Let loose the bull

Bo Xilai, party secretary of the western city of Chongqing, listens to a reporter's question during a news conference after a Chongqing delegation meeting of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Saturday, March 6, 2010. Bo is the rare official in China with a strong public personality, which could help him with media and popular attention but might not help him within the upper levels of the conservative, ruling Communist Party. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Time magazine chimes in on Chongqing and Bo Xilai, both pictured here in Bo’s noted 90 minute press conference yesterday. The irony in the AP shot is that the tip of downtown Chongqing just behind Bo’s head was developed by one of the gangsters who went on trial. Time’s longish review of the case –by Austin Ramzy in Beijing (and Chengcheng Jiang, actually there)– is worth a read for some broad backstory. An excerpt:

Chongqing hasn’t had this much attention since it was the temporary capital of China during World War II. Looming on the broad banks of the Yangtze River, it is sometimes called the biggest city in the world; half its population of 28 million lives in a huge swath of countryside that was carved out of neighboring Sichuan when the city was given provincial-level status in 1997. Like much of the rest of China, Chongqing is booming, but, along with the economy, crime has risen, especially extortion and racketeering. Locals say gangs take a big cut of everything from transport to construction. The recent crackdown has made Chongqing’s criminal woes a national subject, but the reality is that its problems are commonplace. Take a stroll through practically any city in China and you can see examples of the protective network between organized crime and law enforcement. Prostitution and illegal gambling dens are ubiquitous, sometimes just a short distance away from police stations. “Everywhere you go it is pretty much the same,” says Ko-lin Chin, a professor at Rutgers University, Newark, who is an expert on Chinese gangs.

Elsewhere, Bo Xilai’s ability to draw attention continues to get attention of its own. Yesterday, his presence at the party conference garnered no less than 122 article hits on Google News, with the UK’s Independent calling him “Mr. Cool,” “tall, dapper” and “looking presidential,” while the AP has him showing off a “rare public trait” in China: charm. The NY-based Epoch Times is less impressed, noting that an incomplete attack on corruption only hardens the corruption by pushing it further underground. I predict: Bo won’t flare out.