The Unquiet Death of a Chinese Peasant
Lenient Treatment for Driver in 'BMW Case' Ignites Media Frenzy, Wide Discussion of Wealth and Justice

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A14

BEIJING, Jan. 15 -- It could have been just another accident in a country where new drivers are plentiful and traffic deaths are on the rise. Two motorists argued after a minor collision, attracting a crowd, and as one attempted to leave, her car lunged forward, killing a bystander and injuring a dozen others before crashing into a tree.

A few months later, the driver paid damages to the victims, pleaded inexperience behind the wheel and expressed remorse in court. A judge ruled the Oct. 16 crash accidental, found the woman guilty of "causing a traffic disturbance" and handed down a suspended sentence.

The story might have ended there but for a few details that intrigued Chinese journalists: The defendant was driving a new, metallic silver BMW sport-utility vehicle; the other motorist was a peasant operating an old tractor loaded with a harvest of green onions; and the bystander who was killed was the peasant's wife.

In China, where the divide between rich and poor is widening, faith in the courts is low and the increasingly profit-driven state media are hungry for juicy stories, that's all it took to transform a smashup in the northeastern city of Harbin into a national obsession. In newspapers, on television and on the Internet, people across the country are talking about what is now commonly referred to as "The BMW Case."

In the weeks since the judge's Dec. 20 ruling, tens of thousands of people have flooded the Internet with angry messages accusing the court of protecting the BMW driver and demanding she be prosecuted for homicide. Many repeated rumors that the 45-year-old housewife threatened to kill the tractor driver before stepping on the gas, that her husband is a tycoon related to a senior city official, and that he was overheard saying money could solve their legal problems. The couple has denied these allegations, as have police and local officials.

But the media frenzy reached such a pitch that the Communist Party leadership in Heilongjiang province announced this week it had ordered a new investigation into how police, prosecutors and the courts had handled the matter -- a rare concession by Chinese officials accustomed to ignoring public opinion.

Then on Thursday, China's main Internet sites, apparently following government orders, moved to shut down the online discussion. Earlier this week, Wei Lai, an editor at the popular Chinese Web portal Sina, said the company had deleted about one in five messages about the BMW case for going too far in criticizing the government, but had allowed nearly a quarter-million messages to remain. On Thursday, those messages suddenly disappeared as well.

The government's reaction highlights the challenge the Internet poses for China's authoritarian political system as well as the Web's growing influence on decision-making by the party. Last month, China's highest court ordered the execution of an alleged gangster after a similar outcry on the Internet against a decision to grant him a reprieve based on evidence he had confessed under torture. Several months earlier, outrage on the Internet over the death of a college student in police custody led the party to abolish a regulation allowing police to detain people without proper identification.

Chinese legal scholars say the public scrutiny could force judges to think twice before accepting bribes or showing favoritism to those with power, but it might also encourage the party to ignore evidence and intervene in judicial decisions to satisfy the whims of the public.

Yang Xiaohuai, a defense lawyer in Beijing, said the basic problem was the lack of an independent judiciary, which undermines trust in the legal system. "In China, there is a phenomenon," he said. "Power is greater than the law, money is greater than the law and connections are greater than the law."

The BMW driver, Su Xiuwen, and her husband deny that they enjoy any special ties with local officials or used their wealth to buy favorable treatment in court. But the case tapped into deep resentment in Chinese society against the country's newly rich, who many believe have benefited from corruption and enjoy special privileges. News reports noted that Su's BMW costs about $100,000; the average annual income in China is less than $1,000.

"I wish I were poor without all these troubles," said Guan Mingbo, Su's husband and chairman of the board of a real estate development company in Harbin. Reached by telephone, he blamed the Internet for his wife's problems and said he was concerned the party might reopen the case under public pressure.

"I don't know if they will give my wife a harsher sentence or not," he said. "But if they do, I don't know where I can go to appeal."

Dai Yiquan, 46, the peasant whose wife, Liu Zhongxia, was killed in the crash, said he was satisfied with the $12,000 out-of-court settlement he reached with Su and was not interested in reopening the case. But he also said he settled because he couldn't find anyone willing to testify against the woman.

"I told police that she drove into the crowd on purpose, but they asked me again and again, 'How do you know?' " he said by telephone. "No one dared stand up as a witness. . . . I had to give up because I was helpless. I have no money, no power."

In court and in state media, Su admitted cursing Dai and hitting him with her purse after his tractor scraped her BMW. She said she was upset by the accident and thought the car was in reverse when it sped into the crowd. She also said she had learned to drive only recently and could not find the brakes.

But many Chinese remain suspicious. Newspaper reports noted that police never opened a manslaughter investigation, that no witnesses were called to testify in Su's trial and that statements taken from them were not read in court. Police would not say whether technicians examined Su's car or whether investigators tried to verify her claims of limited driving experience.

But Dai said he did not think it was worth pushing for a jail sentence. "No matter how long the sentence is," he said, "with her money, she'll be out soon."