Interesting tid-bit from a report
in this week's Foreign Policy on the rise of Xi Jinping:
I and other observers of China affairs had wondered about this:
why was Bo Xilai's wife, Gu Kailai, being called "Bogu Kailai" (or other versions of this), when in China (and in all Chinese-speaking communities that I can think of) the tradition is for the wife not to change her name on marriage. There was speculation that this was due to a desire to link Gu (sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Neil Heywood, an apparent fly-by-night unknown in the expat community) closer to Bo in propaganda to further dirty them both by association. Others asked if this was some new (or revived) tradition, imported perhaps from Taiwan or somewhere else overseas?
This explanation makes much more sense: it was a simple typo that was picked up and parroted by others out of fear of missing some condemnatory nuance of the story. From there
it was repeated in the foreign press who either knew no better or, again, thought it must mean something or be some new tradition.
This kind of incident is yet another reminder just how little we know of the inner workings of the CCP, and how much is pure guess-work.
2 comments:
This kind of incident is yet another reminder just how little we know of the inner workings of the CCP, and how much is pure guess-work.
Yes, but this explanation, too, is guesswork, isn't it? I think the desire to link Gu closer to Bo, in public perception, would make just as much sense.
The rule that you mustn't ask questions would apply in both cases, of course.
"Yes, but this explanation, too, is guesswork, isn't it?"
Not if, as appears likely, the person quoted was in a position to know exactly what happened (Xinhua isn't so big that its reporters wouldn't know each other). Of course this is not as solid proof as an actual on-the-record non-anonymous quote, but that's never going to happen.
And the idea of trying to connect the two certainly makes less sense than a typo, since it has never been done before or since and makes no sense in a Chinese cultural context.
Post a Comment