A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel Read Online Free Page B

reposted it an hour later, then removed it again. To many, it was an indication that local officials had lost direction and did not know what to do.
    Wang’s defection had caught Beijing off guard. While senior leaders were mulling over a solution, government censors were left without directions. They waited for instructions, unsure what they should be blocking and what could go through; their inaction allowed comments and news leaks to flood the network. Wang Xing,a journalist with China’s Southern Metropoli s Daily newspaper, found out from a contact at the Chengdu Municipal Public Security Bureau that Wang Lijun had left Chengdu. His newspaper spiked the story, so he posted it on Weibo: “Wang Lijun was taken away [ from the US Consulate ] this morning in a car provided by the Sichuan Provincial Public Security Department. He then flew to Beijing.” The posting proved to be true.
    Western media outlets, such as Forbes, Reuters , the New York Times , and Voice of America, contacted the US Embassy in Beijing to verify the details. Richard Buangan, US Embassy spokesman, said he was “not in a position to comment regarding reported requests for asylum.” On the night of February 8, under intense media pressure, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed in Washington that Wang had requested a meeting with the Chengdu consul two days earlier, then “left of his own volition.” Nuland declined to comment on whether Wang had requested asylum.
    The lack of details prompted many of Wang’s supporters to question claims that their patriotic anticrime hero would seek political asylum at the US Consulate. One Weibo posting quoted an inside source as saying Wang was the unwitting victim of a trap by his enemies within the party—in this version of events, the US consul general had invited Wang to go in for an urgent antiterrorism meeting.
    On February 9, political insiders bombarded Mingjing News and Boxun with details and speculation. Despite years of government control, ordinary people have stopped trusting the state-run media. News from overseas is considered more credible than a report in the People’s Daily . Knowing that antifirewall software enables overseas news to filter back to China, different political factions have learned to use overseas Chinese media to influence public opinion and embarrass their opponents by supplying them with inside scoops. Not all of the information I had received was reliable—there were many elements of deliberate fabrication—but as the events unfolded in the following months, the majority proved to be true, or at least close to the truth.
    On the morning of February 9, an article on Boxun, which quoted an official from Beijing, shed more light on Wang’s “defection”:
            On the afternoon of February 6, after attending several activities at a university in Chongqing, Wang Lijun left in disguise and entered the US Consulate in Chengdu to seek political asylum.
                Authorities in Chongqing sent troops to the consulate and surrounded the building for twenty-four hours. During his stay, Wang Lijun had long conversations with American intelligence officials and divulged political information relating to power struggles within the Chinese leadership. He also applied for political asylum. Due to pressure from the Chinese government and to the fact that Wang was disturbed and emotionally unstable, American officials turned him over to the Ministry of State Security early in the morning of February 8. At the moment, he is being held for questioning at a secure location in Beijing.
                Before leaving the US Consulate, Wang was heard talking to officials of the State Security Ministry: “I’m Bo Xilai’s victim. Bo Xilai is a conspirator. I’m going to fight him until my death. My evidence against him has been transferred overseas.”
                Wang’s attempted defection made Bo and his wife, Gu Kailai,