（本文為Justin Raimondo於7月9日在AntiWar.com發表的題為“Bo Xilai and Mao’s Ghost（薄熙來與毛的幽靈）”的文章。以下是該篇文章的譯文，譯文有刪節。）
當（烏坎）騷亂震動廣東、經濟高速增長開始減速之時，薄熙來和其妻子穀開來的事件，與所有其它因素一起將中國帶入了危機，這些因素包括：官員腐敗、黨內權貴和普通人之間的收入差距日趨擴大、黨內派係林立，當然，還有毛澤東的幽靈。
薄熙來被解除了一切職務，並從公眾視線中消失，現在已經過去了14周，北京當局仍然沒有定論。薄熙來醜聞震動中國長達數周，並引發了政變傳聞，不過，政變傳聞很快被互聯網審查機製打壓了下去，黨的宣傳機器紛紛譴責薄熙來，然後，忽然之間，一片死寂。北京到底在發生什麽？
薄熙來的命運很可能正成為黨內高層激烈博弈的主題。顯然，在高層他有一些支持者，那些人希望找到一個可以繼承毛澤東傳統的人，而薄熙來推動的唱紅運動印證了毛思想。中國或許已經走了資本主義，但黨內仍然有一些老前輩把年輕時的意識形態口號很當回事。在北京有“改革”思想的官員們，手上掌握著黨的大權，但是各派四分五裂，可以想見，象薄熙來這樣的政客可能會挑戰世界曆史上規模最大的腐敗寡頭統治。
關於薄熙來的金融帝國的故事在流傳，該金融帝國由他恣意的妻子所統治。還有對薄熙來妻子試圖將60億美元轉移到海外的模糊指控，當海伍德威脅要揭露她時，她毒殺了他。
另一方麵，如果我們看看中國每天正在發生的實際腐敗情況，中國自己的央行最近報告，腐敗官員已經將1230億美元轉移到了海外，薄熙來及家人被指控的罪行與之相比簡直是小巫見大巫。在中國真正的腐敗醜聞是，如果不賄賂官員就做不成生意，無論是國內生意，還是和外國人的生意都是如此。中共的太子黨是中國的特權階層，他們的錢抬高了從曼哈頓到馬裏布（譯者注：馬裏布是加州洛杉磯的海濱城市）的高端房地產市場。過去，中共黨內的派係是圍繞著意識形態展開的，有“左派”和“右派”，而現在派係因為爭奪金融資產而產生，當黨的官僚變賣“公共”財產給競價最高的人，這些派係演變成了新的“資本主義”階級。
當局現在，就在家門口，正麵臨著巨大的經濟問題，其中一個最動蕩的因素是數千萬的農村流動人口，占全國人口的16%，他們為中國的出口型經濟提供了廉價的勞動力。社會和地區緊張局勢因為這個巨大的流動人口而加劇，他們生活在社會的最底層，最近廣東的騷亂隻不過是之前無數個事件的重演。自從1990年代出，大規模騷亂和其他類型的公共騷亂的數量成指數增加。1990年代初，隻有8300起，而2012年，數量超過9萬起。黨的官員強征土地通常是誘因。
薄熙來滿足了一些人日益增長的不滿，那些人目睹了中共蛻變成了黑手黨，並記得或自以為記得（毛時代）曾經更好的日子。他的打黑贏得了廣泛支持。他把所有黨中央最擔心的事情都火上澆油---毛思想、民族主義、日益加劇的經濟不平等。
薄熙來和其妻子的命運將顯示誰會在這場鬥爭中獲勝，而這件事件的時機，是至關重要的。
如果到18大召開時，薄熙來事件仍然懸而不決（看起來很可能，因為官方到目前仍然沉默），那麽中國或許會再次麵臨有趣的情況。
（到現在）問題仍不能及時塵埃落定，意味著中共黨內鬥爭正酣—而此時正值中國開始感受到世界經濟衰退的影響之時，也是正值中共麵臨國外的新的威脅之時。美國已經重新將他們整個的“防禦”策略重點轉移到了亞太地區，而南中國海的騷動已達到了沸點。
美國的頭號債權國，假設會成為將來超級大國的中國，是一隻紙老虎。北京當局花在國內警察上的錢超過了軍費，這應該讓我們看到他們真的害怕什麽。他們有擔心的理由。
中國的獨裁政權比敘利亞的複興黨政權更加脆弱，更不堪一擊：一個震顫就會動搖整個係統，並威脅其非常脆弱的根基。自從文革，中國領導人一直成功地捂住了湧動的民粹主義強大暗流，但以後他們不見得那麽容易做得到了。毛澤東的幽靈正在這個國家遊蕩，其不計後果又貪婪的統治者們過著豪華的生活，帶領著沒有人相信的“黨產”黨。如果他們不小心，這些“太子黨們”可能會發現他們被罷黜的容易程度超過任何人的想象。薄熙來事件揭示了大廈出現的第一條裂縫，隨著（外界）對政權壓力的增加，更多的（裂縫）很可能會出現。
（譯文有刪節，原文）
Bo Xilai and Mao’s Ghost
China's coming crisis
As riots shake China’s Guangdong province, and the kudzu-like growth that has catapulted the country into modernity starts to sputter, the case of Bo Xilai, and his wife, Gu Kailai, combines virtually all of the elements that are pushing the country into a crisis: official corruption, the growing income disparity between the party elite and the rest of the country, a faction-ridden Communist party leadership — and, not least of all, Mao’s ghost.
Just to recap the details of the case: Bo, formerly Communist party boss of Chongqing and a rising star in China’s political firmament, is now being held in secret, along with his wife — the latter accused of murdering a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who apparently functioned as a “fixer” for the family’s many overseas investments. Asahi Shimbun recently reported her “confession.”
