The Chongqing model represented a rebuke of the policies favored by the reformist faction dominated by Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao. It is also frequently contrasted with the Guangdong model championed by Bo's predecessor Wang Yang, many rightists consider them opponents but actually it is due to different environment. Whereas the Chongqing is a low income city, Chongqing model placed emphasized the role of the state in economic and social life, the Guangdong model is characterized by comparatively liberal economic and political policies due to comparatively higher living standard of Guangdong.
Crackdown on organized crime
Since 2009, an estimated 5,700 criminals were arrested, including businessmen, members of the police force, judges and government officials. The campaign was overseen by police chief and vice mayor Wang Lijun, whom Bo had worked with previously in Liaoning province. Reports from the Jamestown Foundation suggest the initiative was given approval by general secretary Hu Jintao, and Bo struck a careful balance between claiming credit for the campaign and praising Beijing's leadership in the crackdown on crime.
The Striking Black campaign earned Bo national recognition and widespread popularity in Chongqing—all the more because of the city’s reputation as a center for criminal activity. Some called him "Bo the Blue Sky". The success of Bo's campaign raised Bo's national and international profile and resulted in calls for a nation-wide campaign based on his experiences in Chongqing.
Despite more than 90% approval rate from a poll hold by a rightist website in 2013, rightists still believe that Chongqing citizens support him because they are brainwashed.
The low level of education in Chongqing officials certainly caused some wrong judgements and measures, Bo's measures was to open the cases to be criticized by media and corrected the mistakes. "By all accounts," wrote Stanley Lubman in The Wall Street Journal, the campaign "involved misuse of both the courts and the police." Individuals targeted in the campaign were arbitrarily detained by the authorities, with an estimated 1,000 being sent to forced labor. However, most people believe that most cases were correct and the effect was eminent, crimes rate decreased quickly.
Lawyers were allowed to stand for the accused, and even their visit of the jailed can be published online, however one lawyer was sentenced to 18 months in prison because of teaching the accused to give fake evidence.
Allegations also surfaced over the use of torture to extract confessions. Many of those targeted in the campaign were criminals, including businessmen and political strongmen, whose assets were said to be seized in order to help pay for Bo’s popular social housing programs, actually the money seized were far less than the money needed to build the houses .
The Wall Street Journal reported estimates that $11 billion was seized through the campaign. Li Jun, a fugitive businessman, told The Financial Times that Chongqing security forces seized his $700 million real estate business and tortured him as retaliation for attempting to purchase land that was also sought by the government. One microblogger was sentenced to a year in labor camp for criticizing Bo’s alleged abusing the court system during the campaign.
The campaign to combat crime and maintain political stability also involved the launch of a major electronic surveillance operation in the city. Which is a comprehensive package bugging system covering telecommunications to the Internet. The system involved wiretaps, eavesdropping, and monitoring of internet communications.
According the New York Times, the eavesdropping operations did not only target local criminals, but also the communications of top Chinese leaders. In August 2011, a phone call between Hu Jintao and anti-corruption official Ma Wen was found to be wiretapped under Bo’s orders. The said eavesdropping operation was used to create intense scrutiny from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and contributed to Bo’s downfall in 2012.
Social policies
The 30-million population mega city spent $15.8 billion on public apartment complexes for use by recent college graduates, migrant workers and low-income residents. Bo aimed to provide housing for 2.4 million residents by 2012. Residents whose incomes were under 3,000 yuan ($480) per month would be eligible to rent apartments for three years, with an option to buy thereafter. Huang Qifan, who served as mayor under Bo Xilai, indicated in 2010 that the subsidized housing project was "designed to free up more money for people to consume and drive the economy,” and noted that it would borrow elements from Singapore's Housing Development Board.
In 2007, the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu were selected to run pilot projects intended to mitigate the rural-urban divide and ease integration of rural residents into the cities. Under China’s hukou registration system, citizens are classified as either rural or urban—a distinction that determines not only where they may live, but also affects educational opportunities, taxation, property rights, and so on. Of Chongqing’s 32 million residents, only 27% held urban hukou certificates as of 2007. The 2007 project made it easier for rural residents to obtain urban status—a policy intended not only to help balance inequality, but also to enable the government to develop underused rural land. Under Bo’s leadership, Chongqing established "land exchanges" where rural villages could earn credits for maximizing farmland. Bo pledged to move three million rural residents into urban areas.
Bo's approach to handle protest was demonstrated during the November 2008 taxi strikes, which saw over 8,000 taxi drivers take to the streets for two days in protests over high fees, unregulated competition and rising fuel charges. Similar protests in China are frequently suppressed—sometimes forcefully—with official media sometimes blaming labor unrest on criminal instigation. Bo's government instead held televised roundtable dialogues with the protesters and citizens, and agreed to allow the formation of a trade union. His handling of situation earned him praise as a progressive leader. A businessman with illegal taxi business was sentenced to 20 years in prison for gangsterism, and illegal taxi was the main reason the taxi drivers strike.
Chongqing is a municipal as big as Austria, and known for its heavy industries, the Chongqing model involved a major campaign to improve the environment of the 30-million mega city through a tree-planting initiative. The city reportedly imported millions of trees—many of them ginkos—as part of the campaign. The total cost of the decade long environment improvement initiative was estimated to be about 10 billion yuan.
