The tragedy of Gu Kailai
Chang Ping says the details of Gu Kailai's life revealed at her husband's trial showed her to be a woman who railed against being a submissive wife yet loved the privileges it brought her
When China was in the grip of Peng Liyuan fever, back in March, Gu Kailai was already serving time for murder. I don't know whether Gu read any of the glowing media reports about the new first lady and, if she did, what she thought of them. If her husband, Bo Xilai , really did have his eye on the top ranks of Chinese politics, Gu must have once coveted the role now taken by Peng, and believed she could have played it better.
Sadly for her, Bo's downfall meant the end of such hopes; her public image has been dragged through the mud.
Gu was the "star" of the five-day "trial of the century" in Jinan , Shandong . The court that sat to hear corruption charges against Bo was told that Gu abused her husband's influence and solicited bribes without his knowledge; had an affair with her husband's subordinate amid a web of entangled business relationships with other men; and murdered one of them but failed to bury the evidence, thus ruining Bo's political career.
No wonder a veteran political analyst quipped that the talk among high-ranking party cadres and government officials this week must be: "Never marry a woman like Gu Kailai."
It’s the women we ought to caution: if you are a woman like Gu Kailai, do not marry into power
But how could a man tell if the woman he wants to marry will turn out one day to be someone who takes bribes, is unfaithful and commits murder? It's possible that a woman who's capable of such deeds would be egocentric, inconsiderate and unsupportive - in short, a woman who does not know her place. Perhaps it's the women we ought to caution: if you are a woman like Gu Kailai, do not marry into power.
China's rich and powerful wield so much influence that abuse is inevitable; not just inevitable, in fact, but necessary to get anywhere.
