He later merited fulsome praise from no less a figure than the then premier Wen Jiabao in 2010 in the People’s Daily. Zhao, on the other hand, is a harder person to handle.
Zhao was directly involved in the build up to the events in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989, and was the main fall guy. Hardliners in the Communist Party blamed him for letting things get out of control and necessitating an armed response to the students. Zhao’s political rehabilitation is made even trickier considering that powerfully networked figures like the premier at the time of the uprising, Li Peng, while very old, are still alive. A reappraisal of Zhao would also mean a reappraisal of them, most likely very unfavourably. This is something they have vigorously resisted. In 2010, Li even published a bland defensive diary of his time in power.
Despite this, in Hu Jintao’s era there was talk of completely revising both the official verdict on the 1989 events — currently marked as a counter revolutionary, anti-Communist Party act — and those involved. Zhao himself haunts the conscience of the party. His death in 2005 was the first reminder of how popular he once was — and his memoirs, posthumously published outside of China in 2009, resurrected all the questions that the handling of the events in 1989 raises.
Rumours that the discussion of Zhao may become less restricted in the PRC were published in Hong Kong’s Chinese language newspaper, Ming Pao. These rumours are part of a broad series of signs that the Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang leadership might still have more reformist tendencies than they have so far fully revealed. But from all its behaviour so far, this is a tactical leadership, and one that will almost certainly be making calculations about what is to be gained and lost by taking a risky step like this. If Zhao is publicly rehabilitated, that will be interpreted as a massive slap across the face of leaders like Li Peng, and will be read as one network in the power elite making moves on another — Li’s family remain hugely influential. It would be hard to ignore the more current political purpose behind this move.
So far, signs Zhao will be rehabilitated have been muted. Although, a TV program last summer in China dealing with historic issues, did have one episode where one of the actors loudly declared, `When is Zhao going to be rehabilitated?’
Still, Zhao’s legacy remains largely a positive one. Recently released papers — from 1984 in the UK about negotiations over Hong Kong — contain a letter from Zhao stating that after the hand back the territory needed to become a democracy. Zhao’s daughter has publicly asked for reappraisal, and Xi Jinping, whose own father Xi Zhongxun was reportedly associated with sympathisers of the students in 1989, may well feel the risks of rehabilitating Zhao are worth taking.
After all, heroes in recent Communist Party history are few and far between, and as someone who was only party secretary for two years, Zhao remains a figure who, though sidelined and placed under house arrest after 1989 till his death 16 years later, is still regarded positively by many in the party and amongst the current governing elite. A new leadership sticking their necks out to bring him posthumously back into the party fold — despite whatever else they gain — would at least show that on matters of justice they were not just talking, but actually doing something.
Kerry Brown is Executive Director at the China Studies Centre and Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, London, and Team Leader at the Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN).
From what has happened so far under the new leadership team centred around Xi Jinping, it does appear the team of President Xi is strategic rather than tactical. Xi, if successful is likely to be ten years in the position of the top power, and is likely to be ranked similarly with Mao and Deng, though success is far from being a certainty at this early stage of the 10 period.
From the number of high level people who have been investigated (so called tigers) and charged in the anti-corruption campaign, it seems so far that Xi and his team are much bolder than the two previous leadership teams.
While from certain aspects that it would be important to revisit the issue of Zhao, that may be a fairly minor diversion from those more important and pressing issues that the new leadership team is facing now. The risks in rehabilitating Zhao and its potential for causing confusion even unrest may be very heavy for the leadership to bring that issue into their not too distant future agenda.
Media information seems to suggest that there may be some split within the current leadership on this and some of the past top leaders. The Zhao issue would add further fuel to questions about what should that be brought to light soon.
Stability has to be one of the most important issues that the current leadership should be focused on.
This is a good article, but it fails to mention Zhao’s most significant contributions, first in pioneering reforms at Deng’s behest in Deng’s native Sichuan where Zhao was Governor, and then being appointed national Premier by Deng to roll out the economic reforms nationally, which he did magnificently.
Zhao did not want to be Party Secretary, and would have preferred to stay as Premier. But Deng insisted that he take Hu’s place.
