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Fallen Official’s Trial Begins in China Fallen Official Is Defiant as Trial Begins in China
(about 4 hours later)
JINAN, China — The trial of Bo Xilai, the fallen Communist Party aristocrat, began Thursday morning in a closed-door hearing in this eastern provincial capital after security officers, journalists and some supporters of the charismatic Mr. Bo had fanned out in the streets around a downtown courthouse, looking for signs of how the session might unfold. JINAN, China — Bo Xilai, the politician who fell from the heights of China’s elite, took a pugnacious and defiant stand on Thursday in the opening session of China’s most closely watched trial in decades, denying that he took millions of dollars in bribes and ridiculing his wife’s testimony against him.
A microblog post by the court said that Mr. Bo was brought in around 8:50 a.m., and that the prosecution read out the charges against him. Before 11:30 a.m., the court posted a photograph of Mr. Bo standing in a white-collared shirt and black pants between two police officers. His hair was cut relatively short, and he stared ahead with a bemused look, his eyebrows slightly raised. According to lengthy transcripts the court released in an extraordinary show of transparency, Mr. Bo, 64, called his wife’s assertions that she had noticed anonymous deposits in their bank account “laughable.” He accused a businessman who had recorded video testimony against him of having “sold his soul.” And he discounted his earlier confession to taking bribes, saying he had made the statements to party investigators against his will, out of “opportunism and weakness” and under “mental strain.”
The morning session ended with Mr. Bo denying having taken 1.1 million renminbi, or $180,000, in bribes from a businessman named Tang Xiaolin. The amount was a fraction of the more than 21 million renminbi in bribes that he and his immediate family members are accused of taking. Prosecutors said another businessman, Xu Ming, gave more than 20.6 million renminbi in bribes. The authorities’ unexpected openness about the trial, including allowing a running court microblog and social media updates by state media organizations, turned what many had expected to be banal theater into a showcase of Mr. Bo’s defiance.
In the afternoon, some of the evidence related to Mr. Xu was presented, and Mr. Bo rejected accusations of wrongdoing in those instances, too. The evidence included discussion of a villa in southern France that supposedly formed a substantial part of the bribes. The dramatic day raised questions about how party officials would continue to steer a delicate political process that has captivated Chinese scrutinizing it on the Internet.
The testimony from Mr. Tang was presented in a video in the courtroom, and written testimony from Gu Kailai, Mr. Bo’s wife, who is now in prison, was read aloud. Mr. Bo called his wife’s testimony “comical,” and of Mr. Tang he said, “By watching the video footage of Tang Xiaolin, I really see an ugly performance from a person who sold his soul.” Officials set up a press center in a hotel across the street from the court in this eastern provincial capital. There, dozens of foreign journalists and a handful of reporters for Chinese state media gazed at large-screen televisions streaming the court microblog feed. When the first photograph from the trial was posted before 11:30 a.m., showing the 6-foot-1 Mr. Bo standing with a bemused look between two towering police officers, journalists charged the televisions and snapped photos.
The scandal that brought down Mr. Bo is arguably the biggest one to shake the party in decades, and China’s leaders have had to take into account powerful competing forces — from liberal party officials who have denounced Mr. Bo to revolutionary families still close to him — while preparing for the trial. Dressed in a white shirt and black pants with his hair neatly trimmed, Mr. Bo displayed some of the showmanship he deployed in climbing to the party-chief post in Chongqing municipality and the elite Politburo, before he was felled last year by a scandal involving the death of a British businessman, a case in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of murder. Mr. Bo is also charged with abuse of power for obstructing an investigation into the death, and with embezzlement.
Detained by security officials since March 2012, Mr. Bo was indicted in late July on charges of corruption, taking bribes and abuse of power. The charges came almost one year after Ms. Gu was given a suspended death sentence for murdering Neil Heywood, a British family associate. The trial that began Thursday is expected to be the final blow to Mr. Bo’s vaunted political career. Until last year, Mr. Bo, 64, was one of 25 Politburo members and the party chief of the municipality of Chongqing; he had even been considered a candidate for one of the very highest party posts, which were handed out last November. There were limits to the transparency. One person briefed on the proceedings said that some court testimony did not appear in the released transcripts. And by evening, censors had sanitized the comments section of the Jinan court microblog, so that many remarks skeptical of the justice process had been removed.
The Bo case has exposed deep-rooted corruption and vindictiveness at the top levels of the party and cast a spotlight on the growing power of the “princelings,” those privileged Chinese who are the children or grandchildren of the Communist revolutionary leaders. Like those in other countries who are obsessed with royal families, many Chinese are alternately fascinated and repelled by the princelings, whose ranks include Mr. Bo and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. Analysts said that publicizing the hearing was the party’s attempt to lend legitimacy to a trial in which a guilty verdict and long prison sentence are almost certainly preordained.
One Bo family associate said a rehearsal of the trial was held Tuesday in Jinan, with Mr. Bo reportedly in attendance. What Mr. Bo would say — or be allowed to say — in court has been one of the central questions hovering over the trial. On Monday, Mr. Bo’s youngest son, Bo Guagua, 25, who is in orientation week at Columbia Law School, said in a statement to The New York Times that he hoped his father would be “granted the opportunity to answer his critics and defend himself without constraints of any kind.” The hearing was not as public as the notorious trial in 1980 of the Gang of Four blamed for the havoc of the Cultural Revolution, which was televised. But officials issued about 60 real-time updates over the court microblog, eliciting bursts of online commentary.