Bo was summarily ousted from all his posts, and disappeared from public life — and now, fourteen weeks later, there is a dead silence coming from Beijing. For weeks, this scandal rocked China, where rumors of a coup were quickly quashed by internet censors, and a stream of denunciations of Bo issued forth from the party’s propaganda apparatus — and then, suddenly, nearly complete silence. What’s going on in the Inscrutable East?
Bo’s fate is likely the subject of a fierce debate within the top party leadership. Apparently he has some support among senior leaders, who no doubt have a soft spot in their hearts for a modern Chinese leader who would invoke the heroic tradition of Maoism, exemplified by Bo’s push for the singing of “patriotic” “red songs” from the old days of the Revolution. China may have gone capitalist, but there are still some old-timers in the top echelons of the party who take the ideological slogans of their youth seriously. The “reform”-minded officials, centered in Beijing, have the central party organization well in hand, but they are riven by factionalism, and it is not inconceivable that a politician like Bo could arise to challenge what is one of the most corrupt oligarchies in world history in terms of sheer scale.
Stories are now circulating about Bo’s financial empire, lorded over by his willful wife — another Chinese “dragon lady,” a ridiculous Western stereotype the anti-Bo forces in China (and the West) are not above exploiting. Yet the details are unimpressive: a couple of London apartment buildings worth somewhere around $3 million. There are vaguer accusations of Madame Bo managing to somehow take $6 billion out of the country — and when Heywood threatened to expose her, she had him poisoned. That, at any rate, is the official story. That this scenario sounds like the plot of one of those movies that never make it into the theaters and instead go straight to DVD is not a reason to rule it out, but count me as skeptical, to put it mildly.
On the other hand, if we look at the actual corruption that is an everyday fact of life in China — China’s own central bank recently reported that corrupt officials have spirited $123 billion out of the country — the alleged sins of Bo and his family pall in comparison. The real corruption scandal in China is that one cannot do business without paying off officials, and this is true in the internal market as well as for foreigners. China’s “princelings,” the sons of Mao-era party leaders, are China’s One Percent, and their money is driving up prices for high-end real estate from Manhattan to Malibu. Whereas factionalism in the Communist party used to revolve around ideological matters, with “rightists” and “leftists” contending for public opinion, today the factions are centered around competing financial combines, as the party bureaucracy sells off “public” property to the highest bidder and emerges as the new “capitalist” class.
