Sino-American relations have long been plagued by unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that undermine needed efforts to develop mutual trust between the world's two most important countries. Yet events continue to spawn intriguing speculative possibilities, and who can resist spinning out seductive hypotheses to explain apparent riddles in the behaviour of either or both governments, especially when China's oppressive censorship exaggerates the role of rumours?
The ongoing saga of the 'barefoot lawyer' Chen Guangcheng presents Chinese and foreign observers with at least two new, related puzzles. How could China's protean internal security network, which costs the Chinese government more than its defence budget, have allowed this frail blind man to escape from years of illegal captivity in a remote village in Shandong and enter the American embassy in Beijing? And why, less than 48 hours after Chen left safety in the embassy, did Beijing officials open the way for the departure from China that they had just denied him?
Foreigners view Chen's dramatic escape to the capital with admiration. Thoughtful Chinese, however, are beginning to voice suspicions on the internet and in social media. Chen has impressive stamina, intelligence and determination. Yet his solo escape from the network of police thugs that surrounded his farmhouse and erected physical and electronic barriers seems to them as implausible as his prearranged, undetected meeting hours later with a well-known rights activist who drove from Nanjing, herself eluding village guards, to take him on the long car ride to Beijing.
Equally implausible to internet users, who know the legendary reach of China's secret police, was Chen's ability to move around Beijing for three days, meeting Hu Jia and other prominent rights figures who are constantly under surveillance. And what China's foreign ministry denounced as the 'abnormal means' of his entry into the US embassy, after being picked up by a diplomatic car that supposedly avoided two trailing police vehicles, also raised suspicions.
These circumstances have given rise to many imaginative interpretations. Was this a calculated Communist Party attempt to divert the world's attention from the fate of former Politburo member Bo Xilai and the criminal investigation of his wife for murder? Was it a sophisticated gambit by frustrated party law reformers to highlight the widespread lawlessness that the party's new leaders will have to curb after they are installed this autumn? Certainly Chen's case has temporarily drawn attention from the Bo scandal and further publicised the compelling need for government under law, but neither hypothesis seems persuasive.
More interesting is the theory making the rounds that Chen's escape may be linked to the leadership's succession struggle and to the impact that the Bo scandal has had upon it. Some believe that the blatant, unusual failures of the feared secret police in Chen's case may have been intentionally designed to embarrass Zhou Yongkang , a member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee and leader of the party's central political-legal committee responsible for the nation's internal security. Zhou, a former minister of public security and a particular nemesis of the abused Chen, is possibly under investigation because of close ties with Bo.
Yet, if Zhou, who has continued to make public appearances, remains in control of the domestic security system, how could it have been used to embarrass him? One answer might be that, while he formally retains office, he may have effectively been relieved of power. Another is that dissatisfaction within his ranks might have emboldened some subordinates to follow the orders of even more powerful Politburo figures who oppose him. This is heady stuff but still speculation.