Bo Xilai, Xi Jinping, and the Fall of the Qin Dynasty

Bo Xilai has been given life in prison.  Although we all knew that Bo would be found guilty, I must say I am a bit surprised at the severity of the sentence. 

Xi Jinping has a very strong incentive to undercut Bo's power, but I thought that a 20 year sentence would be sufficient for that purpose. Twenty years would have set a new standard for judicial sentences against Politburo members in the post-Mao era.  As this handy-dandy chart from China File suggests, Chen Liangyu had been the previous front runner, with an 18 year sentence.  But now Bo outpaces them all, with life.

What "life" means in this case is yet to be determined.  Bo could be paroled after ten years, or perhaps as soon as seven years if he claims a medical condition.  But any such decision will be a political issue of the highest order.

It seems obvious that Xi Jinping is using the Bo case (and we have to assume that Xi essentially made the decision for the life sentence) to send a strong signal that he is now in charge and that application of anti-corruption laws will be politically ruthless. The idea here, most likely, is to scare those within the regime - people like Bo who might have something of an independent power base - who might think of opposing Xi's political pre-eminence or his policy preferences.  For those looking for silver linings in this whole sordid affair, it could be that Xi will now use his power to push through further structural economic reform, breaking the influence of vested interests in the nexus of state-owned enterprises and party organizations, and opening the way for more market-based opportunities in the national economy. 

Maybe.

But there is a danger here for Xi as well.  By coming so strong against Bo, he could, perversely, harden intra-regime opposition.  And this is where our old friend Qin Shihuangdi comes to mind.

Qin, of course, was an uber-Legalist.  That brutally realist political philsophy, most famously explicated by Han Feizi, would, at first blush, agree that a severe punishment for Bo is politically expedient.  Han tells us (Watson translation):

The enlightened ruler is never overliberal in his rewards, never overlenient in his punishments. (20)

Xi has not been overlenient with Bo.

But Han also understood that you can push too hard.  If laws are too severe, it could spark an adverse political backlash.  And maintaining the ruler's power is, after all, the primary purpose of the entire Legalist project. We can see this when Han counsels the ruler not to demand too much from the common people:

If too much compulsory labor service is demanded of the people, they feel afflicted, and this will give rise to local power groups... (87).

This is where Qin went wrong, from a Legalist perspective. He did demand too much of society.  He forced people into service to fight wars, build walls, and create a terra-cotta army to dominate the next life.  It was all too much.

We should keep in mind how the Qin Dynasty ultimately fell (here is an informative pdf that includes this story).  The first Qin emperor had died and one of his sons had ascended the throne, but the harsh system of strict punishments continued.  Two military officers found themselves in an untenable position: heavy rain had kept them from moving a group of convicts on schedule, and they knew that the punishment for such tardiness was death.  With nothing to lose they sparked a rebellion that ultimately brought down Qin rule and ushered in the Han Dynasty.

It would seem, then, that if people feel that they face such a harsh punishment that they have, in effect, nothing to lose, they could fight back.  In our contemporary moment we might ask: if vested interests in the PRC, people who know they could be brought up on corruption charges and face life sentences at any time, feel that they have no way out and, in effect, have nothing to lose (because they are so vulnerable already), will they turn and resist Xi and his growing power?

The next few months may tell...

Comments

[Kaiser]

Hi Sam, you mean "uber Legalist" and not ur-Legalist, don't you? Ur-legalist would mean he was the first, the original. As he was not that, I figure you mean that he was a kind of super-Legalist, no?

[Chris Cuddihy]

No more than burying alive 400 Confucian scholars alive could prevent it's inherent wisdom. The practices of Xi and the Qin will be answered by the principles they seek to arrest.

[Sam]

Kaiser,
Yes, you're right. Thanks for the catch. Fixed...