Bo Guagua, the son of disgraced Chinese diplomat Bo Xilai, has reportedly enrolled at Columbia Law School in New York, in order to continue his studies in the US.
The news emerged last week after a journalist for Chinese magazine Caixin tweeted a screen-shot of the Columbia University student directory. The web page lists Bo Guagua’s name, student number and university email address.
Experts believe that Mr Bo, who was an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, is unlikely to ever return to China following the imprisonment of his mother, Gu Kailai, for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
She claimed at her trial that she poisioned Heywood after he threatened the safety of her son.
Bo Guagua’s father, Bo Xilai, is expected to stand trial for corruption in China in the coming weeks, after the investigation into Heywood’s murder exposed a network of corruption in the Communist Party.
Last week the LA Times reported claims that Bo Xilai may have struck a deal with prosecutors in order to protect his son.
One of their political commentators, Hu Ping, a Chinese exile based in New York, wrote, “If the old man doesn’t accept his crimes, they’ll go after his son. Bo Xilai has to cooperate with the authorities to make sure his son can avoid trouble.”
