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04/17/2012

April 16, 2012 As of 6:46 AM Foreign Exchange Welcome, Sid Harth, I am WSJ (Who?)

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Guys, I love you. Respect you.

STOP!

What kind of language? Please allow me to quote your headline:

"Chinese Political Scandal Evolves Into Murder Mystery."

The word "Chinese" if replaced with, say, "American," would be an adequate commentary from moi.

Chill out, bozos. Ain't the end of the world, I believe. Believe, U me. Been there, done that kind of thingy.

Take five.

...and I am Sid Harth@mysistereileen.com

Chinese Political Scandal Evolves Into Murder Mystery

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April 13, 2012
A scandal in China has led to the ouster of a powerful political player, who was once a rising star in the Communist Party. Richard MacGregor, a former China bureau chief for the Financial Times, talks to Renee Montagne about the scandal. MacGregor also authored The Party, a book about China's political system.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
This week, a gripping political scandal in China turned into a murder mystery. It involves a powerful Communist Party leader and his wife, and a British businessman who was found dead in a Chinese hotel room.
To help us understand these dramatic yet murky events, we turn to Richard MacGregor. He was a correspondent in China for the Financial Times, and also wrote the book "The Party," on how Chinese politics work.
And thank you for joining us.
RICHARD MACGREGOR: Pleasure.
MONTAGNE: Right now, the man at the center of this scandal, Bo Xilai, is out of his job as party chief in this huge metropolis in the southwestern part of China. Perhaps more importantly, he's been dismissed from the Politburo. That's the 25-member group that runs the Communist Party for the whole country. This is being called the biggest political downfall to happen in more than, you know, a couple of decades. What was he doing wrong, politically?
MACGREGOR: There's no doubt, Renee, that this is an earthquake in Chinese politics. As you said, you know, it's the biggest thing to happen since the Tiananmen Square and Beijing protests. And we saw how that ended. Let's roll back a little bit and see how he was, only a little - six months ago, was riding high. He started this political campaign harkening back to the days of Mao Tse-tung and sort of Communist Party nostalgia. And it lifted his profile but on top of that, he's almost like China's first Western-style politician. You know, he's high-profile. He loves getting in the media. And what he was doing out in Shanxi was almost unheard of in China. He was using that profile to campaign publicly to join the inner circle of the Chinese leadership, to be chosen at the end of the year.
They usually - according to the sort of unwritten rules of Chinese Communist Party politics, you don't campaign in public for a top position like this. This is an internal election, and I think a lot of people were very annoyed at how he'd gone about this. So that made him politically vulnerable. But the turning point was when his former police chief in Shanxi, who'd fallen out with Mr. Bo, rushed to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, seeking safety there. That was just treasonous. To involve the Americans in an internal Chinese political affair, and internal Chinese political dispute and corruption case, was really the end of the road. And I think when that happened, Mr. Bo was finished.
MONTAGNE: Then, this week, there was the news that his wife - that she is being accused of potentially committing murder.
MACGREGOR: This is the most remarkable part of the case, the kind of Stieg Larsson element, if you like, you know, "The Wife with the Dragon Tattoo." When Chinese leaders get into trouble, their families are usually involved in one way or the other, but this is way beyond that. This is a homicide case of a foreigner allegedly being murdered.
MONTAGNE: British citizen Neil Heywood is his name, and the question is whether he was poisoned.
MACGREGOR: Yes. It sounds like sort of the court eunuchs or something back in the Qing Dynasty, sort of slipping a vial of poison into their enemies or something. It's quite weird. It turns out that he had extensive business dealings with Mr. Bo's wife and other members of the family. And, you know, for him to be actually murdered is just astounding. And I think that's one reason why the authorities there have taken it so seriously.
MONTAGNE: What do you see happening to Bo Xilai and his wife at this point?
MACGREGOR: Well, Mr. Bo is being investigated by the party, not the police. And according to the statements they've made so far, you'd have to say it's very likely - at least, if he doesn't go to jail - he'll be expelled from the party, and he'll have no more place in formal politics. As far as the wife goes, it's impossible to say. As you say, it's an alleged murder. But for the prosecutors to even say that - I mean, not many people who are investigated, and on the verge of charges in China, are ever found not guilty. So I think it's very likely she'll go to jail for a long, long time.
MONTAGNE: Richard MacGregor is currently the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for the Financial Times. His book about the Chinese Communist political system is called "The Party." Thank you very much for joining us.
MACGREGOR: Thank you.
Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
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Sid Harth (navanavonmilita)
Sid Harth (navanavonmilita) wrote:
Guys, I love you. Respect you.

