Earlier this month The Daily Telegraph disclosed that the master of Balliol
College was visited by three Chinese diplomats in 2007 after tutors made Mr
Bo sit additional “penal” exams after he failed to work.
Mr Bo stressed he had always obtained “solid” exam results,
including a 2:1 at Oxford. He did not mention that he sat his final exams
only after being suspended for a year by the university. He also said he
achieved straight As at A-level and 11 A* GCSEs.
Mr Bo also denied having a wild lifestyle suggested by pictures of him looking
dishevelled at student events and claims that he held champagne and shisha
parties in his rooms. He said he attended “bops” – club nights –
which were a “regular feature of social life at Oxford” attended
by “most students”.
Mr Bo also denied suggestions that his education had been funded by shadowy
sources.
“My tuition and living expenses at Harrow School, University of Oxford
and Harvard University were funded exclusively by two sources – scholarships
earned independently, and my mother’s generosity from the savings she earned
from her years as a successful lawyer and writer,” he said.
Finally he dismissed reports last year – attributed to sources close to the
then-Chinese ambassador, Jon Huntsman – that he had arrived at the
ambassador’s residence in a red Ferrari to pick up one of Mr Huntsman’s
daughters for a dinner date.
Mr Bo said that he had “never driven a Ferrari” nor “ever been
to the US Ambassador’s Residence in China”.
A spokesman for Mr Huntsman, a former Utah governor who ran for the Republican
presidential nomination earlier this year, said he had no comment.
Mr Bo’s remarks came in a detailed statement to The
Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper. He is studying for his final exams
for a Master’s in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. His
whereabouts have been unknown since he was whisked away from his flat in
Boston in an SUV earlier this month.
On Wednesday night it emerged that a brother of Bo Xilai had resigned from
China Everbright, a state-owned alternative energy corporation, where he
worked under an assumed name. Li Xueming stepped down as vice-chairman and a
director “for the best interest of the company”.
Records show that he had cashed in shares in the company worth £3.5 million
over the past two years.
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