The king falls

Instead of travelling immediately to Beijing to explain the situation and his decision to send his own private army to retrieve Wang from the US consulate, Bo Xilai did something that alarmed other senior leaders in the Party.

He flew to the southwestern city of Kunming, 650km away from Chongqing, and visited a military complex that is home to the 14th Group Army, the successor to the unit commanded by his father during the Communist revolution. As he toured the base where a waxwork model of Bo Yibo is on prominent display, state media explained that Bo Xilai was there to “cherish the memory of revolutionary ancestors”.

The highly symbolic visit conveyed a powerful message by highlighting his deep ties to the military as well as his powerful pedigree as the son of a revolutionary leader. It suggested that he was not concerned about Wang's betrayal.

But according to one person with knowledge of the matter, Bo had to be persuaded to return to Chongqing by Zhou Yongkang, the formidable Politburo standing committee member in charge of domestic security and espionage, who travelled specially to Kunming to talk with him.

After Zhou offered his political support and assured Bo he would survive this incident, Bo flew back to Chongqing and carried on as if nothing had happened, meeting the Canadian prime minister and other scheduled guests.

At the opening of the annual Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing on March 2, 2012, less than a month after Wang's attempted defection, Bo lined up on the podium along with the 24 other members of the Politburo. He put on a brave face for the 3,000 assembled delegates and journalists in the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, turning directly to the press gallery at one point and beaming his signature smile.

But in internal government meetings Bo was livid, haranguing Chongqing officials and telling them that Wang's flight and the rumours swirling around him were all part of a “plot instigated by foreign reactionary forces”.

Over the next two weeks, Bo appeared in public nearly a dozen times, including occasions when he was accompanied by senior military and civilian figures, such as Zhou Yongkang. He even held a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress where he talked for two hours, stepping out for 15 minutes in the middle to “take an important phone call”.

Dressed in his usual dapper blue suit and appearing relaxed, Bo took responsibility for “negligent supervision” in allowing Wang Lijun to escape but dismissed suggestions he was under investigation himself or had offered to resign.

In response to repeated questions about the scandal he said that unspecified enemies had “formed criminal blocs with wide social ties and the ability to shape opinion” and were “pouring filth” on him and his family. And in an obvious swipe at his rivals in the central government, Bo criticised China's worsening inequality.

“If only a minority if people are wealthy, then we would be heading towards capitalism and we would have failed. If a new capitalist class emerges then we've really taken the wrong route,” he said.

Four days later, on March 14, Bo attended the closing ceremony of the National People's Congress, China's annual session of its rubber stamp parliament, and again sat alongside his Politburo colleagues on the stage in the Great Hall of the People. Looking tired and distracted, at one point he stared up at the cavernous ceiling as if saying a silent prayer.

As the ceremony ended and China's most senior leaders got up to leave, shaking hands with each other and talking in groups, Bo stood quickly and strode off the stage without stopping to speak with anyone.

Waiting in the wings were officers of the elite Central Guard Unit charged with guarding China's top leaders, who led him away, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

As of September, 2012, that was the last time Bo was seen in public or spoke to any members of his family.

As Bo was taken away, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stepped out onto the stage in another part of the building to present his annual live televised press conference to the nation. Without ever mentioning Bo by name, he delivered a scathing verdict on the Chongqing model and Bo's political legacy, saying the city's leaders needed to “seriously reflect” on their actions and warning that China could see a replay of the Cultural Revolution if it pursued the wrong policies.

In a hint of just how much trouble Bo was in, Wen said the government had launched a “special investigation” into Wang Lijun's spectacular escape and the results would be made public so it could “withstand the test of law and history”.

The next morning, on March 15, the government released a terse statement announcing that Bo had been removed as Party secretary of Chongqing and replaced by Zhang Dejiang, a North Korea-trained economist and another leading contender for a spot on the Politburo standing committee in autumn 2012. In a symbolic coincidence, his downfall came on the ides of March.

At this stage, most China-watching political analysts believed Bo's chances of making it on to the standing committee were effectively finished but that he was still likely to be given a more ceremonial role and allowed to live out his days in peace.

In fact, he had been held temporarily in a villa in the Communist seaside resort of Beidaihe while a number of his associates, including the Dalian businessman Xu Ming, were also detained in connection with his case.

At around the same time, Gu Kailai and her accomplice Zhang Xiaojun were arrested on suspicion of murdering Neil Heywood.

News of their arrest and Bo's formal suspension from the Politburo on suspicion of “serious discipline violations” did not come until almost a month later, on April 10, 2012.

Late that evening Chinese state media released another terse statement on the charges, which for the first time explicitly connected the family to Heywood's murder.

In the intervening weeks, Beijing was awash with wild rumours of attempted coups, splits in the leadership and a widening investigation that implicated other top members of the ruling elite.

But public acknowledgement that two of the most prominent members of the country's “red aristocracy” were accused of heinous crimes made it official that China's ruling party was facing its worst internal crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

“The downfall of Bo Xilai represents the biggest challenge to the Communist party's legitimacy in more than two decades,” says Cheng Li, the expert in Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution. “It potentially could prompt a challenge to the entire political system.”

In addition to sketchy reports of a clean-up within the ranks of the military, at least one other senior Party figure was badly hurt by Bo's political demise.

Zhou Yongkang, the Politburo standing committee member in charge of domestic security and espionage, was seen as Bo's staunchest ally and in the wake of Bo's downfall he was forced to make at least one humiliating “confession” to senior colleagues.

According to senior Party officials, Zhou's power over the country's pervasive domestic security forces was greatly curtailed and he lost a say in the leadership overhaul due to be unveiled in October 2012.