CHINESE ROMAN NOIR

China has had its lot of events during thousands of years of  history. The Middle Kingdom was the wonder of the world, before it became its victim.
After the atrocities of the last centuries China engaged in the Long March which led to a situation wherein the Chinese were pawns on the Hegelian chessboard of Mao Zedung.
All this resulted in hunger, cultural revolution and state terrorism, hitting where it hurt the most: in the face of intellectuals and students who were reduced to cheap labour in the countryside.  The foresight of Deng Xiaoping was needed to change the former perverse equation and to change the course radically, leading China to where it stands now, an asymmetrical colossus with too little hard power and a slow awakening of soft power.
Since the last decennium, old ideas are stored for now.  Money rules.
New politicians emerge. The older guys who ruled behind their closed enclaves are being replaced by a younger, more pragmatic generation. Wen Jiabao might be the last of the Old Guard who showed also a remarkable sensitivity to the needs of the people.
Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo, Grand Marcher, confident of Deng Xiaoping,a member of the elite. The wife of Bo, Gu Kailai, is accused of being involved in the murder of Neil Heywood of British nationality. The Bo couple can be considered as aristocrats in the Chinese nomenclature.  Bo has certainly the looks, the brains and a humor which set him apart from the usual grey men of the Politburo.
A strange event occurred earlier this year when a Chinese official, Wanf Lijun, once deputy mayor and police chef in Chongqing, spent 30 hours in the American Consulate in Chengdu, telling what?
Neither the Chinese, Americans nor British are commenting.
All this comes at a time when the new Politburo will make its appearance this fall in Beijing.
Until thent,the current leadership wants stability but realizes too that China is a "singular standing for a plural."
The sea of lights East does not compensate for the alienation and poverty in the Western part..  Wen is concerned in this regard but that the ongoing long march westwards risks to take more time than the 1934 one.
Bo's downfall is one of the many indicators that China is getting trapped in an asymmetric matrix, in which the ambition of a "harmonious society" is slowly giving way to a more complex, individualistic, almost distorted Western model. The latter is furthermore corrupted by the "face" syndrome which leads the Chinese to play poker with a weak deck of cards which does not cover the betting,
The future is unforeseeable in the absence of democracy and a rule of law.  I wouldn't be surprised if China will have to smell the coffee sooner rather than later.  I am confident that Bo Xilai may opt for an Espresso. It might as well be something worse since his fiefdom of Chongqing was not reputed for its mild approach and since le Beau BO has few friends indeed.  Meanwhile Bo Junior can circle Harvard Square in the sports car of his choice!  Maman and her employee Zhang Xiaojun meanwhile are AWOL (in the Tower of London?)