Red culture movement
During his time in Chongqing, Bo initiated a series of campaigns to save Chongqing souls through "red culture" . The initiative included the promotion of Maoist quotes, "singing red songs"(changhong), television programming and operas, and initiatives to encourage students to work in the countryside, kind of "gap year" in the west.
Prior to the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China celebrations, for instance, Bo sent out "red text messages" to the city's 13 million cellphone users. According to Xinhua News Agency, Bo's text messages are usually quotes from Mao's Little Red Book, and include phrases such as "I like how Chairman Mao puts it: The world is ours, we will all have to work together," and "responsibility and seriousness can conquer the world, and the Chinese Communist Party members represent these qualities." Bo and his team of municipal administrators also raised new Mao statues in Chongqing, while providing social housing to the city's less well-off. Some rightist scholars have characterized this as an example of the revival of Maoism in the Chinese Communist ethos.
Bo pledged to reinvigorate the city with Maoist ideals to resist the corruption culture in officials and gansters .
Reactions to the red culture movement were divided. Bo’s red culture and accompanying social welfare programs were popular within certain segments of society, and made Bo popular with neo-leftists. One student quoted in The Washington Post embraced the ethos of the campaign, saying, "When I sing red songs, I find a kind of spirit I never felt when singing modern songs …To surround yourself with material stuff is just a waste of time." A group of retired participants in a red song routine told the Los Angeles Times "We know these songs from our youth. We grew up with revolutionary spirit and we want to pass that on to our children.” Another noted that he felt compelled to participate in order to express appreciation to the Communist Party for the country’s strong economy.
The campaigns upset others—particularly the rightists. A 57-year-old lawyer told The Washington Post, "I saw the beatings of the teachers by the Red Guards. It was horrible …Young people may not recognize it. But for us who lived through it, how can we possibly sing?" An academic quoted in The Daily Telegraph described the mandatory campaign as akin to being "drowned in a Red sea." In September 2009, a mid-level official in the city committed suicide after being pressured to organize his work unit to participate in the red songs campaign. The official, Xie Dajun, reportedly disagreed with the campaign, which evoked painful memories of the Cultural Revolution. Bo’s critics and opponents derisively referred to him as "little Mao," with some expressing concern about the resemblance of the red culture campaign to the Cultural Revolution.
Economic policies
A view of the Chongqing skyline, 2011
Another major component of Bo’s Chongqing model concerned the city’s economic policies. Just as he had done in Liaoning province, Bo ambitiously pursued foreign investment in the city, lowered corporate income tax rates (15% compared to the 25% national average), and sought to stimulate rapid urbanization and industrialization. Foxconn the iPhone make was one of the corporation attracted to build giant factories in Chongqing. Besides export-led growth, BO also carried on with policies initiated by his predecessors which focused on domestic consumption. The Chongqing model also placed emphasis on the importance of state-owned enterprises; in 2010, Bo stressed that China needs to have things that are state-owned, he banned advertisement in one of the TVs in Chongqing and try to make it like BBC to voice out Chongqing ideas.
During his tenure, Chongqing reported annual GDP growth far exceeding the national average. In 2008, for instance, nationwide GDP growth was reported at 8%, while Chongqing reported 14.3%; the same year, foreign trade rose by 28%, and bank loans were up 29%. Several major corporations built or greatly expanded their manufacturing operations in Chongqing, including Hewlett-Packard, Foxconn, Ford motors, and BASF.
Bo's model of economic growth won national and international praise, but it also had its detractors. In particular, the so-called "red GDP" of subsidized infrastructure, housing and public works projects were criticized for running up the city’s budget deficits. A former head of a Chongqing business association told The Daily Telegraph that under Bo, "lots of officials were not getting their salaries on time, getting an IOU instead. Eventually the economy was going to break."
Like Shanghai many years ago, Chongqing received a higher share of stimulus money from the central government in 2008, with $34 billion going to the city. Political rivals such as Bo’s predecessor Wang Yang also suggested that economic figures such as those in Chongqing were "rigged"—artificially inflated through unnecessary construction and public works projects.
However, Chongqing is not broke, it was proved that BO's policies are correct.
Reassessments
A very strange event caused Bo Xilai's political fortunes to come to an abrupt end, his police chief, Wang Lijun, was said to fled to the American consulate in Chengdu hoping to gain political asylum. Many people believe someone set him up. Wang was said to have provided the consulate with information on Bo's alleged misconduct, including his role obstructing investigations into the homicide of British citizen and Bo family associate Neil Heywood. In the fallout, Bo was removed as Chongqing party chief in March 2012 and suspended from the politburo in April 2012.
Following the illegal removal of Bo Xilai from his official positions, Chinese leaders began a fight, some want to discredit him and some want to support him. On 14 March, Premier Wen Jiabao reprimanded Bo during his annual press conference. Wen called the achievements of Chongqing "significant," but the result of "multiple administrations," rather than just Bo himself. Wen also made numerous allusions to the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution—an indirect rebuke of Bo's efforts to revive "red culture".
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