(C) A NANJING ACADEMIC'S VIEW ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 SHANGHAI 000656 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/CM, INR/B AND INR/EAP NSC FOR WILDER AND TONG E.O. 12958: DECL: MR, X1 TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SOCI CH SUBJECT: (C) A NANJING ACADEMIC'S VIEW ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN CHINA REF: 06 SHANGHAI 5120 SHANGHAI 00000656 001.2 OF 002 CLASSIFIED BY: Kenneth Jarrett, Consul General, U.S. Consulate General, Shanghai, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(c),(d) ¶1. (S) Summary: According to Nanjing University Professor Gu Su (strictly protect) political assassinations and violence occur in Chinese politics, even occasionally touching top leaders. Gu said that in January 2007, for instance, Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission Chairman (CDIC) Wu Guanzheng's son was murdered in Qingdao assassins presumed to have come from Beijing. President Hu Jintao's son had been a target last year, Gu said. Such events are more common in the provinces, Gu said, where many local officials live in constant fear that they will be targeted by people who have been harmed by their policies, by underlings looking for greater head room, or by superiors who see them as a potential threat to their power. A murder in Shandong's Jinan Municipality has recently brought the Qingdao Party Secretary and a Shandong Vice Governor under arrest and cast a shadow over Hubei Party Secretary Yu Zhengsheng's prospects for promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee. End summary. -------------- Wu Guanzheng Gets Sent a Message -------------- ¶2. (S) Nanjing University Professor Gu Su said in a September 28 discussion that, according to a relatives who works in the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB),the elder son of Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) member and Chairman of the CDIC Wu Guanzheng was murdered this January. The son had been on a business trip to the city of Qingdao in Shandong Province to ink a contract for the state-owned enterprise for which he worked. The body of Wu's son was supposedly discovered after lying undisturbed in his hotel room for three days. ¶3. (S) Qingdao PSB officials told Gu's relative that the son had been murdered and claimed it was the work of Beijing criminals. There was no evidence of entry or exit to his top-floor hotel room and no other evidence left to point to a suspect. Gu's PSB relative said that CDIC Chairman Wu had made many enemies through his position. This involved high-profile investigations into Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu's corruption and investigations into the corrupt activities of unnamed top-level Beijing municipal leaders. Gu's Beijing relative speculated that these leaders had ordered the murder of Wu's son as a warning message. ¶4. (S) Wu was devastated by his son's murder and was in a horrible temper for the following two months, Gu said. Wu told the Politburo during a meeting that his son died because of his work on corruption investigations, stating: "My son was sacrificed for my political cause." Gu said he believes Wu had two sons. The son who was murdered was Wu's "good son," a capable son whom Wu had been grooming to eventually move into politics as the family representative. Gu said he thought there may be a second son in a working level position in a government organization. -------------- -------------- Assassination Attempts Reach Other Top-Level Leaders -------------- -------------- ¶5. (S) Gu said that assassination attempts against high-level officials and their family members are not unheard of. He alleged that President Hu Jintao's son had been the target of assassins in 2006, albeit without success. As a result, Hu's son now has stepped-up security arrangements, including at the Qinghua University-affiliate Nuctech Corporation in Beijing where he works. (Note: It was unclear to Gu if the assassins had actually carried out an attempt on the younger Hu's life or if their plot had been foiled in advance. End note.) ¶6. (S) Gu also noted the well-known car accident of Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan in Heilongjiang Province in 2002 (reftel), which Gu said actually was an attempt on his life orchestrated by officials who had been harmed by the Central Government's economic policies. (Note: Zeng previously served as head of the State Development Planning Commission, now known as the National Development and Reform Commission. Many state-owned enterprises in northeastern China succumbed to market competition in the 1990s as Chinese economic reforms moved forward, making millions of workers unemployed. End note.). -------------- SHANGHAI 00000656 002.2 OF 002 Murders and Secret Combinations -------------- ¶7. (S) Gu said that assassination and other forms of political violence are more common at local levels. Some provincial and local officials worry about attempts on their lives from people harmed by policy decisions, subordinates who want their jobs, and superiors who see them as threats to their positions. For example, a county-level Public Security Bureau (PSB) director in Fujian Province who, believing his talented deputy was seeking his job, had his subordinate murdered for the cost of 300,000 RMB (approximately USD 40,000),Gu said. ¶8. (S) Gu also said political violence is also a particular problem in Qingdao (where Wu's son was murdered) and the rest of Shandong Province. He noted the recent case in Shandong of the Jinan Municipal People's Congress Chairman who murdered his lover. The Chairman hired his nephew to do the job. The nephew used a car bomb, but being a novice in the field, he used far too much explosive and destroyed half of a city block when the lover started up her car. Three innocent bystanders were also seriously injured in the blast. The People's Congress Chairman was sentenced to death for his role in orchestrating the crime and current Qingdao Party Secretary Du Shicheng and one of the Shandong Vice Governors are currently under arrest in connection with the case. Apparently, the lover had information linking all of the men and others to a corruption scandal and was threatening to go public. ¶9. (S) This Qingdao case also tainted Politburo member and Hubei Party Secretary Yu Zhengsheng and may prevent him from being considered as a candidate for the Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th Party Congress in mid-October. Yu, who served in Shandong from 1985-97, had promoted Du to his position as Qingdao Party Secretary. ¶10. (S) Gu also noted that organized crime is prevalent in Fujian, Liaoning, and Henan Provinces, as well as in the northern part of Jiangsu. PBSC member Li Changchun is "tightly connected" to organized crime syndicates in Liaoning and Henan. Gu also mentioned that the top leaders in Jiangsu's Xuzhou municipality--one of northern Jiangsu's largest cities--are closely tied to organized crime gangs. Gu cited Xuzhou's Mayor as having particularly close connections. JARRETT