STOP!

What kind of language? Please allow me to quote your headline:

"Chinese Political Scandal Evolves Into Murder Mystery."

The word "Chinese" if replaced with, say, "American," would be an adequate commentary from moi.

Chill out, bozos. Ain't the end of the world, I believe. Believe, U me. Been there, done that kind of thingy.

Take five.

...and I am Sid Harth@mysistereileen.com

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 5:37:48 AM
Ian von Thaden (Cabbie)
Ian von Thaden (Cabbie) wrote:
This is a non-story in China. Americans are being fed an image of chaos and disarray. Nothing could be farther from the truth.Yes, there is a scandal. Are things falling apart at the seems? NO. The party is much bigger than one man, one city or one corrupt politician. This is a non-issue in China. It might look like a big deal from your side of the Pacific but here it is business as normal. This is one small bump in China's road to development. And to the people who say there is a big cover-up; if there really was a cover-up, we would not be having this discussion.
Friday, April 13, 2012 9:27:34 PM


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China Loosens Grip on Yuan

Central Bank Widens Currency's Trading Range; Move Could Ease Trade Tensions

By LINGLING WEI

China loosened daily trading limits on the Yuan, ahead of the IMF's spring meeting. The WSJ's Deborah Kan and Lingling Wei discuss.
BEIJING—China made one of its strongest moves yet to show that it believes the yuan is ready to become a global currency by loosening daily trading limits.
The move to widen the currency's trading range, which went into effect Monday, doesn't eliminate Beijing's tight grip on the yuan. China's central bank still sets a daily reference rate for its currency. On Monday in China, the yuan opened modestly weaker in currency trading, after the central bank set a reference rate for the yuan stronger than Friday's market close.
yuan
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Companies and investors are bracing for the expected greater volatility in the yuan's exchange rate. Until recently, most businesses and investors had viewed the yuan as a surefire bet to rise in value, but that view has changed as China's trade surpluses have declined
Nonetheless, the change is seen as an important step toward addressing foreign complaints about China's currency policies. The U.S. and other advanced economies have pressed Beijing for years to relax its hold on the yuan and allow it to appreciate at a faster pace. The hope is to boost consumer demand in China as consumers in advanced nations, such as the U.S. and Europe, pull back amid still-fragile economies. China long had resisted a loosened yuan, fearing it would hurt the country's powerful export market. A stronger yuan makes Chinese products more expensive overseas, while making imports more affordable for Chinese consumers.
A freer currency market is the latest step from China's leaders to overhaul the country's financial system. Beijing has moved to bring the country's informal lending sector out of the shadows; has openly questioned the dominance of state-owned banks; and has eased its capital restrictions, amid complaints from both inside and outside the country that the financial system is inadequate to sustain the world's No. 2 economy.
The decision to widen the yuan's daily trading range was cautiously welcomed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund. "We've obviously over the course of the last several years pressed the Chinese to take additional steps to appreciate their currency and to come in line with international markets," said Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communication. "They've made some progress."
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, called the widening of the trading band an "important step" to allow market forces to play a greater role in determining the level of the exchange rate.
The move, announced Saturday, signals that Beijing is increasingly confident that the yuan, also known as the renminbi, is fairly valued, a key requirement if it is to relax its grip on the currency. China points out that its trade surpluses have declined. It recorded a $5.4 billion trade surplus in March, after a $31.5 billion deficit in February. China's loosened controls on the yuan come just days before the International Monetary Fund is expected to sharply reduce its long-term forecast of China's current-account surplus, the broadest measure of a nation's trade.
Companies and investors who have long bet that the yuan is undervalued are rethinking that position. "In the past, we were very worried about renminbi appreciation," said Cai Dongchen, chairman and chief executive of China Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., a large drug maker that is based in mainland China and listed in Hong Kong. But Saturday's move, he said, "means that the renminbi is no longer a one-way bet, and that is good news for us."
