Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (36 page)
Read Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang Online
Authors: Adi Ignatius
By then the Soviet Union had crumbled. With that collapse hanging over their heads, China’s conservatives—who had lost the trust of the people after the Tiananmen Massacre, and had ditched economic reform but shown themselves unable to improve the economy—were pushed into compliance. They had come to realize that the massacre had consolidated the Party’s authoritarian rule. With a renewed sense of security, they stopped worrying and prospered.
Today, twenty years on, economic reforms have roared ahead, and capitalism—a stock market, a real estate market, private business—has taken hold. And yet, just as Zhao realized in his later years while under house arrest in his lonely courtyard house, corruption is crippling the system and undermining the people’s belief in the government’s ability to improve their lives. Without political reform, with no checks and balances, the market is distorted, manipulated by corrupt officials and dirty dealing. The nation is still ruled by men, not by law. While in seclusion, Zhao ultimately concluded that to make progress, China would be better off with a Western parliamentary system. But his conceptual breakthrough came only after he had been silenced.
Zhao Ziyang had no interest in being a visionary. He was a pragmatist who wanted to solve real problems. He led his country through confusion and chaos and made difficult choices for the sake of improving the lives of others. He did his duty. His legacy, recorded here, will ensure he does not fade from history.
A Brief Biography of Zhao Ziyang
Based on a Chinese version compiled by Li Shuqiao, former secretary of Zhao Ziyang.
1919 October 17 | Born in Hua County, Henan Province |
1932 | Joins the Communist Youth League |
1933 August | Enrolls in Henan Province Kaifeng Junior High School |
1935 December | Participates in Communist Party activities; organizes student demonstrations against the Japanese, a first step on his path of political activism |
1936 August | Enrolls in Hubei Province Wuchang High School |
1937 July | Drops out of school as Japanese Imperial Army launches full-scale invasion of China; returns to his home province of Henan, which soon becomes occupied territory and where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forms an organized resistance against the Japanese |
1938 February | Joins the CCP |
1939 January | Becomes Party secretary of Hua County, starting his career as a civilian administrator within the CCP organization |
1949 March | Becomes CCP secretary of Nanyang Region, Henan Province |
1951 | Leaves his home province of Henan for Guangdong, beginning a long and successful career as a provincial administrator |
1958–60 | Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign |
1962 | Becomes second Party secretary of Guangdong Province and participates in the meeting—known as the Seven Thousand Cadres Work Conference—where party veteran Liu Shaoqi publicly disagrees with Mao on key policy issues |
| Experiments with halting the communes and contracting land back to private farmers as a “temporary” measure to recover from the disastrous Great Leap Forward |
1965 | At the age of forty-six, becomes the youngest provincial Party chief as he rises to the position of first Party secretary of Guangdong Province |
1966–76 | Mao’s Cultural Revolution |
1967 | Temporarily detained at Guangzhou Military Command Center as part of the Cultural Revolution purge to cleanse officialdom of supporters of “revisionist” policies (policies that were moderate in contrast to Mao’s) |
1970 | Works as a fitter at Xiangzhong Mechanics Factory of Lianyuan County, Hunan Province |
1971 April | Named CCP secretary of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and deputy director of its Revolutionary Committee; this marks his reinstatement after being purged |
1972 April | Returns to Guangdong as Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee |
1973 August | Becomes a member of the CCP’s Central Committee |
1974 | Becomes first Party secretary of Guangdong Province |
1975 October | Sent by Deng Xiaoping to become first Party secretary of Sichuan Province; the rural reform policy that he initiates in Sichuan is one of the first of its kind and becomes a model of success in the effort to dismantle Mao’s people’s communes |
1977 August | Named alternate member of the Politburo, the beginning of his ascendance to top leadership positions |
1979 September | Becomes a member of the Politburo |
1980 February | Becomes a member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) |
1980 March | Takes charge of the nation’s economic affairs as leader of the Central Economic and Financial Leading Group |
1980 April | Becomes Vice Premier of the State Council |
1980 September | Becomes Premier of the State Council |
1982 September | Renewed as member of the PSC at the First Plenum of the 12th Central Committee |
1984 December 19 | Signs Sino-British Joint Declaration with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Beijing for the return of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997 |
1986 October | Becomes leader of a new group with the mandate of proposing a political reform package, the Study Group for the Reform of the Political System. Other members are Hu Qili, Tian Jiyun, Bo Yibo, and Peng Chong |
1987 January | Becomes Acting General Secretary of the CCP |
1987 October | At the 13th Party Congress, declares that China is at the “initial stage of socialism,” thereby clearing the way for further market transformations; also proposes the one and only political reform package in CCP history, attempting to change “the way the CCP governs,” that is, to introduce reforms such as the separation of power between Party and state Becomes general secretary and first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and remains a member of the PSC |
1989 April 15 | Hu Yaobang dies, sparking the student demonstrations |
1989 April 22 | Proposes a three-point approach to the student demonstrations: encourages a return to class, holding dialogues, and using the law to punish only those who have committed crimes |
1989 April 26 | People’s Daily |
1989 May 4 | Delivers speech to Asian Development Bank delegates that calls for dealing with the demonstrations “based on the principles of democracy and law” |
1989 May 17 | Participates in the meeting at Deng Xiaoping’s house where Deng decides to impose martial law; Zhao says he would find it difficult to carry out such a decision |
1989 May 19 | Visits student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and gives an impromptu speech pleading with them to leave the square, knowing that an army assault is imminent. It is his last public appearance |
1989 June | An enlarged Politburo meeting is held to criticize Zhao and strip him of all his positions. This begins his sixteen years of isolation and house arrest |
1997 February 19 | Deng Xiaoping dies |
1997 September 12 | Sends a letter while under house arrest to the 15th Party Congress appealing to the leaders for a reassessment of the crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989 |
2005 January 17 | Dies in Beijing |
Who Was Who
A
N
Z
HIWEN
(1919–) was deputy director of the State Commission for Economic Reform and a member of the Central Economic and Financial Leading Group from 1987 to 1992. An was an ardent supporter of reform.
