WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Information about a Chinese policeman who implicated the wife of a top Chinese official in a British businessman’s murder was not circulated widely in Washington as he was considered of marginal intelligence value, current and former US officials said.
In the weeks since Wang Lijun’s visit to the US Consulate in Chengdu and his subsequent detention, some critics of the Obama administration have accused it of fumbling what could have been one of the highest-level defectors ever from inside China’s clannish leadership class.
Part of that criticism is based on a story line that upon reaching the consulate in Chengdu on Feb 6, Wang requested political asylum.
The administration’s public line has been that Wang did not request asylum and left the consulate of his own accord.
However, some officials suggest that at some point, Wang at least may have hinted at a desire for asylum. And some US officials say consultations were held at a high level in Washington before Wang left the consulate and surrendered to what he believed were friendly central government officials.
US diplomats and intelligence officials said US agencies were initially skeptical of Wang’s stories and that one of his most sensational claims, involving an alleged murder, was not circulated in Washington to officials normally briefed on such information.
“We were not told about the murder (allegations) until much later,” after stories describing Wang Lijun’s visit to the consulate surfaced in the media, one US official told Reuters. This official and others said agencies in Washington dealing with the Wang case concluded that while intriguing, it was primarily a local sideshow involving individuals, including Wang himself, of questionable character and credibility.
Their bottom-line assessment was that the revelations from Wang, who had served as police chief and deputy mayor of Chongqing, another major provincial metropolis about 300 km (188 miles) from Chengdu, were less than the “treasure trove” media reports have described.
And while Wang’s scandalous allegations surfaced just as China’s Communist Party was preparing to anoint a new generation of leaders – including one of the principal targets of his claims – Washington concluded that they did not seriously threaten the party’s control over the country. Hence little consideration was given during Wang’s 24-hour visit to the consulate to offering him US government protection or secreting him out of the country.
Wang’s allegations, directed principally against populist Chongqing party leader Bo Xilai and his wife, Gu Kailai, ruined Bo’s hopes of ascending to the party’s highest ruling body, a subcommittee of the Politburo.
However, according to US intelligence assessments, while China’s Communist Party faces traditional factional tensions, the long-term political fallout of Bo’s downfall will be limited and there is little similarity with the upheaval that shook China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
“From the US government’s point of view, what is the upside of getting involved in this?” said Brookings Institution scholar Kenneth Lieberthal, a former senior adviser on Asia to former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
US officials said there were other reasons officers at the consulate ultimately arranged for, or persuaded, Wang to leave of his own accord and surrender to what Wang believed were sympathetic Chinese central government officials. Wang believed that his life might be in jeopardy if he was taken into custody by his enemies from Chongqing, whom he believed to have travelled to Chengdu and surrounded the US Consulate, current and former US officials said.
However, he also believed that representatives of the Beijing central government would protect him because Beijing and Wang shared antagonists in Chongqing, the sources said.
The US officials who spoke to Reuters said consular officials were also wary of Wang as for some time they had been hearing reports about alleged infighting and corruption among officials in Chongqing and Wang’s personal reputation was not blemish-free.
They said that while US agencies and diplomatic outposts maintain procedures for arranging asylum, and even clandestine escapes for dissidents in mortal danger, the bar is set extremely high for such extreme measures.
Wang’s case did not come close to meeting that standard, officials said, because he was not regarded by US officials as a target for, or a victim of, human rights abuses.
The US officials said that when he arrived unexpectedly at the consulate, Wang told tales of political and financial intrigue involving Bo Xilai and his wife, Gu.
His most sensational disclosure was his claim that Gu had been involved in the alleged murder of Neil Heywood, a British businessman who had helped the couple’s son, Bo Guagua, into Britain’s elite Harrow boarding school.
