https://www.scmp.com/rss/288594/feed In the wake of the spectacular downfall of former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and his once right-hand man Wang Lijun earlier this year, SCMP revisits the southwestern metropolis – the epicentre of the communist party’s worst scandal in more than two decades. By tracking down and interviewing various people directly involved in, and victimized by, Bo’s “singing red, striking black” campaign, SCMP correspondent Keith Zhai unlocks the secrets of a once menacing political figure and his empire. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Chongqing plans to continue increasing spending on infrastructure, despite fears regarding the sustainability of such investment-fuelled growth. Zhang Guoqing, the deputy Communist Party chief of Chongqing, told reporters from Hong Kong and Macau that investment in infrastructure would continue. Chongqing, a mega-city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River the size of Austria, reported a faster pace of economic growth than most provinces and major cities in the first quarter of the year.... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1938360/chinas-best-performing-mega-city-boost-infrastructure-spending-despite?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1938360/chinas-best-performing-mega-city-boost-infrastructure-spending-despite?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Apr 2016 05:00:30 +0000 The southwest boomtown of Chongqing (重慶) might have put the disgrace of its former Communist Party chief behind it with President Xi Jinping (習近平) making the city the focus of his first ­domestic trip this year. The trip is also expected to focus attention on Chongqing’s status as an important driver of economic growth. In the first visit to the city by a president in more than eight years, Xi toured Guoyuan Port on Monday afternoon and was briefed on shipping and rail transport, according to... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1898214/chongqing-comes-cold-visit-xi?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1898214/chongqing-comes-cold-visit-xi?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Jan 2016 14:30:45 +0000 Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing is leading a comfortable life in a prison on the outskirts of Beijing, a source close to his family said. "He stays in a good mental state and has put on some weight compared with when he stood trial in September," the source quoted a family member who had visited Wang as saying. He stays in a good mental state and has put on some weight compared with when he stood trial in September Wang, whose flight to the US consulate in Chengdu in February... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1202228/jailed-former-chongqing-police-chief-wang-lijun-settles-prison-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1202228/jailed-former-chongqing-police-chief-wang-lijun-settles-prison-life?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The story of the piles of cash found buried beneath former Chongqing police chief Wen Qiang's fish pond was frequently used to justify the massive anti-triad drive led by his successor, Wang Lijun. The 20 million yuan (HK$24.5 million) stash was discovered in the pond owned by Wen, the biggest catch in a crackdown that helped Wang and his political patron, disgraced former Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai , earn tremendous political capital. The huge find, first revealed by a... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1118484/doubts-cast-story-cash-stash-wen-qiangs-fish-pond?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1118484/doubts-cast-story-cash-stash-wen-qiangs-fish-pond?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Despite being tortured for 37 days in a Chongqing motel room, businessman Chen Guixue remained defiant. "This is illegal. The government has policy and law," he told the police who were tormenting him during former Chongqing Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai's crackdown on organised crime. Chen said the police replied that Bo was the policy and that his police chief, Wang Lijun, was the law. "Don't you realise that our secretary, Bo, will become the president in the future, and that our police... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1113657/trying-escape-bo-xilais-shadow-how-victims-still-bear-scars?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1113657/trying-escape-bo-xilais-shadow-how-victims-still-bear-scars?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 On a two-hour flight from Beijing to Chongqing early this month, Ren Jianyu spent most of the time with his face pressed against the window, watching the clouds streak past. At one point he murmured: "This is freedom." The 25-year-old former village official was freed late last month after serving 15 months in a Chongqing labour camp for reposting numerous microblog comments criticising the policies of the southwestern municipality's former Communist Party boss, Bo Xilai . In his more than four... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1110213/surviving-bo-xilais-reign-red-terror?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1110213/surviving-bo-xilais-reign-red-terror?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 An investigative report about China’s most infamous former police officer Wang Lijun by China’s Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine has answered some questions relating to the murder of British businessmen Neil Heywood, whose death precipitated the downfall of China's once powerful and ambitious politician Bo Xilai. Wang Lijun, Gu Kailai, Xu Ming – partners in crime Wang Lijun, then police chief of Jinzhou, Laioning province, met Gu Kailai, Bo’s wife, in 2007 through business tycoon Xu Ming.... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1108128/mysteries-surrounding-heywood-murder-begin-unfold?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1108128/mysteries-surrounding-heywood-murder-begin-unfold?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Dec 2012 04:34:22 +0000 In mid-July 2009, 21-year-old Li Jun, freshly graduated from an American university, tried to call her father in Chongqing from a Greek restaurant in downtown New York. She could not reach him but thought, "that's all right, maybe he's in a meeting". In fact, her father Li Qiang, once one of the southwestern municipality's most successful businessmen, had been shackled to a metal chair by police mounting the mainland's largest anti-triad campaign in decades. A stocky man with a round face and... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1107724/inside-bo-xilais-torture-chamber?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1107724/inside-bo-xilais-torture-chamber?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Police chief, criminal, designer, calligrapher and fashionista - it may come as a surprise that the man who encompasses all of those things is China's most infamous former cop, Wang Lijun. What was the real story of Chongqing's powerful yet mysterious "super cop"? A 40-page in-depth story published in China’s Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine reveals a shocking picture of Wang's private and work life. Wang, the former vice-mayor and police chief of Chongqing when Bo Xilai was Communist Party... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1107354/real-wang-lijun-revealed-magazine-expose?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1107354/real-wang-lijun-revealed-magazine-expose?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:06:33 +0000 The two large balls sitting outside the Chongqing Municipal Building's Public Security Bureau once epitomised former top cop and vice-mayor Wang Lijuan’s iron-fisted crusade against rampant crime and corruption. Not anymore, though. The huge stone boulders, once adorned with inscriptions by Wang with the Chinese characters “sword” and “shield” have been wiped clean, according to reports by observant Chongqing journalists. Wang, once the right hand man of disgraced Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1097381/chongqing-balls-wiped-clean-wang-lijun-legacy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1097381/chongqing-balls-wiped-clean-wang-lijun-legacy?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:44:47 +0000 The 15-year jail sentence handed down to former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun did little to shed light on the fate of his boss, disgraced Politburo member Bo Xilai . Analysts said the lenient sentence for the former anti-triad hero, who was once Bo's right-hand man, was part of a political deal aimed at putting an end to the Bo scandal ahead of the party's leadership succession. But they disagreed sharply on whether Bo would face criminal prosecution. Chengdu Intermediate People's Court... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1046428/questions-over-fate-bo-xilai-after-jailing-ex-police-chief-wang-lijun?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1046428/questions-over-fate-bo-xilai-after-jailing-ex-police-chief-wang-lijun?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 When Bo Xilai , the new party secretary in Chongqing , was looking for someone to head the municipality's police force and crack down on its rampant gangsters, his eyes turned to 52-year-old Wang Lijun , a police chief who had made a name for himself as a crime fighter in the northeastern province of Liaoning . That was in 2008. Within two years of his promotion, and aided by Bo's powerful political support, Wang had smashed dozens of organised-crime syndicates and sent their alleged "triad... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1046385/rise-and-fall-chongqing-police-chief-wang-lijun?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1046385/rise-and-fall-chongqing-police-chief-wang-lijun?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000