Chinese Court Sentences Ex-Police Chief to 15 Years

By JEREMY PAGE

BEIJING?China moved towards concluding its political crisis and setting up a once-a-decade leadership change, when a court handed a 15-year jail sentence to the former police chief of Chongqing city who triggered turmoil in the Communist Party elite.

Wang Lijun was found guilty of defection, bribery, abuse of power, and "bending the law for selfish ends" following his two-day trial last week, the state-run Xinhua news agency said Monday.

"Wang, Chongqing's former vice mayor and police chief, was charged with several crimes and received a combined punishment for all offenses," Xinhua said.

Mr. Wang could have faced the death penalty, according to lawyers and legal experts. Instead, he was treated with relative leniency because prosecutors noted several mitigating factors in his case, including the help he provided in convicting the wife of his boss, Bo Xilai, for the murder of a British businessman.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Wang Lijun during his trial, in a Sept. 18 video still from China's CCTV.

The court's announcement clears the way for Chinese authorities to declare their decision on whether to press criminal charges against Mr. Bo, the former party leader of Chongqing, who has been under investigation by the party's internal disciplinary body.

Mr. Bo, once a candidate for promotion to China's top leadership this year, advocated a strong role for the state in the economy and society, and courted controversy by overseeing a Maoist revival movement as Party chief of Chongqing.

U.S. officials should be relieved that Mr. Wang escaped execution, as the Obama administration faced criticism from some Republican lawmakers earlier this year for not offering Mr. Wang asylum either on humanitarian or intelligence grounds after he fled to a U.S. consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu in February.

The party leadership is expected to announce soon the dates for a plenum?a meeting of the roughly 300-strong Central Committee?followed by a bigger meeting, the 18th Party Congress, at which President Hu Jintao and other leaders are due to retire from their party posts.

Those meetings were both expected to take place in the fall, but party insiders say announcement of the exact dates has been delayed by internal debate over how to deal with Mr. Bo.

Some observers expect an announcement this week because a weeklong public holiday begins Oct. 1, China's National Day. Several hotels housing the 2,270 delegates to the Congress, which usually lasts about a week, said they hadn't been given exact dates for the meeting, but had reserved rooms for most of October.

One hotel said it had reserved rooms for delegates from Oct. 15 to 31. Another said Oct. 11 to 25. The Congress has been held as early as September and as late as November in the last 15 years, but the timing has always been announced in late August or early September following a meeting of the Politburo?the Party's top 25 leaders.

Mr. Bo's supporters have argued that he should face internal disciplinary measures but shouldn't be subjected to criminal charges, which would almost certainly result in a prison term, given China's conviction rate of about 98%.

But the likelihood of Mr. Wang going to trial appeared to increase last week when an official account of the proceeding suggested that Mr. Bo had interfered in the case of the murdered Briton, Neil Heywood.

The Chongqing Drama

See key dates in the death of Neil Heywood in Chongqing and the drama surrounding Bo Xilai.

Players in China's Leadership Purge

Read more about the players in the case.

That account, published by the state-run Xinhua news agency, didn't mention Mr. Bo by name but said the unnamed leader of the party in Chongqing had rebuked Mr. Wang and slapped him in the face after being told that Mr. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was a chief suspect in the murder.

Ms. Gu was convicted of the murder last month and given a death penalty with a two-year reprieve?a sentence that is typically commuted to life imprisonment in China.

On March 26, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the British government had asked Chinese authorities to investigate Mr. Heywood's death, and to describe his links to the Bo family as well as Mr. Wang's allegations.

Preparations for the party congress may also have been delayed by a two-week absence from official duties this month by Vice President Xi Jinping, the man expected to take over from Mr. Hu, which party insiders have blamed on a back injury sustained while swimming.

Mr. Xi reappeared last weekend and has made two high-profile public appearances since, including a meeting with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in an apparent bid to quell rumors about his health and to burnish his diplomatic credentials.

State media reported that in the meeting with Mr. Panetta, Mr. Xi described as a "farce" the Japanese government's purchase of the Senkaku islands, which China calls Diaoyu and claims as part of its territory, from private owners this month.

Also last week, Mr. Xi met Southeast Asian leaders and government ministers at a trade fair in China and sought to reassure them that Beijing was committed to a peaceful resolution of disputes with neighboring countries, according to state media.

"We are firm in safeguarding China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and are committed to resolving differences with neighbors concerning territorial and maritime rights and interests peacefully through friendly negotiations," said Mr. Xi, according to Xinhua.

?Yoli Zhang in Beijing contributed to this article.

Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared September 23, 2012, on page A8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Chinese Court Sentences Ex-Police Chief to 15 Years.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444813104578014331362054530.html?mod=asia_home

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