sinophile
05-14-2009, 10:44 PM
From the NYT (via AP), covering the soon to be released book: Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (http://www.amazon.com/Prisoner-State-Secret-Journal-Premier/dp/1439149380)
Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp) excerpt -
Secret Memoir Offers Look Inside China’s Politics
Zhao Ziyang, with bullhorn, made his final appearance in Tiananmen Square with student protesters on May 19, 1989. Mr. Zhao's aide, Wen Jiabao, second from right, is now China's prime minister.
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: May 14, 2009
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
One man’s stand in 1989, above. In a forthcoming book, a former Chinese leader tells of the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests of 20 years ago.
The party chief, Zhao Ziyang, was told to go to Mr. Deng’s home on the afternoon of May 17 for what he thought would be a private talk. To his dismay, he arrived to find that Mr. Deng had assembled several key members of the Politburo, including Mr. Zhao’s bitter foes.
“I realized that things had already taken a bad turn,” Mr. Zhao recalls in a secretly recorded memoir only now coming to light — a rare first-person account of crisis politics at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
From Mr. Deng’s impatient body language and the scathing attacks he received from his rivals, Mr. Zhao says in the memoir, which is now being published in book form, it was obvious that Mr. Deng had already decided to overrule Mr. Zhao’s proposal for dialogue with the students and impose martial law.
“It seems my mission in history has already ended,” Mr. Zhao recalls telling a party elder later that day. “I told myself that no matter what, I would not be the general secretary who mobilized the military to crack down on students.”
As Mr. Zhao anticipated, he was immediately sidelined and soon vilified for “splitting the party.” He was purged and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005.
But in this long, enforced retirement, it turns out, Mr. Zhao secretly recorded his own account, on 30 musical cassette tapes that were spirited out of the country by former aides and supporters, of his rise to national power in the 1980s, his battles with the old guard, and his alliance and tussles with Mr. Deng as he loosened Soviet-style controls and helped put China on a path to the dynamic economic power it has become today.
Mr. Zhao also tells how he was outmaneuvered during the lengthy student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in the spring of 1989, setting up his ouster shortly before the military crackdown on June 4 of that year.
One striking claim in the memoir, scholars who have seen it said, is that Mr. Zhao presses the case that he pioneered the opening of China’s economy to the world and the initial introduction of market forces in agriculture and industry — steps he says were fiercely opposed by hard-liners and not always fully supported by Mr. Deng, the paramount leader, who is often credited with championing market-oriented policies.
“Deng Xiaoping was the godfather, but on a day-to-day basis Zhao was the actual architect of the reforms,” Mr. MacFarquhar said in an interview.
Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15zhao.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp) excerpt -
Secret Memoir Offers Look Inside China’s Politics
Zhao Ziyang, with bullhorn, made his final appearance in Tiananmen Square with student protesters on May 19, 1989. Mr. Zhao's aide, Wen Jiabao, second from right, is now China's prime minister.
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: May 14, 2009
Jeff Widener/Associated Press
One man’s stand in 1989, above. In a forthcoming book, a former Chinese leader tells of the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests of 20 years ago.
The party chief, Zhao Ziyang, was told to go to Mr. Deng’s home on the afternoon of May 17 for what he thought would be a private talk. To his dismay, he arrived to find that Mr. Deng had assembled several key members of the Politburo, including Mr. Zhao’s bitter foes.
“I realized that things had already taken a bad turn,” Mr. Zhao recalls in a secretly recorded memoir only now coming to light — a rare first-person account of crisis politics at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
From Mr. Deng’s impatient body language and the scathing attacks he received from his rivals, Mr. Zhao says in the memoir, which is now being published in book form, it was obvious that Mr. Deng had already decided to overrule Mr. Zhao’s proposal for dialogue with the students and impose martial law.
“It seems my mission in history has already ended,” Mr. Zhao recalls telling a party elder later that day. “I told myself that no matter what, I would not be the general secretary who mobilized the military to crack down on students.”
As Mr. Zhao anticipated, he was immediately sidelined and soon vilified for “splitting the party.” He was purged and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005.
But in this long, enforced retirement, it turns out, Mr. Zhao secretly recorded his own account, on 30 musical cassette tapes that were spirited out of the country by former aides and supporters, of his rise to national power in the 1980s, his battles with the old guard, and his alliance and tussles with Mr. Deng as he loosened Soviet-style controls and helped put China on a path to the dynamic economic power it has become today.
Mr. Zhao also tells how he was outmaneuvered during the lengthy student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in the spring of 1989, setting up his ouster shortly before the military crackdown on June 4 of that year.
One striking claim in the memoir, scholars who have seen it said, is that Mr. Zhao presses the case that he pioneered the opening of China’s economy to the world and the initial introduction of market forces in agriculture and industry — steps he says were fiercely opposed by hard-liners and not always fully supported by Mr. Deng, the paramount leader, who is often credited with championing market-oriented policies.
“Deng Xiaoping was the godfather, but on a day-to-day basis Zhao was the actual architect of the reforms,” Mr. MacFarquhar said in an interview.