Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (5 page)

Second, since Deng Xiaoping’s internal remarks of April 25 had been disseminated widely, the students were aware that Deng was in support of the editorial. They went out to protest anyway, proving that even the symbol of the paramount leader had lost its effectiveness.

Third, the Beijing Municipal Government had just announced a new regulation for demonstrations that imposed strict limits and countermeasures, but this had also been ignored, making the new regulation as good as a piece of wastepaper. Even the police blockades had failed.

Once I’d grasped the circumstances after my return to Beijing, I realized that if the situation were to continue without a reduction in tensions, a violent solution was almost a certainty. The situation now was entirely different from what it was before April 27, because the students had grown fearless. They believed that the government had already used all the means at its disposal, all of which had proven ineffective, leaving only the mobilization of the military. Yet the students could not imagine that the government would actually mobilize the army against them.

When I passed through [the northeast city of] Shenyang on my way back from North Korea, I was given a report on the responses of Shenyang officials to Deng Xiaoping’s remarks. They had expressed doubts: “Can measures of this kind still be used?” They told me that many people were critical of Deng after hearing his remarks.

Hence, upon my return from North Korea, the situation had grown perilous. Large-scale bloodshed had become all too possible.

I
have described above how, during my visit to North Korea, the guidelines laid out to deal with the student demonstrations were changed by Li Peng and others at home. Now I will address the struggle between the two sharply conflicting approaches to the student demonstrations that occurred after my return from North Korea.

Li Peng’s decision to disseminate Deng Xiaoping’s remarks on April 25 and 26 throughout Beijing and down to local administrative levels resulted in many criticisms of Deng. This really upset Deng and his family. Deng’s family accused Li Peng of having abruptly pushed Deng to the front lines while he himself played the good guy.

Given the above situation, and because the editorial provoked large demonstrations on April 27 and widespread criticism, Li Peng felt pressured to ask [Political Secretary of the Politburo Standing Committee] Bao Tong to draft an editorial on April 29 and to request that [State Council spokesman] Yuan Mu and [State Education Commission Vice Minister] He Dongchang hold a dialogue with the students.

During the resulting dialogue session, they [Yuan Mu and He Dongchang] responded positively to many of the students’ pleas, conceded that many of the students’ objectives were the same as those held by the Party and the government, and explained that the editorial was not directed against the students. They even declared that 99.9 percent of the students were good, with only a tiny minority being anti-Party and anti-socialist. These were the measures taken to calm the students.

At the same time, they were extremely worried that the April 26 editorial might be overturned, and were especially afraid that I would not support their actions upon my return. [Director of the United Front Work Department] Yan Mingfu reported to me that Li Peng had told him that if, upon my return, I did not support the April 26 editorial, Li would have no choice but to resign. Li Peng and [Politburo Standing Committee member] Yao Yilin colluded with each other to persuade me to express my support. They repeatedly requested that I add phrases such as “opposing turmoil” and “opposing bourgeois liberalization” into the speech I was preparing for the commemoration of the May Fourth Movement. When the draft was sent to them for comments, Li and Yao both requested the addition of remarks condemning bourgeois liberalization.

Furthermore, because of the wide dissemination of Deng Xiaoping’s remarks, Deng felt that his image among young people had been damaged. Deng Rong [Deng’s daughter, also known as Maomao] told me through Bao Tong that references to Deng loving and protecting youths must be added to the speech. Under the circumstances, I did indeed decide to add to the speech one paragraph dedicated to how much Deng loved and protected youths.

As soon as I had returned from North Korea, on the morning of April 30, Li Peng rushed over anxiously to get me to call a meeting so I could listen to the report of the Beijing Party Committee. His goal was to pressure me to express support for the actions they had already taken.

By May 1, at a gathering of Standing Committee members, I was already aware of the strong reactions against the April 26 editorial. However, since I myself still knew very little about the actual situation and also to avoid a sudden reversal in policy, I did have to express some kind of approval of Li Peng’s work, at least in some vague way.