The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, sets a daily rate for the yuan against the U.S. dollar, which is called the parity rate. China until now had allowed investors to push the yuan's value 0.5% in either direction from that rate in daily trading. On Friday, for example, the PBOC set a parity rate of 6.2879 yuan per U.S. dollar, meaning during the day the yuan was allowed to trade in a range of 6.2564 to 6.3193 per dollar, or about 15.8 U.S. cents to 16 U.S. cents per yuan.
On Saturday, the central bank said it has widened that trading band, allowing the currency to move up or down by 1% daily. In early trading Monday, currency traders pushed down the yuan against the dollar to 6.3165, about 0.3% weaker than the PBOC's parity rate and 0.2% weaker than Friday's close.
What happens next amounts to a market vote on whether the yuan is overvalued, undervalued or close to its fair value. If the yuan trades at the upper limits of the band, it shows markets believe the yuan has room to rise. If the upward pressure is persistent, it could make Beijing reluctant to loosen further. A downward push, meanwhile, could indicate investor nervousness over China's slowing economy and the possibility of capital flight if China further loosens its capital restrictions.
Currency-market watchers said the move was one of the most significant since mid-2010, when China first allowed the yuan to freely trade beyond its borders, leading to the creation of an offshore market in the city of Hong Kong.
"The renminbi is undergoing a regime change," said Daniel Hui, senior foreign-exchange strategist at HSBC Holdings PLC, pointing to the potential for "less consistent appreciation, increasing flexibility and volatility, and faster liberalization."
The magnitude of the trading-band expansion came at the top end of market expectations. The last time the band was widened was in May 2007, when it was increased to 0.5% from 0.3%.
Companies and investors are bracing for the expected greater volatility in the yuan's exchange rate. Until recently, most businesses and investors had viewed the yuan as a surefire bet to rise in value, but that view has changed as China's trade surpluses have declined. Analysts at HSBC and elsewhere recently dialed back their expectations for yuan appreciation this year to less than 2% from a previous forecast of roughly 3%. The currency gained 4.7% last year against the dollar and has jumped about 25% since its revaluation in 2005. It has dipped 0.14% against the dollar so far this year.
Some companies have started or are considering putting in place complex derivatives trades to protect themselves against both a rise and a fall in the yuan. For instance, ZTE Corp., 000063.SZ -1.11% a Hong Kong-listed Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications equipment that derives about half its sales from overseas, plans to invest this year up to $2 billion in derivatives products to guard against foreign-exchange risks, following a similar investment it made last year, according to the company's public filings last month.
China Pharmaceutical is one of the companies that have used such derivatives products to hedge against yuan appreciation. But now, given the increased two-way fluctuations in the yuan's value, Mr. Cai, the chairman and chief executive, said the company will consider engaging in derivatives transactions to bet on both a rise and a fall in the Chinese currency.
"We've made a lot of money from buying derivative products to just bet on renminbi appreciation," Mr. Cai said. "Now we need to factor in the downside potential."
Analysts say the central bank's move is aimed as much at domestic officials as foreign-exchange traders and companies. The central bank has been lobbying for some time to liberalize trading in the yuan, while prominent academics—who often speak for the central bank—have been arguing in public to let the yuan fully float. But China rarely takes steps as dramatic as going to a fully floating exchange rate in one big step.
The central bank reports both to the State Council and the Communist Party's central committee. Both institutions need to be convinced that a free-floating exchange rate won't harm the Chinese economy and will help in eliminating the build-up of foreign reserves, which is widely recognized as becoming an economic and political problem.
—Bob Davis, Sudeep Reddy, Esther Fung, Shen Hong and Laura Meckler contributed to this article. Write to Lingling Wei at lingling.wei@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 16, 2012, on page A1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: China Loosens Grip on Yuan.