On Wednesday, police officers in light-blue uniforms stood at the gate outside the courthouse and along a patch of sidewalk across the street, where a holding pen for journalists had been erected with colorful plastic barriers. On occasion, a supporter of Mr. Bo would show up yelling a slogan, or a petitioner with an unrelated grievance would unfurl a banner, and the officers would urge them to move on. Paramilitary police officers in green uniforms stood beneath a nearby overpass, next to a fire truck. “This is the most open trial of its kind, certainly the most open among the ones we have seen recently,” He Weifang, a liberal law professor at Peking University, said in a telephone interview. “He seems to be speaking his mind, judging from his speech and the words he used.”
Some of Mr. Bo’s supporters have become more vocal in recent days, against the wishes of party leaders, who presumably want the trial to end quickly and without causing further political rifts. But over all, he added, “the whole court is controlled by Beijing.”
“The people, of course, will support Bo Xilai, especially the people of Chongqing,” Han Deqiang, a college professor and co-founder of a leftist Web site, said in a telephone interview. “But since our party central has said so, they are unable to do anything about it. Maybe one day in the future, history will rehabilitate this unjust case.” On Twitter, Nicholas Bequelin, an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, “Even though Bo rejects the accusations against him, he is still playing ball in what is, in essence, a scripted piece of political theater.”
Mr. Bo certainly has his critics, including liberals who label his “strike black” anticorruption drive in Chongqing an affront to human rights. And the announcement last Sunday of the trial date indicated that the top ranks of the party had remained united on how to deal with Mr. Bo. One year ago, after the Heywood scandal became public, party leaders and elders agreed to fully end Mr. Bo’s career, despite the fact that he is the son and political heir of one of the “Eight Immortals” of the party, Bo Yibo. The party’s efforts at forging an aura of legitimacy could backfire. If evidence released during the trial proves flimsy, the public could side with the defiant Mr. Bo, whose Maoist slogans and new brand of socialism bolstered his popularity in Chongqing.
Political analysts said the exact charges and their substance had been calibrated to ensure that the public could accept officials’ handing Mr. Bo a long prison sentence, probably 15 to 20 years or a life term. Mr. Bo insisted that he knew nothing of a villa on the French Riviera that prosecutors said Ms. Gu bought in 2000 with $3.2 million from Xu Ming, a young tycoon, or about a hot-air balloon venture between the two. He denied knowledge of a $16,000 trip to Africa made by his youngest son, Bo Guagua, and his friends; an $18,000 Segway-like vehicle that Mr. Xu bought for the son; and $50,000 of debt on the son’s credit card that Mr. Xu paid off.

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting, and Patrick Zuo contributed research.

He said he did not know much about his wife and son’s expenses, because Ms. Gu was “a person of culture and taste, a modern intellectual woman,” so they did not discuss money.
“I think the prosecutor appeared to be ill-prepared,” Mr. He, a critic of Mr. Bo’s past policies, said in the interview, echoing a sentiment widely seen online. “In comparison, Bo appears to be more authentic.”
Since Mr. Bo was dismissed from his party chief post in March 2012 and placed under house arrest, party leaders have been concerned about his command of popular support. Some of the ardor among ordinary Chinese was in evidence on Thursday morning, as Bo supporters, some carrying Mao Zedong posters, showed up in Jinan at courthouse barricades guarded by the police.
“I’m willing to do anything for him,” said a farmer, He Demin, 51, who had flown in from Chongqing the previous night. “With him gone from Chongqing, security and morale have plummeted. We so need a person like him.”
As four minivans with tinted windows sped into an entrance of the courthouse compound, the farmer sprinted toward them, waved his hands and bowed in their direction. “I bow to you,” he said, meaning to address Mr. Bo, in case he was in the convoy.
Mr. Bo started becoming combative midway through the morning session. Prosecutors charged that he had taken about $180,000 in cash bribes from a state company manager and longtime associate, Tang Xiaolin, in exchange for land and auto transactions that Mr. Bo granted as a top official in the northeast province of Liaoning. After watching video testimony from Mr. Tang, Mr. Bo said: “I really saw the ugliness of a person who sold his soul,” and, “He’s biting wildly like a mad dog.”
Prosecutors also read related testimony from Ms. Gu, in which she said she had noticed anonymous deposits being made into an account she shared with Mr. Bo. “Gu Kailai’s testimony is very laughable,” Mr. Bo said.
In the late afternoon, Mr. Bo and his lawyer parried the testimony of Mr. Xu, the young tycoon, who appeared in court and is accused of giving Mr. Bo’s family $3.4 million in bribes, mostly for the purchase of the French villa.
Some analysts say Mr. Bo’s outbursts could be part of a bargain, in which he would accept the inevitable prison sentence in exchange for a chance to speak his mind, to a degree. All the information, including the official microblog posts, were still controlled by officials who generally knew what to expect, the analysts noted. The trial is scheduled to continue on Friday, when prosecutors are to present evidence on the charges of embezzlement and abuse of power.
On Thursday night, Li Wangzhi, the son of Mr. Bo from his marriage, who was in the courtroom, released a statement that said, “I thank the party central authorities and the court for giving the defendant greater rights to a defense and freedom than he had expected, which allows my father to speak his true mind.”
Mr. Li added that his father had “stood by his own ideas” through an investigation that lasted 500 days and involved more than 300 people.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Patrick Zuo contributed research from Jinan, and Mia Li and Shi Da from Beijing.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 22, 2013Correction: August 22, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that testimony from Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife, was presented in video form during Mr. Bo’s trial on Thursday. Ms. Gu’s testimony was read aloud.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that testimony from Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife, was presented in video form during Mr. Bo’s trial on Thursday. Ms. Gu’s testimony was read aloud.