However, I emphasized that it was critical to win over the support of the mainstream. We had to distinguish the tiny minority from the mainstream, and not push the majority of people over to the opposing side. That is, we should not create a situation in which the bulk of the populace felt we were trying to repress them. No matter what the reason, we had to calmly acknowledge the fact that the view expressed by the April 26 editorial was widely divergent from the view held by the vast majority of people, especially students, intellectuals, and other political parties. I pointed out the need to conduct a wide range of dialogues. Not only should we meet with and seek the opinions of students, but also teachers and workers.

As for the designation of the nature of the events, I emphasized that we could give new explanations that built upon the wording of the April 26 editorial, by indicating that only a tiny minority was actually anti-Party, anti-socialist, and pushing for chaos. I hoped to mitigate the effects of the April 26 editorial. I also pointed out that we must advocate a return to classes because this was agreeable to the students’ parents, their teachers, and most of society. So long as classes were resumed, the situation could be stabilized and emotions would have a chance to cool down. Then all other matters could eventually be resolved.

Once back from North Korea, I tried to garner information from all sides. I first called for the visual recordings of the demonstrations of April 27. On May 2, I responded to requests from leaders of other political parties—Fei Xiaotong, Sun Qimeng, and Lei Jieqiong—to convene a session to discuss the student demonstrations. On the morning of May 5, I asked the president of Peking University, Ding Shisun, and the vice president of Beijing Normal University, Xu Jialu, for a meeting. I asked them for a synopsis of the situation in their schools and for their assessments. In the afternoon, I invited myself to a discussion being held by the Central Committee of the China Democratic League for the university staff members within their organization.

After gathering information and assessing the situation, I believed even more strongly that the student demonstrations had gained widespread sympathy from all corners of society and that the April 26 editorial and the way that the Central Committee had handled the demonstrations were in contradiction to the wishes of the people. If no measures were taken to ease the tensions caused by the April 26 editorial, students would continue to fear that they were being threatened with retaliation, and tensions would continue unabated.

I also felt that if the student demonstrations could be resolved along the principles of democracy and law, through dialogue and an easing of tensions, it could possibly boost China’s reform, including political reform. On the other hand, if we were to suppress the demonstrations with violence, another Anti–Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign would be sure to follow, on an even larger scale than before. Conservatives would make a comeback and reform programs would come to a standstill or even be reversed. Chinese history would go through another period of zigzagging. The two approaches promised to result in two totally different outcomes.

However, the crux of the issue was Deng Xiaoping himself. I hoped at the time that he could just relax things a little bit, for example, by saying something like “It seems that when Li Peng gave his report on April 25, we overreacted to the situation. It now appears that the student demonstrations are not such an overwhelming problem.” With something like this to work with, I could turn the situation around without even putting any of the liability on Deng. The Politburo Standing Committee and I could take responsibility.

However, if Deng refused to relax his position, then there was no way for me to change the attitudes of the two hard-liners, Li Peng and Yao Yilin. If they did not change their view, it would be difficult for the Standing Committee to carry out the principles of reducing tensions and opening dialogue. I was very well aware that Deng had always taken a tough stance on these kinds of issues. In addition, he had been prejudiced by Li Peng’s reports, so it would be extremely hard for me to make him change his position.

I was eager to have a talk with Deng and to gain his support. I phoned [Deng’s secretary] Wang Ruilin asking for a meeting with Deng, but Wang said Deng had not been feeling well lately and he worried that his health problems might make him unable to receive Gorbachev, which would be a serious matter indeed. So he asked that I not report anything to him at that time. To this day, I still believe that what Wang said was the truth; Deng was indeed in bad health then.

On May 2, I explained my idea to Yan Mingfu and asked him to contact Deng via Yang Shangkun and others who were closer to Deng.

On May 3, I went to visit Yang Shangkun at his home. Yang said that he had already spoken with Wang Ruilin and Deng’s children, and they believed it would be difficult to reverse the position taken in the April 26 editorial, but thought it could be downplayed by not mentioning it again while gradually turning away from it. They said that if I were to talk to Deng then, only to have him reaffirm his stand, it would make it even more difficult to turn things around in the future.

