Top Chinese officials undergoing Communist Party discipline are often struck with a common malady—temporary insanity.
Ling Jihua, the former secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Secretariat and top aide to Hu Jingtao, behaved in the most peculiar fashion while he was subjected to “shuanggui”—an abusive system of torture and interrogation the Party uses on its officials—according to the May issue of Hong Kong Chinese-language magazine The Trend.
While in detention late last year, Ling reportedly sang “red songs”—propaganda ditties from the Mao Zedong era—and put on a “performance” every time he did so. Occasionally, Ling would laugh madly and say to his guards: “It’s alright, you’ve all worked hard; go have a break, go watch some television,” or “Go home and have a couple of drinks on me.” When “pretending to sleep,” Ling would say: “I’m not guilty, I’m wronged; Zhou Yongkang has dragged me into this.”
Zhou Yongkang, the once powerful former Politburo member who at one time held sway over virtually all law enforcement mechanisms in China—courts, the police, armed police, labor camps, procuratorate—also feigned madness while in “shuanggui,” The Trend reports.
And in 2012, Zhou’s close ally and former Chongqing boss Bo Xilai too reportedly suffered “mental disorder” during interrogations and was briefly unable to “properly cooperate with investigations,” according to Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao.
