The murder trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of the deposed political leader Bo Xilai, began here on Thursday morning and came to an end seven hours later, with officials saying that the defendant and an accomplice had all but confessed to poisoning a British businessman who had threatened the safety of Ms. Gu’s son.
Andrew Jacobs is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times who has been based in Beijing since 2008. Taking a year off from studying Chinese at New York University, Jacobs first stepped foot in...