Comeuppance Chinese-style: not a good year for snakes

Review of the Chinese year, Part 3: how the rich and powerful got a taste of their own medicine

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(Image credit: 2012 AFP)

SHANGHAI – As China’s income disparity grows at a venemous pace, those with a sense of entitlement appear just as capable of avarice, arrogance and indifference to the suffering of others as their counterparts in the West.

The most high-profile among the rich and powerful to make the headlines in the Year of the Snake were Bo Xilai, the populist politician, and Li Tianyi, the 17-year-old son of two household-name singers from the People’s Liberation Army.

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Gary Jones is a China correspondent for The Week online, dividing his time between Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. He has written for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, GQ and Wallpaper among others, and for newspapers in Australia, Canada and the US.