The Mighty Fall Hard

Not long ago, Lu Wei was the head of the Cyberspace Administration, the regulator and planner for the Internet in China.  Time Magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people in 2015.  Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Communist Party, personally took an interest in progress in his work, but now oversees his removal from the Party and eventual prosecution in court.  Friends in high places takes on a whole new meaning at that level of government.  

The Internet under Lu’s direction was the most monitored of any country in the world.  It is bound, watched, and filtered.  It is used to attack foreign websites and disrupt operations of those criticizing the Chinese government.   There are almost a billion users on that net, so it is not an easy task to monitor and censor them all, but he oversaw it.  His influence got him into many U.S. businesses and he got to sit in Mark Zukerburg’s chair at Facebook, famously recorded by the PR folks there.  Facebook never did get to China.  

So how does a person fall so fast from grace?  The allegations shown below from the South China Morning Post, are not so easy to interpret.  In China, the charges seldom match what a person has really done.  At one level he sounds like a Harvey Weinstein  soliciting “sex for power”, but at another, more vague than that:

“Other alleged misconduct and failings included using all means to build personal fame, making false and anonymous accusations against others, deceiving the top Communist leadership, extreme disloyalty, duplicity, trading power for sex, improper discussion of the party and a lack of self control.”  

In most countries that would not be enough to oust a person from such a lofty post.  Imagine politicians you voted for being accused of doing these kinds of things while in office, and think if you would vote for them again.  You probably have voted for people who did all of those things.  Deceiving the top Communist Leadership is probably the worst one.  What could he possibly deceived them about that would get him exorcised from government?