Passenger Plane Crashes in Siberia In the days after Chongqing Communist Party boss Bo Xilai was removed from office, the Chinese Internet, particularly microblogs such as Sina Weibo, were filled with rumors of high-level political machinations. The talk included far-fetched suggestions of a coup in Beijing, but the fact that such a discussion was tolerated prompted further speculation. Sina Weibo, for instance, allowed searches for "zhengbian," the Chinese phrase for "coup," for days after the rumors began appearing two weeks ago. Was China enjoying a "Beijing Spring" of online free speech? Most likely not. Several names, such as Wang Lijun - the one-time Bo deputy whose sudden appearance at a U.S. consulate in February precipitated his former boss" fall - were blocked from searches. Instead, the relative freedom of writing and searching for phrases like "coup" was seen by some analysts as possibly a tool for furthering some unseen political objective.