Blocked on Weibo

政变 (coup d’état / zhèngbiàn) is a sudden, illegal overthrow of a government.

Why it is blocked: The search ban is a recent one, first noticed on Twitter on Tuesday, March 20 at 8:13 PM (Beijing time) (though inklings of potential censorship were hinted at as early as Monday night). This of course is in reaction to the wild rumors that a coup was taking place in Beijing, with the military intervening on Bo Xilai’s behalf to arrest Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Of course, the rumors were just that, rumors. The L.A. Times noted that last week Beijing had ordered 3,300 party cadres home for ideological retraining, thus perhaps explaining the heightened military presence in Beijing these past few days. Chinese history is no stranger to coups; recent examples include the 1927 Communist purge by Chiang Kai-shek and the resolution to the Hundred Days’ Reform in 1898. h/t to an American sinologist living in Beijing. [Status - 3/22/12: blocked]

陈希同 (Chen Xitong) was the former party secretary of Beijing from 1992-95 and mayor from 1983-93, during which time he famously asserted that only two hundred had died during the Tiananmen crackdown. He was dismissed on corruption charges in the mid-90s and was imprisoned for 8 years before being released on medical parole.

Why it is blocked: The parallels between Chen’s downfall and Bo’s are quite interesting. Both were rising stars within the CCP Politburo and mayors of prominent cities. Both were arguably undone by a mixture of arrogance (Bo for “trying to rally public opinion in favor of his now-defunct bid to join the Politburo Standing Committee”; Chen for “boasting that his power was beyond anyone’s reach”), corruption (although Chen’s was demonstrably much less than was initially reported in the mid-90s; in the end, he personally took something in the neighborhood of a $100,000 in bribes, most in the form of gifts—small potatoes considering what others in China have been punished for) and for personal/political reasons. Each of their deputy mayors (who even share the same, albeit common, surname) also played sensational roles in their falls: Wang Lijun sparked Bo’s purge with his visit to the American consulate in Chengdu while Wang Baosen committed suicide under suspicious circumstances, with some claiming his choice to die in Huairou was a sort of clue or signal. Chen’s son was sentenced to prison; Wang’s merely has to suffer the infamy of being known as not owning a Ferrari. [Chen’s block was not triggered by the Bo incident; it was blocked back in January. Status - 1/14/12: blocked; 2/5/12: unblocked; 3/12/12: blocked]

Also of note: The CCP pulled out all the stops to smear Chen, including branding him as “corrupt and decadent.” Newspapers intimated that he had a taste for “entertaining young female television presenters,” and it later came out that he cavorted about with a mistress who was 15 years old. A thinly-veiled roman à clef entitled The Wrath of Heaven about Chen was released then quickly banned in 1997.

薄熙来 (Bo Xilai) was the party secretary (essentially the mayor) of Chongqing from 2007 to 2012. He was the son of Bo Yibo, one of the Eight Elders and a prominent Chinese Communist Party official. Bo Xilai was speculated to be a prime candidate for appointment to the highest governing body in China, the Politburo Standing Committee until he was ousted from him position earlier today.

Why it is NOT blocked: This is a case where what is not blocked is more interesting than what is. Bo Xilai was recently involved in a major controversy when his police chief visited the American consulate in a nearby city, supposedly in a bid to request political asylum after offering to reveal his boss’s corruption to central authorities. Under normal circumstances, one would assume a nervous Internet company would play it safe and block everything associated with the incident (see this list of blocked names of people who were caught up in previous scandals [look under the column “scandal”]), and for a time, the police chief’s name, 王立军 (Wang Lijun), was blocked as was Bo Xilai. However, both were subsequently unblocked and Bo Xilai’s name even became a trending topic on Weibo after his removal was announced. Speculation is that the Chinese leadership ordered Weibo to unblock Bo’s name in order to openly purge him and the cloud hanging over him before the transition to new leadership later this year. [Status - 12/29/12: blocked; 2/5/12: unblocked; 2/27/12, 3/12/12: blocked; 3/15/12: unblocked;3/17: blocked]

Update:Sorry, the fun’s over. As of March 17, Bo Xilai is now blocked from searches and existing posts are being selectively pruned.

A limerick for the fallen Bo:
Young Bo was a man of great morals,
Who was never afraid of a quarrel.
    But his chief of police
    Was given 假期 [pronounced jiàqī]
So now his career? In spiral.