REFORM DEVOURS ITS OWN CHILDREN

Muhammad Farid ,  CONTRIBUTOR ,  JAKARTA   |  Sun, 11/08/2009 2:09 PM  |  Bookmark

In the words of 19thcentury German dramatist George Buchner, "Revolution is like Saturn; it devours its own children."

Saturn was the Roman god of the harvest who ate his children to prevent them from overthrowing him and seizing his power. However, for Zhao Ziyang, former general secretary of China's Communist Party (CCP), it was reform - not a revolution -that devoured its own son.

The moderate Zhao was removed from his position for opposing the decision to impose martial law in response to the student pro-democracy demonstration at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Following a collective decision by CCP leaders, the military was mobilized to crack down on the demonstration, in a now notoriously bloody incident. In the same month, Zhao was dismissed from his positions as CCP general secretary and member of the CCP Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). Zhao later lived in isolation and under house arrest until he died in Beijing in 2005. He was occasionally allowed to make trips, but those were limited to carefully specifi ed locations. He was allowed to have visitors, but they had to be heavily screened.

Living in this isolation, Zhao recorded his personal views on what happened behind the scenes of the Tiananmen incident through low-quality cassette tapes. From 2000 to 2002, he produced about 30 tapes - each about 60 minutes long - of his journals without anyone knowing, even his family.

To avoid losing the tapes, or having them confi scated, he secretly passed a set of tapes to several trusted friends. After his death, another set of records was found among his grandchildren's toys in his study.

Those who were aware of the records made efforts to collect and transcribe them. The bundle of the transcripts was then published in a book titled Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang.

The Chinese version was later translated into English and edited by Bao Pu, his wife Renee Chiang, and Adi Ignatius. Bao Pu is the son of the former aide to Bao Tong, a former aide to Zhao. Bao Tong was jailed in 1989 for seven years for "revealing state secrets" and "counterrevolutionary propagandizing". He was released in 1996, but was later put under house arrest. Adi Ignatius served as the Beijing bureau chief for American newspaper The Wall Street Journal during Zhao's era.

The book, which comprises six chapters, begins with Zhao's explanation for his opposition to CCP leaders such as then prime minister Li Peng and supreme leader Deng Xiaoping over their decision to send in the military to put down the student protest. Other parts of the book feature Zhao's memories of critical moments in China following the 1978 reform. He recalls struggles among the so-called "conservative" and "moderate" leaders of the CCP over serious issues such as corruption, liberalization, infl ation and the overheating economy, which emerged after the reform. These situations and struggles gradually shaped the environment that led to the student demonstrations - and ended at Tiananmen Square.

Zhao ended his memoirs with his views on how China must change. He emphasized the need for political reform, including the need for increasing the transparency of decision-making, press freedom, dialogue with various social groups and the separation of Party and state.

In his tapes, Zhao admitted that, until the middle of the 1980s, he was a reformer on economic issues, but conservative on political issues. His position began to change when he realized how social problems in China, such as corruption and exploitation of power for personal gain, emerged from economic developments. He realized that without political reform, it would be diffi cult to resolve China's social problems and to sustain economic reform.

Deng Xiaoping, who was widely popular with his 1978 reform -which focused mainly on economics - also repeatedly mentioned a need for political reform. However, Zhao said he found that the political reform Deng had in mind involved only specifi c regulations, methodology and general morale, rather than modernization of the political system and democratization. In other words, Deng's idea of reform aimed merely at strengthening the Communist Party as the sole ruling party.

To some extent, Zhao's viewed resembled those of former CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang. Zhao described Hu as a generous and tolerant man. However, Deng Xiaoping and other CCP leaders found him to be too tolerant, particularly given the liberal trend among intellectuals. In 1987, Hu was forced to resign as general secretary. Zhao believed that if Hu had continued as leader, he would have pushed China's reform forward through democratization and modernization of the political system.

Perhaps this was the main factor shaping his tolerant attitude toward the student demonstrations, which were triggered by the commemoration of Hu Yaobang's death in April 1989. According to Zhao, there are three reasons students reacted so strongly to Hu's passing. First, Hu was proved to be incorruptible while in power. Hence, the commemoration was the appropriate occasion for them to express their dissatisfaction over the widespread and unchecked corruption. Second, students were disappointed with the way the Party treated Hu. Third, students were expressing their desire for advancing reform.

History proves that Zhao failed to convince the CCP leaders to avoid a harsh crackdown on the students. He was then ousted from power and lived in isolation for 16 years because of his views.

During his time under house arrest, his "moderate" views on political reform changed into the more "radical" position that China should make a gradual transition from the one-party state system into a parliamentary democratic system. He believed that the transition would ultimately be part of a worldwide trend that cannot be defi ed, as he quoted the words of China's founding father Sun Yat Sen: "Worldwide trends are enormous and powerful; those who follow them prosper, and those who resist them perish."

For almost 20 years, numerous books on the Tiananmen Incident have been written by scholars, journalists or observers, particularly from outside China. However, most of the books were written based on sources from the mass media, offi cial documents, or other desk research.

The journal of Zhao Ziyang is the fi rst book written on the Tiananmen Incident from the perspective of a CCP leader who was involved in the struggle surrounding the decision to impose martial law. Even though it contains only Zhao's personal views, the book provides room for readers to form their own interpretations on Tiananmen Incident - an inherent factor in democracy.

PRISONER OF THE STATE: THE SECRET JOURNAL OF CHINESE PREMIER ZHAO ZIYANG

Zhao Ziyang; editor: Adi Ignatius; translated
and edited by Bao Pu and Renee Chiang
Simon & Schuster, May 2009

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