The Chinese Communist Party has just done something it hates to do: hang its dirty laundry out in public. With a level of force and lurid color that surprised just about everyone who pays attention to these things, on Friday the Party ended the greatest guessing game in Chinese politics by unveiling the charges against the once-golden politician Bo Xilai. In the months since April, when Bo became the center of the greatest Chinese scandal in decades, the question about the fate of the sixty-two-year-old former Party Secretary of Chongqing has been clear: Would the Party treat him with a light touch in order to minimize disruption to the balance of power, or would it make a public example of its willingness to punish those whose actions risk the whole enterprise? Ultimately, the Party chose the latter, and in spectacular fashion.