Chongqing Party Leader Ousted

The news, announced Thursday morning in a brief dispatch by the official Xinhua news agency, said that Vice Prime Minister Zhang Dejiang, a North Korean-educated economist, would replace him as Chongqing party secretary. Xinhua did not mention a new job for Mr. Bo or say whether he would keep his spot on the party’s 25-seat Politburo.

Until recently, Mr. Bo had been a prime contender for the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo, a nine-member body that effectively runs the country. Seven members are to be replaced, and Mr. Bo’s demotion suggests there will be more drama in a usually secret process.

Tall, charismatic and unusually loquacious for a Chinese official, Mr. Bo, 63, is the son of a revolutionary hero and was well-positioned — thanks to his extensive connections — to ascend the party hierarchy.

His prospects clouded last month when a handpicked deputy, Wang Lijun, sought refuge in the United States Consulate in Chengdu, a city in Sichuan Province about 210 miles from Chongqing. Mr. Wang, who had reportedly fallen out with Mr. Bo and, according to an American official, had feared for his safety, spent the night in the consulate before being escorted to Beijing by security officers.

On Thursday, Mr. Wang was removed from his post as vice mayor, according to a state media dispatch issued shortly after Mr. Bo’s demotion was announced.

For a party obsessed with secrecy and the sheen of stability, the past five weeks have been especially roiling. Ding Xueliang, a social scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said Mr. Wang’s visit to the consulate — during which American officials say he revealed damaging information about Mr. Bo — set off a cascade of events that has convulsed the party establishment.

“The Wang Lijun incident has changed the rules of the game by drawing international attention to internal politics,” Mr. Ding said. “What the party fears most are abnormal events like this.”

The political high jinks have riveted ordinary Chinese and emboldened Mr. Bo’s many critics, who assailed a populist governing style that included a ferocious assault on criminals, entrepreneurs and political enemies.

Not long after arriving in the fog-shrouded mountain city in 2007, Mr. Bo began a “red” campaign that urged its residents to sing Cultural Revolution-era songs and peppered their cell phones with Maoist slogans. He also introduced what became known as the “Chongqing model” of economic development, which included lavish infrastructure spending and tending to the needs of the municipality’s poor.

While popular in the city of 30 million, Mr. Bo’s style unnerved some who said his tactics and revolutionary rhetoric threatened to revive the destructive ways of China’s leftist past.

Mr. Wang, a longtime ally, was instrumental in carrying out Chongqing’s law-and-order juggernaut. When he held the job of police chief, he took on the city’s gangs, arresting 2,000 people, including high-level Communist Party officials accused of shielding crime lords. Some people, however, lambasted the campaign as cutting judicial corners; 13 people were executed after speedy trials.

Mr. Bo’s reputation for running roughshod over established legal norms was heightened by the prosecution of Li Zhuang, a prominent Beijing defense lawyer who was jailed on charges that he encouraged a client to fake testimony during his trial in Chongqing. The case was widely viewed as unfair.

Sentenced to 18 months in prison, Mr. Li was released early through the intervention of powerful allies in Beijing, but the incident only earned Mr. Bo more foes.

Jonathan Ansfield, Mia Li and Li Bibo contributed research.

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