Uploaded July 2013 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
When is a multimillion-dollar graft case not really a grafts case?
When it's against this disgraced former-Chinese politician Bo Xilai.
Now, if you follow Chinese politics, you may have heard of him. He was all over the news last year after his political career ended in disgrace and scandal. After months of speculation, he's just been charged with bribery, corruption and abuse of power.
But the thing is, the most serious allegations that have been made against Bo Xilai probably won't feature much in the news. Because the whole thing, like I said is about much more.
You see, Bo Xilai was involved in really murky things. Before he was the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, a megacity in southwestern China, he had a short run as China's Commerce Minister. But he made his name before that when he was in charge of Liaoning Province. How did he get in such good graces with his higher ups? Well, amongst other things, Bo carried out the orders of this former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, to the tee. In particular, Jiang's obsession with trying to stamp out the tens of millions of Chinese people who practiced Falun Gong.
Bo Xilai was all behind this campaign. While he was the Governor of Liaoning, he oversaw a massive upgrade of the province's labor camp system. Now, these are places where police can send people without trial. If they're lucky, they are turned into slave labor. If they're unlucky, they will be severely tortured, and killed. And which province has sent the largest number of Falun Gong practitioners to these labor camps? Yep, Liaoning province. The Masanjia Labor Camp there has earned a name as "hell on earth", with women inmates reporting about horrific abuses they suffer there.
Okay, so labor camps exist all around China. What makes Bo Xilai worse than the official next door?
Well, He had this former police chief who's now in jail. His name is Wang Lijun, and Wang's career grew alongside Bo's. When they were both in Liaoning province, Wang directed the Public Security Bureau of Jinzhou to run this medical entity that basically did research on organ transplants.
A police chief, doing research on organ transplants? They're completely different fields, right? Well, sadly, not in China.
In the 80's, the Chinese regime admitted that they harvest the organs of executed prisoners and more recently they've admitted that this is the main source.
When Wang ran this medical group, he won an award in 2006, and when he accepted that award, he proudly claimed that he oversaw "several thousand intensive on-site cases" of organ transplants.
That is a lot of organs for a city-level medical research center to get their hands on. Especially considering that Chinese people don't normally agree to donating their bodies.
So, where did he get the organs? Let's see if we can connect the dots. So Bo Xilai expands the labor camps so they can detain Falun Gong practitioners. Many of the Falun Gong practitioners refused to give their names to authorities to protect their families and acquaintances. Bo Xilai's right hand man, Wang Lijun needs a lot of bodies to carry out his organ transplant research. Could these unnamed practitioners be a potential source?
Well, according to independent researches, yes. And they estimate that between 45,o00 to 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been murdered specifically so that organs can be taken from them. These crimes happen inside military hospitals, and senior Chinese leaders are fully aware of this.
That could be why, a month after Wang Lijun tried to defect in February last year because of a falling out with Bo, China's former vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu rushed to say that they will end "organ donations" from executed prisoners. Wang Lijun was suddenly a loose cannon, and who know what he could've revealed to the Americans to seek refuge.
Then, Bo Xilai was fired and then detained, and no one has seen him in public since March 2012.
So why isn't Chinese media reporting about these serious allegations? Well, if they did, it would open up a massive can of worms that some former leaders have been trying to hide since 1999. Jiang Zemin and his cohorts don't want the Chinese public, or the rest of the world for that matter, to learn about the Falun Gong persecution and they definitely don't want any of the organ harvesting stuff getting any attention.
So, the solution? Take Bo Xilai down with a run of the mill charge of corruption and abuse of power. That way, the public thinks the government is doing a great by taking down bad officials, and no one ever has to know about all of that horrible killing and taking organs from political prisoners that's been happening for the past 14 years.
So as we watch this trial play out, remember the whole thing will be nothing more than a show trial, while the truly heinous crimes remain hidden behind the glorified reports of another corrupt leader being taken down by the all-might Party.
