Buried in China

Despite our government’s best efforts, we’ll probably never know why Neil Heywood died

Dealing with China is never easy, as everybody from Margaret Thatcher (over Hong Kong) to Barack Obama (over everything from currency issues to who is going to be top dog in the Pacific) has discovered. Now David Cameron and William Hague find themselves embroiled in the biggest political earthquake in the People’s Republic since the protests that led to the killings in Beijing in 1989.

At first, the death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, in a hotel room in the city of Chongqing in western China last November did not seem to be an event of political importance. Heywood had represented British companies in China, done deals, and worked for a consultancy set up by former MI6 people. He had built up a relationship with the family of Bo Xilai, the ambitious Chinese politician who ran Chongqing, a metropolis of 32 million inhabitants.