China's Liaoning vows to eradicate 'bad influence' of Bo Xilai
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s northeastern province of Liaoning has drawn up new guidelines aimed at “completely eradicating” the bad influence of its disgraced former governor Bo Xilai, who was jailed in 2013 for corruption and abuse of power.
Bo Xilai pauses as he attends a plenary meeting of China's parliament, the National People's Congress, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing March 10, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Lee
Bo, once a rising star tipped for a national leadership role, served as governor of the rustbelt industrial province of Liaoning from 2001 to 2004.
He was Communist Party chief of the southwestern municipality of Chongqing before being ousted in a scandal involving the murder of a British businessman by Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, in 2012.
An editorial posted on the official website of the Liaoning government (www.ln.gov.cn) on Friday said the "political ecology" of the province had been severely damaged by both Bo and Wang Min, who was Liaoning Party Secretary until 2015 and was imprisoned on bribery offences in 2017.
The editorial, originally published by the official Liaoning Daily, said the local party had recently devised new rules to “remove the source of political pollution”.
Party supervision committees at all levels are now carrying out comprehensive inspections and rectifications to ensure that the adverse effects of Bo and Wang are fully eliminated, the editorial said.
The province needed to work to ensure that the decisions of President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party central committee “take root and blossom”, it said.
Bo was originally seen as a major rival to Xi, who has used a wide-ranging campaign against corruption and ill-discipline among Communist Party officials and local governments to consolidate his power.
Last year in July, Chen Miner, who had just been appointed the leader of Chongqing, said the city must banish the “evil legacy” of its former head Bo.
Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Tom Hogue
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