When is a multimillion-dollar graft case not really a grafts case?
When it's against this disgraced former-Chinese politician Bo Xilai.
Now, if you follow Chinese politics, you may have heard of him. He was all over the news last year after his political career ended in disgrace and scandal. After months of speculation, he's just been charged with bribery, corruption and abuse of power.
But the thing is, the most serious allegations that have been made against Bo Xilai probably won't feature much in the news. Because the whole thing, like I said is about much more.
You see, Bo Xilai was involved in really murky things. Before he was the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing, a megacity in southwestern China, he had a short run as China's Commerce Minister. But he made his name before that when he was in charge of Liaoning Province. How did he get in such good graces with his higher ups? Well, amongst other things, Bo carried out the orders of this former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, to the tee. In particular, Jiang's obsession with trying to stamp out the tens of millions of Chinese people who practiced Falun Gong.
Bo Xilai was all behind this campaign. While he was the Governor of Liaoning, he oversaw a massive upgrade of the province's labor camp system. Now, these are places where police can send people without trial. If they're lucky, they are turned into slave labor. If they're unlucky, they will be severely tortured, and killed. And which province has sent the largest number of Falun Gong practitioners to these labor camps? Yep, Liaoning province. The Masanjia Labor Camp there has earned a name as "hell on earth", with women inmates reporting about horrific abuses they suffer there.
Okay, so labor camps exist all around China. What makes Bo Xilai worse than the official next door?
Well, He had this former police chief who's now in jail. His name is Wang Lijun, and Wang's career grew alongside Bo's. When they were both in Liaoning province, Wang directed the Public Security Bureau of Jinzhou to run this medical entity that basically did research on organ transplants.
A police chief, doing research on organ transplants? They're completely different fields, right? Well, sadly, not in China.
In the 80's, the Chinese regime admitted that they harvest the organs of executed prisoners and more recently they've admitted that this is the main source.
When Wang ran this medical group, he won an award in 2006, and when he accepted that award, he proudly claimed that he oversaw "several thousand intensive on-site cases" of organ transplants.
That is a lot of organs for a city-level medical research center to get their hands on. Especially considering that Chinese people don't normally agree to donating their bodies.
So, where did he get the organs? Let's see if we can connect the dots. So Bo Xilai expands the labor camps so they can detain Falun Gong practitioners. Many of the Falun Gong practitioners refused to give their names to authorities to protect their families and acquaintances. Bo Xilai's right hand man, Wang Lijun needs a lot of bodies to carry out his organ transplant research. Could these unnamed practitioners be a potential source?
Well, according to independent researches, yes. And they estimate that between 45,o00 to 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been murdered specifically so that organs can be taken from them. These crimes happen inside military hospitals, and senior Chinese leaders are fully aware of this.
That could be why, a month after Wang Lijun tried to defect in February last year because of a falling out with Bo, China's former vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu rushed to say that they will end "organ donations" from executed prisoners. Wang Lijun was suddenly a loose cannon, and who know what he could've revealed to the Americans to seek refuge.
Then, Bo Xilai was fired and then detained, and no one has seen him in public since March 2012.
So why isn't Chinese media reporting about these serious allegations? Well, if they did, it would open up a massive can of worms that some former leaders have been trying to hide since 1999. Jiang Zemin and his cohorts don't want the Chinese public, or the rest of the world for that matter, to learn about the Falun Gong persecution and they definitely don't want any of the organ harvesting stuff getting any attention.
So, the solution? Take Bo Xilai down with a run of the mill charge of corruption and abuse of power. That way, the public thinks the government is doing a great by taking down bad officials, and no one ever has to know about all of that horrible killing and taking organs from political prisoners that's been happening for the past 14 years.
So as we watch this trial play out, remember the whole thing will be nothing more than a show trial, while the truly heinous crimes remain hidden behind the glorified reports of another corrupt leader being taken down by the all-might Party.