HSBC Mulls Maiden Offshore Yuan Bond

By FIONA LAW

HONG KONG—HSBC Holdings HBC +0.30% PLC is considering issuing its first international yuan-denominated bond, or so-called dim sum bond, to attract European investors as U.K. banks race to become leaders in the dim sum bond market.
The London-based bank is conducting conference calls with investors in Hong Kong, Singapore and the U.K. Tuesday to gauge interest for such an issuance, according to a person familiar with the situation.
HSBC, rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service and AA- by Standard & Poor's, may issue the self-arranged bond in a Reg S format, which is normally offered to global investors outside the U.S., another person said. He added that the proposed bond may be listed on the London Stock Exchange, which is striving to become an offshore hub for the Chinese yuan.
HSBC's China unit issued three billion yuan ($476 million) in offshore yuan bonds in 2009, after receiving the green light from Chinese authorities to repatriate the proceeds onshore. But the latest proposed bond would be the first to be issued by the group, the second person said, noting that the issue size and terms have yet to be determined.
Dim sum bonds have been the Chinese government's most visible effort to allow its currency to trade outside the country.
The majority of dim sum bond investors have so far come from Hong Kong, which since mid-2010 has been designated by Beijing as a laboratory for yuan liberalization.
Last year, the dim sum bond market tripled in size in its first full year of existence to $16.8 billion, according to Hong Kong Monetary Authority data.
Bankers and issuers have meanwhile been ramping up their marketing efforts in London, which is becoming increasingly aggressive in expanding its yuan business platform.
HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, for instance, have formed teams dedicated to developing their offshore yuan services.
Earlier this year, Britain and Hong Kong set up a forum to discuss working more closely in the areas of yuan trade clearing and settlement. Hong Kong is also extending the operating hours of its yuan payments systems, making it easier for yuan transactions to be settled in London.
—Carol Chan contributed to this article.
Write to Fiona Law at fiona.law@dowjones.com
  • BUSINESS
  • Updated April 17, 2012, 2:16 a.m. ET

Odd Couple: China Meets Hollywood

By MICHELLE KUNG

Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, two of Hollywood's A-List, are teaming up to film "Iron Man 3" in China. But as reporter Laurie Burkitt tells Deborah Kan, the match doesn't come without strings attached.
David Franzoni, the Academy Award-winning producer of "Gladiator," knows how to craft a film out of a historical event. He faces a new challenge for his latest project: working with the Chinese government, which has its own ideas about filmmaking.
Hired last year by a state-owned production company to write a script for a $30 million drama set in the Tang Dynasty, Mr. Franzoni proposed using a rebel general as a "window" into the ancient world.
One problem: To Chinese censors, the general, rather than a hero, was a foreign interloper who betrayed an 8th-century emperor, according to Mr. Franzoni and his Chinese producers. The producers told Mr. Franzoni he should be less sympathetic toward the general and focus more on the emperor and his consort. So the story went into rewrite.
China and Hollywood are gearing up to make more films together. Hollywood wants access to a rapidly growing foreign market, while China wants Hollywood's help to duplicate the success of big-budget U.S. films.
Watch the trailer for "Looper," an upcoming film co-produced by China and the U.S., starring Bruce Willis. It was created by DMG Entertainment, a movie studio headquartered in Beijing with offices in Hollywood.
On Monday, Walt Disney Co. and China's DMG Entertainment said they agreed to co-produce the next "Iron Man" film in China.
Other major U.S. studios have announced Chinese joint ventures or co-productions in recent months.
But Mr. Franzoni's experience with the Tang Dynasty film highlights the challenges that lie ahead. While the Chinese government has taken key steps recently to lure foreign filmmakers, it still maintains a tight grip over who participates in its film industry and what they are allowed to make.
In the case of "Iron Man," Dan Mintz, chief executive of DMG Entertainment, wouldn't directly answer if Chinese officials had viewed the script yet. But he said he had already had lengthy discussions with them and was confident any creative issues would be worked out. A state film official appeared at the "Iron Man" news conference on Monday, saying that the new Disney-DMG partnership would help with "China's important task of improving the quality of the country's films."

