No, I am not sure as I don't follow closely anymore. I heard about the downfall of Bo but hadn't really considered the consequences. Mostly I was speaking of the climate when I left in 2008
I can attest that things have been getting more conservative; starting from around 2008 and continuing into the present. I don't think Bo Xilai's down fall will have any bearing on this; his mistake was populism rather than conservatism. Politics here are so opaque its very difficult for us to really figure out what's going on beyond what we can observe on the ground.