ABSTRACT
China’s effort to ensure a smooth and orderly leadership transition, especially at this delicate stage in its modernisation process when politics and economics are intertwined, was severely disrupted in early February 2012 by the events centering on Politburo (PB) member and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. The vicious infighting between powerful factions — to capture more positions in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) two top bodies, namely, the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) and Politburo (PB) — spilled out of the bounds of strict Party discipline into full public glare on 6 February. The events highlighted the fragility of China’s power structure and have left the CCP bruised and definitively weakened.