This, of course, was the whole point of Mao’s “cultural revolution,” which was initiated on the premise that a new capitalist class was incubating in China — in the ranks of the ruling Communist party. Prominent party leaders were hauled up before the masses, made to wear dunce caps, and denounced as “capitalist-roaders” — among them Deng Xiaoping, who made a political comeback after Mao’s death and did indeed put China on the capitalist road. His successors, however, are taking a detour down Crony Capitalist Lane, and this is creating the conditions for a potential day of reckoning for China’s elite.
The regime is facing huge economic problems on the home front, one of the most volatile being the millions of migrant workers, some 16 percent of the population, who provide cheap labor for China’s export-driven economy. Social and regional tensions are exacerbated by this vast mobile workforce, who exist at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder: a recent riot in Guangdong province is but a rerun of numerous previous incidents. The number of large scale riots and other examples of public “disorder” has increased exponentially since the early nineties, when 8,300 such incidents were recorded. In 2012, the number exceeded 90,000. Land seizures by party officials are often the cause.
Bo appealed to some of these sources of rising discontent — to those who witnessed the degeneration of the Communist party into a kind of Mafia, and remembered — or, thought they remembered — a better day. His crackdown on China’s rampant gangster underworld — often linked to party officials — inspired widespread support. He stoked all those fires the central party leadership most fears — Maoism, nationalism, and growing economic inequality.
That is why he had to go: this nonsense about a murder plot is just for the tabloids. What’s telling is that the case shows no signs of going forward: for the first time since the Bad Old Days of Mao’s reign, there is a real ideological struggle going on behind the scenes. The fate of Bo and his wife is going to give us a good idea of who is winning the struggle, and the timing, in this case, is crucial.
The 18th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party is scheduled to begin in the autumn, and there the power will pass from one generation of party leaders — Hu Jintao — to the next: Xi Jinping. If the Bo Xilai matter is still up in the air by the time the congress convenes — which seems likely, given the official silence so far — China may be facing some interesting times once again.
Failure to resolve the issue in a timely manner means there is a real fight going on inside the CCP — at a time when China is beginning to feel the effects of the worldwide economic recession, and is facing new threats from abroad. The Americans are reorienting their entire “defense” strategy to focus on the Pacific region, and the brouhaha over the South China sea is reaching the boiling point.
In the field of foreign affairs, the Chinese have pursued a classic mercantilist policy, abjuring Great Power theatrics for the most part and playing a cautious role at international forums such as the UN. Yet if the Americans are determined to come after them, and intervene in territorial disputes between China and its neighbors, then the Beijing leadership will have no choice but to respond in like manner. Failure to do so means losing credibility at home with an already disgruntled and highly nationalistic populace.
China, America’s number one creditor, and supposedly the rising superpower of the future, is a paper tiger. Efforts by the neocons to make them into a replacement for the vanished Soviet threat seem doomed to failure when the Chinese spend a fraction of what we spend on “defense.” To put it all in perspective: the Chinese government spends more on its internal police than on their military, which should give us a good indication of what they’re really afraid of. And they have reason to fear.
China’s dictatorship is more brittle, and less resilient than the Syrian Ba’athist regime: one good tremor will shake up the whole system and threaten its very fragile foundations. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese leadership has been successful at keeping a lid on powerful populist currents churning just below the surface of society, but their luck may be running out. Mao’s ghost haunts a country whose heedless and greedy rulers live in luxury and head up a “Communist” party no one believes in anymore: if they aren’t careful, the “princelings” may find themselves dethroned much more easily than anyone ever imagined. The Bo Xilai affair revealed the first cracks in the edifice: more are likely to appear as the pressures on the regime increase.
