By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com
Murder and politics – they go together quite well. Wars, assassinations, violent purges: these are the woof and warp of politics, which is, after all, nothing but organized coercion or the threat of it. Combine this with international intrigue, and the opportunism that thrives in the heart of all politicians, and you couldn’t come up with a better narrative to outline if not explain the current leadership struggle in China.
Neil Heywood was an adventurer, or so he liked to think: a British businessman with links to a company founded by "ex"-MI-6 operatives, he was close to the family of Bo Xilai, the ambitious and now disgraced former secretary of the Communist Party in Chongqing. Bo was a rising leader of what has been mistakenly referred to as China’s "new left," a popular leader who rid his city of organized crime, attracted much foreign investment, and was angling for a spot on the Politburo’s all-powerful Standing Committee. He also aroused the ire of China’s supposedly "reformist" leadership, and as such he was in their sights when the current scandal broke – a scandal that provoked rumors of a coup, caused the Chinese authorities to crack down on the internet, and brought the British government into the mix on the current leadership’s side.
When Heywood was found dead in his hotel room, after having been summoned to Chongqing, the initial verdict was that he had a heart attack, like his father before him. He had been drinking, said the local police, and his family raised no questions about his death, dismissing rumors that he had been murdered as preposterous. All that changed, however, when Bo began directly criticizing the Chinese leadership.
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