Read Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang Online
Authors: Adi Ignatius
Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (40 page)
This photo was taken by Yang Shaoming, son of Yang Shangkun and a family friend of Zhao’s. It shows a meeting at Deng’s house in the summer of 1989, after the army crushed the students at Tiananmen Square. It is the only known visual record of the actual setting where the crackdown decision had been made.
General Secretary Zhao Ziyang addressed the pro-democracy hunger strikers through a megaphone at dawn on May 19, 1989, in one of the buses at Tiananmen Square in Beijing where the students were sheltered. Zhao had pleaded in vain against using force on the demonstrators.
STR/AFP/Getty Images.
Under house arrest in the summer of 1993, Zhao could exercise his love of golf only by hitting a ball into a net in the courtyard. Some attempts to visit public golf courses during his years of isolation were blocked by officials who did not want Zhao to be seen in public.
At home on February 7, 1992: dinner has to await the outcome of Zhao’s chess game against his wife, Liang Boqi. Grandson Wang Doudou looks on.
In 2004, three generations of family gathered in the courtyard. From left: Wang Doudou (grandson), Zhao Ziyang, Zhao Wujun (son), Li Juanjuan (daughter-in-law), Liang Boqi (wife, sitting), Wang Yenan (daughter), Zhao Dundun (grandson), Wang Zhihua (son-in-law), Zhao Tuotuo (granddaughter), and Wang Jianli (daughter-in-law).
The former Premier’s guards turned into his jailers. In this family outing, Zhao relaxed with his grandson while five “guards” hovered in the background.
Zhao in his study, where he somehow managed to create a taped account of his rise and fall without anyone knowing. A set of these tapes was ultimately discovered after his death, hidden in plain sight: among his grandchildren’s toys.
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For a comprehensive Western account of this period, see Richard Baum,
Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).
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River Elegy
was a controversial multipart TV documentary in China, first broadcast in 1988. It criticized traditional Chinese isolation and embraced Western openness. The Party later denounced the broadcast and blamed it for helping to inspire the 1989 demonstrations.
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The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s catastrophic plan, launched in 1958, to engage the masses in fast-paced economic development. It led to economic collapse, and to the starvation of millions.
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Three Transformations was Mao’s social program to nationalize agriculture, handicrafts, and the mercantile sector in the 1950s.
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Although Zhao recorded these journals in 1999–2000, he was usually reading from texts that he had prepared in some cases many years earlier.
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Although Zhao recorded these journals in 1999–2000, he was usually reading from texts that he had prepared in some cases many years earlier.
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The Four Modernizations identified the primary areas where Deng Xiaoping hoped to advance reforms and develop China’s economy. The four fields were agriculture, industry, technology, and defense.
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“Commodity economy” was a euphemism for “market economy” to avoid ideological conflicts in the early stages of economic reform in China.
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This is not consistent with the records as published in “Selection of Important Documents of the Twelfth Party Congress,” People’s Publishing House (Beijing), 1986, volume 2, p. 535, which says: “Self-initiated production and trade through the free market are limited to small merchandise, three designated categories of agricultural products and services; all of which are auxiliary to the economy.”
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Dazhai was the name of a mountainous village in Shanxi Province that became a model for self-reliant agricultural production during Mao’s time. Skeptics later questioned its purported accomplishments.
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A catty is a Chinese unit of weight equal to 500 grams.
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Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link,
The Tiananmen Papers
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2002).
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The “rural household land contract scheme” is also known as the “rural household responsibility system.”
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Britain officially returned Hong Kong to China’s control in 1997. Two years later Portugal did the same with Macau.
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The Anti-Liberalization Campaign, also known as the Anti–Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign, was launched by Party conservatives in 1987 to combat a growing liberal tide among China’s intelligentsia.
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The Four Cardinal Principles, introduced by Deng in 1979, stressed that there could be no questioning of the four pillars of the state: the socialist path, the people’s democratic dictatorship, the leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxist–Leninist–Mao Zedong thought.
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“Theoretical front” refers to the various Party institutions that come up with theoretical arguments to back up policy. It was often the battleground of conservatives and reformers.
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The Anti–Spiritual Pollution Campaign was launched in 1983 to weed out Western influence in society. The original name, Cleansing Spiritual Pollution, was uttered by Deng Xiaoping, and implies more severe punishment.
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A “Party life meeting” (
dangnei shenghuo hui
) is held for members of the Communist Party to “exchange ideas and experiences, and conduct criticisms and self-criticisms.” According to the Party Charter, such meetings are to be conducted two to four times a year by Party branches.
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Liberal scholar Guo Luoji published a controversial 1979 article in
People’s Daily
arguing that people should be allowed to openly debate political issues. Hu Jiwei was the paper’s chief editor, and Wang Ruoshui its deputy chief editor. Hu Yaobang was criticized for not punishing them as Deng had requested.