When Wang Lijun fled for Chengdu, he evaded guards outside his door who, a few weeks earlier, would have bowed to his authority. He drove quietly out of a city full of policemen who once would have called him a hero. It was a Monday early last February and Wang, a stocky fifty-two-year-old with jet-black hair, a bulldog face, and wire-rimmed glasses, had recently been removed from his position as police chief of the sprawling Chinese city of Chongqing. There were powerful forces at work against him. Officials in Beijing were reported to be investigating Wang’s record in the…