Yang said, “Those of you who are in the front lines can turn things around gradually.” Yang Shangkun also indicated that he could appeal to the other members of the Standing Committee. That same day, Yan Mingfu came by my home and told me that Wang Ruilin and Deng’s children said that those in charge of the Central Committee should deal with the student movement as they saw fit, according to the situation. If we talked to Deng then, only to have him disagree, then we would only have made matters worse.

In the days that followed, things progressed according to this idea of downplaying and gradually changing. My May Fourth speech was also based on this idea: the tone was distinctly different from the April 26 editorial, yet I used no phrasing that directly contradicted it.

After the May Fourth speech, Yang Shangkun told me the result of his discussions with other members of the Politburo Standing Committee: Hu Qili and Qiao Shi agreed with the new approach; Li Peng and Yao Yilin opposed it. Comrade Wan Li, whom I spoke to directly, was in complete agreement with the new approach. This would mean that among the Standing Committee members and those who had attended the Standing Committee meeting, a majority supported me.

Yang also told me that he had spoken with [influential Party elder] Peng Zhen, who was entirely supportive of my position. Peng told him that if Deng were later to look for someone to place the blame on, “Ziyang should not be left alone to bear the responsibility,” that he and Yang should also share responsibility. This was his way of expressing his determination to support me.

Before my return, when the Beijing Party Committee had proposed imposing martial law, Yang Shangkun had responded with sharp criticism: “How could we justify to the rest of the world imposing martial law on our capital?” I believe that Yang Shangkun held a moderate view toward the student demonstrations before Deng decided to impose martial law.

On May 4, I delivered a speech to delegates of the Asian Development Bank regarding the student demonstrations. The speech was drafted by Bao Tong in accordance with my views.

In this speech, I conveyed the need to resolve the matter in a cool, reasonable, restrained, and orderly manner based on the principles of democracy and law. I also pointed out that the student demonstrators had expressed both approval of and dissatisfaction with the Party and the government, and that they were absolutely not against the basic foundations of our system. Instead they were merely asking us to correct some of our flaws. I also said that in demonstrations of this magnitude, one could not rule out the fact that some people might want to manipulate things according to their own interests, but that this would not result in a major upheaval in China.

After that speech, positive responses were received from a wide range of sources, both domestic and overseas.

After May 5 and in the days to follow, many universities in Beijing resumed classes. The director of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, Xu Jiatun, who was then in Beijing, sent me a handwritten note, in which he mentioned that when he had met with Yang Shangkun on May 4, Yang had expressed total agreement with my speech.

At this time of widespread support, Li Peng came to my house on the evening of May 4 and was forced to commend me for my speech. He said he would follow up with some of the issues I’d mentioned when he himself met with delegates of the Asian Development Bank. But when I pointed out that the April 26 editorial was problematic, he disagreed.

Because I could not meet with Deng himself, I discussed the matter with other comrades as mentioned above and attempted to turn the situation around gradually. Indeed, the situation was gradually turning around. When this approach was being taken, the situation became calmer and most of the students returned to their classes. However, they were waiting to see what happened next; that is, how the promises made in the May Fourth speech would be realized.

I thought it best to use the time of relative calm to take active measures to set up dialogue with students and all other social groups, to respond to the issues of deepest concern to the students, and to adopt some of the students’ reasonable ideas. These would have been concrete steps in the direction of opening dialogue and reducing tensions.

While I and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee and those who had attended Standing Committee meetings were actively attempting to effect this turnaround, Li Peng and others in his group actively attempted to block, delay, and even sabotage the process, so that the proposed dialogue and methods to reduce tensions laid out in the May Fourth speech could not be carried out.

Meanwhile, on the topics of most concern to people and raised by the students—such as corruption, government transparency, democracy, rule of law, and public scrutiny of government—we needed to take active measures. I suggested establishing a Commission Against Corruption with real authority, under the National People’s Congress [NPC], that would independently accept reports and conduct investigations into the unlawful activities of families of senior Party leaders; strengthening the public’s ability to scrutinize the government; increasing government transparency and speeding up the process of establishing laws on the press and demonstrations; and adopting the practice common around the world of protecting the people’s democratic rights by establishing specific laws.