Jew World Order

Most unsettling is that the death of this amiable businessman has been swept
up into a power struggle at the very top of the Chinese leadership.Two weeks
ago, Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s Communist Party secretary, was abruptly purged in
a power struggle. The son of one of the founders of the party, Mr Bo was
destined, according to supporters, to lead the nation. Heywood was close to
Bo and his wife, Gu Kailai, and may have helped their son Bo Guagua gain
admission to Harrow School and then Balliol College, Oxford. It is the sort
of high-powered connection which few foreigners are able to maintain in
China, and it may have cost Heywood his life.

Its importance emerged only after Wang Lijun, a former police chief in
Chongqing and once an ally of Bo, sought refuge in the US consulate in
Chengdu and spilled the beans on what he knew of Heywood’s death. He claimed
to have quarrelled with Bo after telling him of his suspicions that Heywood
had been poisoned. Wang had also failed to keep an appointment at the
British consulate.

Sources have now confirmed that there is a direct connection between what Wang
told the Americans in early February and the call by the Foreign Office to
the Chinese authorities asking for an investigation into the death.

Wang cannot respond publicly to the rumours and reports, as he is under
investigation. Bo, 62, and his wife have disappeared from public view since
he was removed as party chief on March 15, in China’s greatest political
drama in decades. He is reportedly confined to his house in Beijing, watched
by the Central Guard Bureau, a unit of the army under the careful control of
the party’s General Office. His wife is said to be under more formal
detention.

The revelation has sent shockwaves through China, and officialdom has shrouded
the story from view. It is impossible even to search for Heywood’s name on
Baidu, China’s version of Google. His friends and acquaintances have gone to
ground. No one wants to be linked to him.

In Chongqing this week, no one could say exactly where his body was found, or
what he was doing at the time at the time of his death. No one could explain
why he was cremated before an autopsy was performed. The police told British
officials that he had died after drinking excessively, but told his family –
his wife who is Chinese and two sons – that he had died of a heart attack.
No one knows who he might have been drinking with, and his friends say heavy
alcohol consumption was not characteristic.

Friends in England described Heywood as a character from a Graham Greene
novel: charming, noble, patriotic, and with old-fashioned manners. He was
keen on sports and sailing. After growing up in Clapham in south-west
London, he followed his father Peter, and his grandfather, to Harrow.

In China, he traded on this pedigree. “He very much wore the old-school tie,”
said a family friend. “He was well-connected, and emphasised his
Britishness.” He always dressed immaculately, and was perhaps the first
person to import a classic car, an Aston Martin.

Together with his friend Christopher Boddington, an accountant at
PriceWaterhouse Coopers, he ran a consultancy, Heywood Boddington
Associates. According to its former chief China consultant, the firm “helped
foreign companies enter China, marketed research reports, provided
investment advice, acted as a sourcing agency and accompanied senior
managers on visits to China”.

It helped Manganese Bronze, the makers of the black cab, evaluate the Chinese
market. Heywood also consulted for Hakluyt, a corporate intelligence firm
founded 17 years ago by Christopher James, a former SAS and MI6 operative,
and businessman Christopher Wilkins, who had served in the Welsh Guards.
Some of Heywood’s friends, with a nod and a wink, suggested he might himself
be “one of them”.

With its head office in Mayfair, branches in New York and Singapore and a
website that provides minimal information, Hakluyt prides itself on its
discretion and access to the high-powered, with an impressive list of
clients, and an advisory board that includes former senior politicians and
diplomats. The company attracted unwelcome publicity in 2001 after it used
an undercover agent, known as Manfred, in environmental groups targeting
Shell and BP. It has not been pleased by these latest reports of its
involvement in the “murky world of corporate intelligence” and has been keen
to play down Heywood’s role. A spokesman told the Evening Standard that his
relationship with the company had been ”fleeting’’ and ”passing’’.

“Hakluyt make their money by saying ‘we are very discreet, very well
connected, we know everyone at the highest level and our name never comes
out’. This doesn’t make them look very smart,” said a rival.

Perhaps helping to fuel the rumours, some of the information about Heywood has
been contradictory. Some sources described him as a high-level operator, a
low-key but extremely effective fixer, with connections to the very top.
Others said he was simply a normal businessman, helping foreign companies to
understand China, though his connections to Bo and his wife undermine that
theory.

A diplomatic source admitted: “We are not sure what happened. We hear some
things, from some sources, and then, from other credible people, we hear
other information.”

The timing of the revelation of the link between Mr Heywood and Bo is
suspicious, and could be part of a well-orchestrated smear campaign against
the suave and sophisticated former party boss. “The British Embassy had been
looking at this case for weeks, so the question is why did the news emerge
just now? Someone is obviously trying to stir up rumours against Mr Bo,”
said one source with inside knowledge.

In the meantime, Mr Heywood’s wife and children, who are believed to still be
in the country, and his family in Britain, have been deeply upset by the
furore, and by the possibility that his case is being used in a political power
play.

”It is so sad that he has been painted as a mysterious man, or a secret man,”
said a childhood friend. “He was very open, not at all secret to those who
knew him. He was a lovely, funny man.”