Dual Controversies With Bo Xilai and the Escape of the Blind Lawyer Test Chinese Dictatorship

Will Bo Xilai affair open the ‘black box’ of China’s leadership?

By Peter Ford, / Staff writer posted

Beijing The biggest political scandal to break in China for decades has rocked the leadership of the ruling Communist Party and riveted a country unaccustomed to such public drama. But just how Bo Xilai’s stunning fall from grace

China’s Bo Xilai affair: where the case stands

By Peter Ford, Staff writer posted April 28, 2012 at 4:29 pm EDT Beijing When British businessman Neil Heywood was found dead in his hotel room in the southwestern city of Chongqing in November, the discovery attracted little attention. Neither the fact that the police said he had died of alcohol. As the daring escape from house arrest of Chinese rights activist Chen Guangcheng makes world headlines, locals in his village expressed disbelief that “the blind man” could flee the intense security surrounding him. Farmers and entrepreneurs in the farming community of Dongshigu in east China’s Shandong.