OpinionThe frightening implications of Bo Xilai's harsh punishment
What if his crimes had not been found out? And now that they have, how safe are fellow leaders?
As a joke circulating among Beijing's elite suggests, Vice-President Xi Jinping, who is slated to take over power in November, owes much thanks to a now-infamous face slap early this year that changed history.
In January, Bo Xilai , the now-disgraced former party secretary of Chongqing, raised his hand to then aide and municipal police chief Wang Lijun after the latter confronted Bo with allegations that his wife was involved in the killing of British businessman Neil Heywood.
The subsequent developments saw Wang flee to the US consulate in Chengdu with incriminating evidence against Bo and his wife, leading to the biggest political crisis the Communist Party has faced in recent decades, which culminated in Friday's announcement that Bo had been expelled from the party and would face criminal prosecution.
Before the January confrontation, Bo, the flag bearer of the mainland's leftist movement, was an odds-on favourite to join the Politburo Standing Committee - the mainland's highest governing body - in the once-in-a-decade leadership transition to be approved at the 18th party congress, now scheduled to begin on November 8.
Just imagine if Bo had reacted differently to Wang, and if the murder scandal involving his wife didn't come to light until after the congress. Bo would most likely have been in power as a Politburo Standing Committee member. Never has a member of the committee been sacked or arrested for a non-political reason.
Many mainlanders, including law students, have also subscribed to the conventional belief that those political elite are above the law. And given Bo's ambitious and ruthless nature, he would have surely been a wolf among sheep on the committee, meaning that history would likely be on a much different course.