I
VAN
A
RKHIPOV
(1907–98) was the Soviet first deputy prime minister who in the 1950s led Moscow’s efforts to lend technological aid to China. Arkhipov was regarded as a friend of China for his role in helping to draw up its first Five-Year Plan.
B
AO
T
ONG
(1932–) was a member of the Central Committee and was entrusted by Zhao to formulate plans for political reform as director of the Political Reform Research Institute of the Central Committee. Bao was Zhao’s secretary in the early years of his premiership. In 1989, Bao supported Zhao in opposing Deng’s decision for a military crackdown on Tiananmen protesters. As punishment he was jailed for seven years.
B
O
Y
IBO
(1908–2007) was one of the most influential Party elders. Bo was vice chairman of the Central Advisory Commission from 1982 to 1987.
C
HEN
G
UODONG
(1911–2005) was the Communist Party’s secretary of Shanghai in 1979. From 1985 to 1992, he was the director of the Party’s Shanghai Advisory Committee.
C
HEN
J
UNSHENG
(1927–2002) was the Communist Party’s secretary of Heilongjiang Province. He became a member of the State Council in 1988.
C
HEN
X
ITONG
(1930–) was mayor of Beijing and played an important role in channeling the course of events toward the crackdown on protesters in 1989. Chen’s report, published in June that year, was the only official account of what happened in the military assault. Chen was expelled from the Communist Party in 1997 and sentenced in 1998 to sixteen years in prison on bribery and corruption charges.
C
HEN
Y
EPING
(1915–94) was Director of the Department of Organization and became a member of the Central Advisory Commission in the 1980s.
C
HEN
Y
IZI
(1940–) was director of the State Research Institute of Economic Reform. In 1989, during the Tiananmen protests, Chen organized and published a statement that informed the public about Zhao’s resignation and called on people to oppose the looming crackdown. Chen has lived in exile in the United States ever since.
C
HEN
Y
UN
(1905–95) was, after Deng Xiaoping, the most influential of the Party elders. Chen won praise for the quick and successful stabilization of China’s war-torn economy and for the first Five-Year Plan, based on the Soviet economic model in the early 1950s. His practical approach was swept aside by Mao Zedong’s desire for a speedy transition to a socialist economy. Chen’s political comeback in the post-Mao era was marked by his insistence on planned economics in the era of reform. From 1982 to 1987, Chen was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and chairman of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission. From 1987 to 1992, he was chairman of the Central Advisory Commission.
D
ENG
L
IQUN
(1915–) was the Director of the Propaganda Department from 1982 to 1987. An ardent Mao loyalist, Deng became the voice of the conservatives in the reform era and could count on the support of Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and other Party elders.
D
ENG
M
AOMAO
(1950–) is the nickname of Deng Xiaoping’s third daughter, Deng Rong. She is the deputy director of the China International Friendship Association.
D
ENG
X
IAOPING
(1904–97) was China’s undisputed leader during the years of transition after Mao, from 1981 to 1997. He supported economic liberalization, and the success of the Reform and Open-Door Policy earned him enormous prestige and strengthened his power base. Politically, Deng insisted on continuing one-party rule and was responsible for the crackdown on political dissent in 1979 (the “Democracy Wall” movement) as well as the violent response to the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Deng was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee from 1977 to 1987 and chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1981 to 1990.
D
ING
G
UAN’GEN
(1929–) was Minister of Railways and an alternate member of the Politburo in the 1980s.
D
ING
S
HISUN
(1927–) was the president of Peking University from 1984 to 1989 and vice chairman of the China Democratic League from 1988 to 1996.
D
U
D
AOZHENG
(1923–) was the director of the General Administration of Press and Publications from 1987 to 1989. Du is an outspoken supporter of reform.