Top U.S.-China Produced Films

Working with government censors in Beijing may make it difficult to create U.S.-China co-produced movies. Read about some of the successful ones.
Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000)
Mr. Mintz, an American, has been operating in China for many years. "Back home, you're really only concerned with one group of people—the consumer," he explained in a recent interview. "In China you have to be good at handling the government and the consumer."
U.S. studios have tried to slip their films through China's tight foreign-film restrictions for decades. Their goal is a bigger return from the country's growing box-office revenues, which by 2015 are expected to reach $5 billion, according to government reports. That is up from $2.1 billion last year.
In February, China agreed to allow more foreign films within its borders. It will permit 34 films annually instead of 20, provided the additional films use either large-screen IMAX or 3-D technologies. The country also will let U.S. studios keep roughly 25% of the box-office revenue from China viewing. Currently, U.S. studios get between 13.5% and 17.5%. (The limits don't apply to films co-produced with a Chinese company.)
The trade agreement came the same day that DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. DWA -0.06% announced a venture with three Chinese partners to develop films and television programs in China. DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg described it as a "historic alliance" that will produce animated and live action products "for China, by the Chinese, in China, at a quality that actually can be exported to the rest of the world."
Many of the new U.S.-China partnerships aim to create films that appeal to audiences inside and outside China. But that is a tricky balancing act. Films with Chinese themes and allusions often fizzle with Western audiences. Strong governmental oversight makes the challenge even more complex.
Signs of those challenges are clear in several recent films, including last year's "The Flowers of War." Starring Christian Bale—best known for playing Batman in "The Dark Knight"—the Chinese- and English-language film grossed more than $95 million in China in 2011 and 2012. That made it the country's highest-grossing Chinese film released last year.
In the U.S. however, no top distributor wanted the film. American distributors were concerned about the film's intense, often nationalistic violence, historical focus, and that much of it was in Chinese, according to people familiar with the distributors' decisions. Some worried that the movie would be grabbed and distributed by film pirates, still a big problem in China, before it reached U.S. theaters.
The film was picked up by distributor Wrekin Hill Entertainment, released in the U.S. in January and grossed roughly $300,000 in American theaters. Wrekin Hill Chief Executive Chris Ball says the film sold out during its one-week Academy Award-qualifying run last December, but "fell flat" after opening in January. He attributes the falloff to piracy, mixed reviews and the film's powerful, but difficult story.
"People are trying to design projects for success globally, but producers today really have to make a judgment call about if their films can really appeal to both the Chinese- and English-speaking markets," says Stephen Saltzman, a Hollywood lawyer who has handled several Chinese film deals.
The next two years will be a test. Several U.S.-China co-productions, including a science-fiction thriller from DMG starring Bruce Willis, are expected to hit theaters while top U.S. filmmakers are developing Chinese co-productions.
Doug Liman, director of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" in the U.S., is moving forward on a film about a British bodyguard to Sun Yat-sen, considered the father of modern China. A Sylvester Stallone action film called "The Expendables 2" recently had its application denied.
As of November, the China Film Co-production Corp. had processed 87 applications from foreign filmmakers, including seven from the U.S. This was an increase from 2009, when the government entity processed 65 applications, with three from the U.S.
More are coming. Earlier last month, a Chinese government-backed fund said it would begin co-financing and co-producing movies in both China and the U.S., and a Chinese media entrepreneur set up an $800 million fund to finance films around the world.
For Mr. Franzoni, who wrote the Tang Dynasty script, the path to China started with a fascination with Asia; his aunt had been a teacher in China. He also was having trouble getting certain projects off the ground in the U.S. His last three films as a screenwriter had been historical, including the Roman drama "Gladiator." In recent years, major film studios have focused on big-budget franchise films and remakes.
"I have stories to tell, and to be honest, I prefer doing nonmainstream historical epics, which are harder to get made in the U.S. unless they involve a brand name," he says.
Enter the Xi'an-based Qujiang Film and Television Investment Group, which had been working on a Tang Dynasty film since 2007, first as a Chinese project to be written and directed by local filmmakers and with a Chinese script. After roughly a year, the group changed gears and began looking for an American filmmaker to help "interpret Chinese history and culture in a way that Westerners could understand," says QFTV Chairman and President Guan Zhaoyi.