Without Zhao as Premier, I have no doubt that China’s reforms would have been far less successful, and the Party well knows it. Li Peng, on the other hand was a disaster in every post he held, and as Premier tried to roll back reforms.
And it was Li who is in fact to blame for mishandling 1989. It was in fact a political infight between the two of them.
Also of note is that Premier Wen Jiabao was Zhao’s senior political aide in 1989, and went with him on his famous visit to the Square to address the students with the magaphone.
So there are many supportive reformers in the hierarchy. If Li Peng were in ill health or dead, I feel sure that Zhao would be rehabilitated.
Best! Frank Feather
I am amazed that more than 20 years after the event we still do not have an accurate account of the 1989 Tiananmen events.
1. There was no Tiananmen Square massacre. A Spanish TVE team and a Reuter correspondent spent the whole night in the Square, and saw nothing – other than troops entering the Square early AM and the remaining students leaving quietly. The Spanish ambassador in Beijing in a book written soon after has angrily questioned the entire Western reporting of the incident. (Since the book in in Spanish needless to say it is easily ignored.)
2. Less easy to ignore are the the on-the-spot reports by the US Beijing embassy at the time, available on the Internet, which make clear what actually happened – that the government originally sought peacefully to expel the students, that the crowds which had built up around the Square over the weeks blocked entry, that the government then sent in armed troops who were attacked by the crowds now armed with petrol bombs, that many soldiers crowded into highly flammable buses were badly burned and killed by those attacks, with the crowds stinging up a burned corpse (I have the photos if anyone interested). As a result certain troop units went out of control and set about shooting wildly causing heavy casualties. But even then other units tried to stop them.
3. In this context it was fairly likely that Beijing would see all this as a deliberate attack against its regime (where did those petrol bombs come from?) and to criticise those such as Zhao who had wasted political capital trying to pacify radical students who did not want to be pacified and who may have played an active role in encouraging the crowds to attack the troops.
4. Certainly that is more likely than the narrative that says the regime of Deng Xiaoping, which to that point was clearly trying to push China in a progressive direction and which had tolerated the student demonstrations for so long (despite the enormous loss of face to the regime), had then set out deliberately and viciously to attack students just when the demonstrations were already beginning to wind down.
5. Even the much-vilified Li Peng tells us what happened, with his comment that the regime’s mistake was not to have created a force able to handle crowds without having to use lethal weapons. (Unfortunately the regime’s subsequent effort to acquire non-lethal crowd control equipment was blocked by the Western post-Tiananmen embargo on provision of any such equipment!)
6. A Columbia University school of journalism report traces the massacre myth and subsequent vilification of China to a false report in the South China Morning Post by someone (untraceable) claiming to have been a student in the Square and seeing troops with machine guns massacring students in the hundreds. Front paged by the New York Times the myth soon became unshakable even though the NYT correspondent in Beijing at the time, Kristof, tried to contradict it.
A major victory for Western, almost certainly UK, black information departments. Little wonder Beijing remains angry about what happened, with Zhao as part of the collateral damage.
Gregory Clark, Tokyo.
Regarding Mr. Clark’s comments, if the facts were as he states, the Party would have nothing to hide. They could trumpet their restraint, and presumably offer the true facts into evidence in the court of world opinion to vindicate themselves. But they haven’t. In fact the Party has gone out of their way to shroud the incident, blocking access to the subject on the internet by their own citizens. Why? In a court of law this would be evidence of guilt.
Mr. Clark refers to an article which supports his point of view. I suggest he post a link on this thread for review by the forum.
Watch from here for the night of June 4th, from first hand accounts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGnu_HwqAfs&t=50m00s
For the most controversial part that night, which was the subject of intense feud among student leaders after the protest, watch from here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGnu_HwqAfs&t=1h02m57s
I’m curious as well — there have been innumerable books and articles about the Tiananmen Square incident (and the many incidents occurring around Beijing itself that evening), and yet they are all described as ‘discredited by a unspecified report and a book by a single diplomat (without any reference to check) in Spanish. As a Spanish speaker, I’d be delighted to have my viewpoint on Tiananmen and related incidents challenged if the poster above would be able to post the details of the book discussed?
Thanks for a stimulating discussion.