D
U
R
UNSHENG
(1913–) was a director of both the Communist Party’s Research Office of Rural Reform and of the State Council Center for Development Studies from 1983 to 1989. Du is a well-respected leader in the field of rural reform.
F
ANG
L
IZHI
(1936–) was first vice president of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui Province, and a professor of astrophysics. Fang sympathized with the earlier round of student protests in 1986–87 and was removed from his official posts and expelled from the Party. He is now living in exile in the United States.
F
EI
X
IAOTONG
(1910–2005) was a professor of sociology at Peking University and the chairman of the China Democratic League from 1987 to 1996.
H
ENRY
F
OK
(1923–2006), also known as Huo Yingdong, was a Hong Kong entrepreneur. Fok was a longtime supporter of the mainland government, serving as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in 1993.
M
ILTON
F
RIEDMAN
(1912–2006) was an American economist, Nobel laureate, and influential proponent of free market economics. In 1988, Friedman was received by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang in Beijing, where he praised Zhao as “the best economist I have ever met from a socialist country.” Friedman’s ideas and advice played an important role in shaping economic policies in post-Mao China.
G
AO
Y
ANG
(1909–) was president of the Central Party School of the Central Committee from 1987 to 1989 and a member of the Central Advisory Commission.
M
IKHAIL
G
ORBACHEV
(1931–) was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, the last Soviet leader before the collapse of the U.S.S.R. His perestroika (restructuring) program brought liberal changes to the Soviet Union.
G
U
M
U
(1914–) became Vice Premier and director of the State Capital Construction Commission in 1975. He was a member of the State Council from 1982 to 1988.
G
UO
L
UOJI
(1932–) was a prominent liberal scholar who in 1979 published an article in the
People’s Daily
arguing that citizens should be allowed to debate political affairs. Deng Xiaoping took it as a personal insult and a criticism of his jailing of dissident Wei Jingsheng.
H
AO
J
IANXIU
(1935–) was deputy director of the State Planning Commission from 1987 to 1998.
H
E
D
ONGCHANG
(1923–) was vice president of Tsinghua University from 1978 to 1982, Minister of Education from 1982 to 1985, and Vice Minister of the State Education Commission from 1985 to 1992. In 1989, his role in presenting the student protests as a cause for alarm played into the agenda of the hard-liners.
H
E
Y
IRAN
(1918–) was vice chairman of the regional government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from 1979 to 1983.
H
U
J
IWEI
(1916–) was a senior journalist and chief editor of the
People’s Daily
. Known as one of the leading advocates within the Communist Party for media freedom, Hu opposed the military crackdown on Tiananmen protesters in 1989 and was subsequently stripped of all official positions.
H
U
Q
IAOMU
(1912–92) was Mao’s secretary from 1941 to 1966. Hu was one of the most prominent defenders of Maoist doctrine in the era of reform. He was a member of the Politburo from 1982 to 1987 and a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Advisory Commission from 1987 to 1992. He was also deputy director of the Party Propaganda Department and director of the Party History Research Office.
H
U
Q
ILI
(1929–) was the mayor and Party secretary of Tianjin from 1980 to 1982, and then went to Beijing where he became director of the General Office and a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In 1987, he was made a Politburo Standing Committee member. In 1989, Hu opposed the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters and was ousted from his positions.
H
U
Y
AOBANG
(1915–89) was Chairman and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1980 to 1987. He reversed the internal Party purges of the Mao years, which earned him respect from Party members and the general public. Viewed by Deng Xiaoping and other Party elders as being too tolerant of the liberal trend among Chinese intellectuals in the late 1980s, Hu was forced to resign as General Secretary in 1987. His sudden death on April 15, 1989, triggered the student protests in Tiananmen Square.
H
UA
G
UOFENG
(1921–2008) was Mao’s successor, and served as China’s paramount leader from 1976 to 1980. Hua’s legitimacy was based on having been handpicked by Mao, and he attempted to retain the Chairman’s policies, an effort that was doomed to failure in the post-Mao era. Hua was swept aside by the reform-minded Deng Xiaoping.
J
IANG
L
IU
(1922–) was director of Scientific Socialism Studies at the Central Party School of the Central Committee from 1977 to 1987.
J
IANG
Z
EMIN
(1926–) was a member of the Politburo and the Communist Party’s secretary of Shanghai. Jiang was promoted to replace Zhao Ziyang as the Party’s General Secretary after the Tiananmen military crackdown in 1989.
K
ANG
S
HIEN
(1915–95) became Vice Premier and deputy director of the State Planning Commission in 1978. Kang was also the Minister of the Petroleum Industry after 1981.
K
IM
I
L
S
UNG
(1912–94) was the paramount leader of North Korea. Kim was General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from 1948 to 1994.
T
SUNG-
D
AO
L
EE
(1926–) is a Chinese American physicist and a professor at Columbia University. Lee has been well received in China for being one of the few Nobel laureates of Chinese descent.