To help it interpret Chinese culture for a Western audience, the QFTV, in 2010, hired "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua. "They seemed like they had a certain amount of creative freedom to push the subject matter," Mr. Fuqua said.
Mr. Fuqua quickly tapped Mr. Franzoni, his partner on another historical epic, "King Arthur," to work on the story. In May, QFTV announced it would spend $30 million on the film, the Chinese group's first major production investment as it sought to find new opportunities in Hollywood. The filmmakers set August 2012 as a tentative start date for filming.
Any film that hopes to play commercially in China must be approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Committees from the group oversee all films shot in China at multiple steps of the production process and screen for content—typically political—that they consider harmful to the Chinese people.
With that in mind, Mr. Franzoni crafted about 10 pages to give his sponsors a sample of the story. Writing a synopsis was a rare exercise for the Oscar winner, but he thought it would be a good way to get in sync with his new collaborators. QFTV gave Mr. Franzoni use of its in-house historian to help guide his writing.
[CHFILM]
The story focuses on the Tang emperor Xuanzong, his imperial concubine, named Yang Guifei, and the foreign-born general, An Lushan. A favorite of both the emperor and his consort, the general went on to betray his former allies when he led a rebellion starting around 755 that led to their downfall.
Mr. Franzoni decided to use the outsider general, a familiar archetype to Western audiences, as a central character to help foreign audiences better grasp those distant times. "We have to make sure that if we fall down the rabbit hole, we have a rabbit we're familiar with," he says.
QFTV officials read Mr. Franzoni's treatment this past summer and passed it to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. The censors quickly raised concerns about Mr. Franzoni's approach, which they said risked presenting an unfaithful interpretation to historically aware audiences. QFTC told Mr. Franzoni that Chinese audiences would never accept Lushan in a heroic light.
Mr. Franzoni says he explained to his partners that even villains needed some humanizing elements to become complete characters. He cites Iago in Shakespeare's "Othello" as a character who was villainous yet well-developed.
Still, Mr. Franzoni reworked the treatment to address the government's concerns.
In the new version, "I treat the Emperor and Yang like Adam and Eve, and the palace like the Garden of Eden," Mr. Franzoni says he explained to his sponsors, "An Lushan's the snake." He adds that he remained true to his vision.
QFTV Chairman and President Guan Zhaoyi explained, "We had some conflicts about the script because if we change the story too much from what the Chinese know and expect, they won't be able to accept the film." QFTV chose to make the film a tragic love story, because it was a plotline that could be followed in any language, he says.
The government censors and other state officials didn't respond to requests for comment.
The goal is to appeal to wider audiences than several recent co-productions including Fox Searchlight's "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," which only grossed $7.1 million in China and $1.3 million in the U.S. Fox Searchlight is owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
Another worry: seeing popular Chinese movies like "Let the Bullets Fly," a 2010 action-comedy from China Film Group and Emperor Motion Pictures, only play in limited release in the U.S. "Bullets" is China's highest-grossing Chinese film of all time but has brought in roughly $61,000 from 15 locations in the U.S. since its release earlier this year.
"The audience for this film is your geek, fan boy and cult film crowds," said Jason Pfardrescher of Well Go USA Entertainment, the studio distributing the film in America. "It's definitely not mainstream America."
Instead, Mr. Franzoni and QFTV want a movie like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which 12 years after its release remains the U.S.'s top-grossing foreign film. Hoping to grab some of that magic, the filmmakers tentatively secured "Crouching Tiger" co-stars—Asian actors Chow Yun-Fat and Zhang Ziyi—for their film currently titled "Love Affair of the Tang Dynasty." Mr. Franzoni says the production also wants to cast a Western actor as the general.
After a January meeting with the censors over Mr. Franzoni's approach, QFTV officials got the green light. Regulators suggested that Mr. Franzoni work with another historian as he writes the script to help alleviate their concerns about the film's historical accuracy, according to the screenwriter. "I don't envision any problems," he says. "But I'm a very optimistic guy."
—Laurie Burkitt and Ethan Smith contributed to this article. Write to Michelle Kung at michelle.kung@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 17, 2012, on page A1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Odd Couple: China Meets Hollywood.

