Possible new scandal linked to fatal Ferrari crash may impact approaching power shuffle in China

Chinese President Hu Jintao last month / Photo by Adrian Bradshaw-Pool/Getty Images

(CBS/AP) BEIJING — China's hopes for a smooth, once-a-decade political transition have been shaken by a lurid new scandal involving the death of a senior official's son who crashed during what may have been sex games in a speeding Ferrari.

Details of the March accident in Beijing, which allegedly also left two young women injured, have stayed under wraps in China but are leaking out via media in Hong Kong. The media blackout underscores official fears that the public will be outraged by another instance of excess and recklessness among China's power elites.

Hong Kong media report the man killed was the son of either of two close allies of President Hu Jintao.

The South China Morning Post says the dead man, in his 20s, was found half-naked and died immediately, while the two young women were seriously injured. One was naked, the other semi-naked, the newspaper adds.

"One of the bright spots of Hu's reign as party chief and state president has been his relatively clean image. He has always wanted to be remembered as an honest, graft-fighting leader, intolerant of corruption," the Morning Post explains. "The suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of his most trusted aide's young son threatens to tarnish that image."

The embarrassing new wrinkle follows revelations that the wife of a top leader poisoned her British business associate last year.

Both scandals have become bargaining chips in the jockeying for power ahead of a major leadership reshuffle this fall.

[MIO42]

Sum Ting Wong ?

[ksmit2]

Nothing new here. Money, sex, drugs and cars, find their way into
endless disasters. No race or nationality is immune from their
influence. Sad about the loss of life and injuries.

[gbreadmann]

Considering how big the male-only birthrate has been, I would say the REALLY big news in this article is that there are two young women in China.

[john92021]

you forgot the Ferrari factor. I wonder if he was going down a washboard road, oh the fantasy, Farrari, naked girls, washboard road.

[UForgotPoland]

If you think America's politics are bad, China takes the take for the most embedded corruption.

[john92021]

must have missed the no orgasms sign. Hopefully he didn't pass on his genes.

[davetrader98275]

good stuff have to agree

[davetrader98275]

good stuff have to agree

[aintfakin]

Sounds to me like Chinese republicans

[BUDDYofPA]

There is only one party in China..The National Chinese Republican Comunist Party...All others have been bought out by greed and corruption..They learned it from their American Republican Counterparts !!!

[prm777]

aintfakin... What a joke from the party that brought us Bill Clinton and John Edwards.

[karek40]

Just because the son of an elite individual is corrupt does not mean the elite individual was corrupt. My observation has been those that make a fortune are generally not corrupted as much as their children who grow up rich.

[stupa5]

All elite individuals in China are corrupt..this is a known fact.
the children are victims of their corrupt parents!

[davetrader98275]

the one making the fortune would eat their own mother.

[chef_tim_w]

My guess is he bled to death and the injured girl was choking....

[hemusbull]

Smells the same as in former Soviet Union - seems the system gona explode from inside, as soon as economic prosperity goes up...There isn't "socialism with human face", mister Gorbachev!

[stupa5]

Give commie a ferrari & look what happens!
keep these cars out of the hands of Mr Wong Wanadees..
go back to what you do best...laundry and making sweet & sour chicken HA HA HA!