Bo Xilai, the most significant high-level Chinese Communist Party politician to be purged in a power struggle in recent memory, was sentenced to life in prison and the lifelong deprivation of his political rights on Sept. 21. All his personal assets were also to be confiscated. The sentence was handed down by the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court, through its Weibo account, at the end of a nine page judgement that rehearsed the prosecution’s case against Bo, focused on the triptych of crimes of “bribery, corruption, and abuse of power.”
The trial of Bo Xilai, and the extraordinary events that led up to it, have been a matter of intense focus for observers in China and around the world since last year. Bo’s case has been enormously important to the Chinese political system because of the danger he posed to the central leadership, and the crisis that his designs on power brought within the regime.
