Blog commenter jk6411 at the Marmot's Hole was kind enough to translate this Korean language news item for me. Bottom line is that the facade of lockstep agreement in dictatorships is just that - a facade.
Wen JiaBao’s PLA unit and Zhou YongKang’s security force were in a standoff, over the custody of Xu Ming, an associate of Bo XiLai. Eventually Zhou’s force was driven out. Zhou is an ally of Bo XiLai. Wen was investigating Bo.
Zhou gained custody of Xu Ming first on Mar. 14. On Mar. 19, Wen found out and ordered that Xu Ming be turned over to him. But Zhou resisted. He had Xu moved to another location, but on the way they lost custody of Xu to Wen’s people. Zhou then deployed a security force to regain custody of Xu. Zhou’s force surrounded ZhongNanHai, where Xu had apparently been taken. They got into a standoff with the PLA unit 8341*, which was in charge of ZhongNanHai. They were all armed and the two groups were in a yelling match late into the night. Eventually the PLA unit drove out Zhou’s forces.
Afterwards, Zhou was investigated for the incident and wrote self-criticisms**.
Xu Ming is currently being detained and investigated in regard to Bo XiLai’s case.
* Unit 8341 is basically a palace guard unit with 8000 troops.
** He wasn't purged, presumably because such a move could have ignited a wider conflict between his supporters and Wen's partisans.
Source: http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/04/21/2012042100174.html?news_Head1 |