and educate the people for a republican government?

In 1982, China wrote a new Constitution with term limits and age limits so there would not be another modern emperor like Mao.

That constitution has been amended several times.

Although Western critics claim the Party hasn’t implemented the freedom of press and religion mentioned in the Chinese Constitution, what isn’t said is that there are other articles that give the central government and the courts the power to stop anyone deemed a threat to the stability of China’s government and economic growth.


This video is outdated but accurate in some of its facts.  In Fact, China is now the world’s 2nd largest economy.

Article 5 says, “All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be investigated. No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the law.”

Article 28 says, “The state maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter- revolutionary activities; it penalizes actions that endanger public security and disrupt the socialist economy and other criminal activities, and punishes and reforms criminals.”

Article 35 says, “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.”

Notice that the language in Article 35 does not guarantee this freedom but says, “enjoy“, whatever that means.

China’s Constitution is not America’s Constitution. Yet China is often judged by Western critics as if it were.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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