The China Myth Unravels

The Bo Xilai affair reveals a country whose political and social institutions are anything but stable.

  • By BRET STEPHENS

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Is the Middle Kingdom's rise inevitable? For 20 years at least, China boosters have told us it is, on the theory that the country's system is basically stable, its leaders basically reform-minded, and its people basically apolitical. Now, thanks to the Bo Xilai affair, we're learning it ain't necessarily so.
On the surface, the scandal involving the charismatic and ambitious Mr. Bo—party chief of the megacity of Chongqing until he was stripped of his political posts last month—and his glamorous wife Gu Kailai isn't too different from political scandals anywhere: Rod Blagojevich in Illinois, say, or Dominique Strauss-Kahn in France. Yes, there's also a murder angle involving the late Neil Heywood, a British business partner of Ms. Gu until they apparently had a falling out.
But a simple murder mystery implicating a senior provincial official should not be enough to shake the foundations of a state as accustomed to violence as China. It should not set rumors flying of a palace coup. It should not prompt urgent warnings from outgoing premier Wen Jiabao of the threat of another Cultural Revolution. It should not lead to an "anti-corruption" campaign that has all the trappings of a factional struggle.
Above all, it should not provoke a highly public re-education campaign within the People's Liberation Army to instruct the ranks on Mr. Bo's "wrong thinking" and secure their fealty to the Communist Party, thereby calling attention to just how attenuated that fealty may have become of late.
Yet Mr. Bo's abrupt downfall caused all of this, and then some. Why?
Reuters Bo Xilai in Beijing in March
The current favorite explanation is that he posed an ideological challenge to the regime. Mr. Bo led a highly public campaign against organized crime in Chongqing. It was twinned with an equally public spending spree on public housing and other social services, as well as an effort to revive a Maoist spirit by singing revolutionary songs.
Such "leftism"—part of a campaign to get Mr. Bo a seat on the Politburo's Standing Committee—was supposed to be a double-barreled threat to the regime. First, because it appealed to public sentiment and thereby had a whiff of democratic legitimacy. And second, because it challenged Beijing's ostensible neo-liberal orthodoxy.
But this theory is a little reminiscent of the old "world revolution" versus "socialism in one country" debate, which was really a contrivance masking the power struggle between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. What the Chinese have now learned (if they didn't know already) is that Mr. Bo and his wife were very much in business for themselves, and that their campaign against organized crime was in the nature of one mafia don's vendetta against his rivals. The concern for Chongqing's poor was the usual bunk—champagne socialism by its most cynical practitioners.
But even then the scandal wouldn't resonate among Chinese if it were an isolated case. In reality it's the norm.
Mr. Bo ran Chongqing like a fiefdom for his personal gain. So do most other city bosses in China. Mr. Bo is a "princeling" son of Maoist royalty. So is incoming supremo Xi Jingping. Mr. Bo's son drives a Ferrari. So do many other children of top party officials, who presumably cannot afford $200,000 cars on their modest government allowances.
"My father is Li Gang!" has gained the status of a proverb in today's China. It refers to what one young, fast-driving princeling supposedly yelled at police after he was detained for running over and killing a farm girl while driving drunk. The elder Mr. Li is deputy police chief in Baoding.
All this suggests that the Chinese aren't politically quiescent. They're furious. And their leaders—otherwise busy jockeying and horse-trading for position in the next government—need to figure out how they can allay that fury without also whetting it.
In the case of Mr. Bo and his wife, the regime will probably manage it: Show trials are, after all, a Communist specialty. Other party chieftains will probably also get the message to keep a low profile for themselves and their families, at least for the time being.
But patterns of authoritarian behavior—particularly nepotism, corruption and rent-seeking—are hard to put down in the absence of the accountability mechanisms China so notably lacks: a vigorous free media, periodic elections, economic competition, a bias toward transparency, the rule of law. Instead, the only mechanism the regime has is the purge. It may work in the short-term for eliminating enemies or satisfying bloodlusts. It won't work in the long-term for shoring up the regime's waning legitimacy.
Meantime, China's economy is slowing as income inequality grows—historically an explosive combination. Foreigners in China report that trying to do business is often futile when it isn't outright dangerous. Wealthy Chinese are leaving the country in growing numbers, a de facto vote of no-confidence in an economy whose prospects are supposedly limitless.
This is not a country on its way to global supremacy. The Bo scandal may pass soon enough, but what it has revealed will prove increasingly difficult to ignore.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 17, 2012, on page A13 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The China Myth Unravels.

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