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Zhao Ziyang
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Zhao Ziyang (17 October 1919–17 January 2005) was a politician in the People's Republic of China. He was Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989.
As a high-ranking government official, he was a leading reformer who implemented market reforms that greatly increased production and sought measures to streamline the bloated bureaucracy and fight corruption. Zhao Ziyang wanted to address the epidemic corruption and massive inefficiency in PRC's state-owned enterprises by privatizing them.
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Zhao Ziyang (17 October 1919–17 January 2005) was a politician in the People's Republic of China. He was Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989.
As a high-ranking government official, he was a leading reformer who implemented market reforms that greatly increased production and sought measures to streamline the bloated bureaucracy and fight corruption. Zhao Ziyang wanted to address the epidemic corruption and massive inefficiency in PRC's state-owned enterprises by privatizing them. He realized that minor reforms of socialism were not enough: China should separate the Party and the state, and adopt capitalism. He shared these views with Hu Yaobang and both were overthrown by the leftist old guard of the Party.
Socialist hardliners of the party purged Zhao Ziyang for his sympathetic stance toward the student demonstrators in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and spent the last fifteen years of his life under house arrest. His name has been a taboo since 1989. When he died, the press in PRC did not even mention that he was once a leader of PRC.
Rise to power
Zhao was born Zhao Xiuye, but changed his given name to Ziyang while attending middle school. The son of a wealthy landlord in Hua County (Chinese simplified: ??), Henan province, he joined the Communist Youth League in 1932 and worked underground as a Communist Party official during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and subsequent Chinese Civil War. His father was killed by party officials in the late 1940s. He rose to prominence in the party in Guangdong from 1951 and introduced numerous successful agricultural reforms. In 1962, Zhao began to disband the commune system in order to return private land to peasants while assigning production contracts to individual households. He also directed a harsh purge of cadres accused of corruption or having ties to the Kuomintang. By 1965 Zhao was the Party secretary of Guangdong province, despite not being a member of the Communist Party Central Committee.
As a supporter of the reforms of Liu Shaoqi, he was dismissed as Guangdong party leader in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, paraded through Guangzhou in a dunce cap and denounced as "a stinking remnant of the landlord class". He spent four years in forced labor at a factory. In 1971 he was assigned to work as an official in Inner Mongolia and then returned to Guangdong in 1972.
Zhao was rehabilitated by Zhou Enlai in 1973, appointed to the Central Committee, and sent to China's largest province (not including rebelious regions such as Tibet, etc), Sichuan, as first party secretary in 1975. Sichuan had been economically devastated by the Great Leap Forward, and the consequent Cultural Revolution. Zhao turned the province around by introducing radical and successful Market-oriented rural reforms, which led to an increase in industrial production by 81% and agricultural output by 25% within three years. Deng Xiaoping saw the "Sichuan Experience" as the model for Chinese economic reform and had Zhao inducted into the Politburo as an alternate member in 1977 and as a full member in 1979. He joined the Politburo Standing Committee in 1982.
Survived Assassination Attempts
Since Sichuan province was a strong base of Radicalism during the Cultural Revolution, the ardent followers of the Gang of Four vehemently opposed Zhao's reforms. However, Zhao's policy had huge popular support and the supporters of the Gang of Four turned to assassination after all other supposedly legal means failed. Over the years in Sichuan during the Cultural Revolution, there were no fewer than half a dozen attempts on Zhao's life, and the most serious one happened when Zhao's jeep was ambushed in a valley during one of his trips, where he narrowly escaped death, but in an attempt to save Zhao's life, his driver/secretary was crushed and buried by an artificially induced landslide. Although attempts on Zhao's only resulted in this single loss of life, the last culprits were not caught until 1983, well after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Rehabilitation
Zhao was rehabilitated in 1971 and appointed Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Revolutionary Committee secretary and Vice Chairman in March 1972. He was elevated to the 10th Central Committee in August 1973 and returned to Guangdong as 1st CCP Secretary and Revolutionary Committee Chair in April 1974. He added Guangdong Military District Political Commissar to his titles in September 1975. Zhao was transferred to Sichuan, and in addition to his party titles, became Political Commissar of the Chengdu Military Region in December 1975.
Reformist leader
After six months as vice-premier, Zhao was appointed premier in 1980 to replace Hua Guofeng, Mao's designated successor, who was being pushed out of power by Deng Xiaoping. He developed "preliminary stage theory", a course for transforming the socialist system that set the stage for much of the later Chinese economic reform. As premier, he implemented many of the policies that were successful in Sichuan, including giving limited self-management to industrial enterprises and increased control over production to peasants. Zhao sought to develop coastal provinces with special economic zones that could lure foreign investment and create export hubs. This led to rapid increases in both agricultural and light-industrial production throughout the 1980s, but his economic reforms were criticized for causing inflation. Zhao also persisted in advocating an open foreign policy, fostering good relations with western nations that could aid China's economic development.
Zhao was a solid believer in the party, but he defined socialism much differently than party conservatives. Zhao called political reform "the biggest test facing socialism." He believed economic progress was inextricably linked to democratization. As early as 1986, Zhao became the first high-ranking Chinese leader to call for change, by offering a choice of election candidates from the village level all the way up to membership in the Central Committee.
In the 1980s, Zhao was branded by many as a revisionist of Marxism. He advocated government transparency and a national dialogue that included ordinary citizens in the policymaking process, which made him popular with the masses. In Sichuan, where Zhao implemented economic restructuring in the 1970s, there was a saying: "???,??? (yao chi liang, zhao Ziyang)." The wordplay on his name, loosely translated, means "if you want to feed yourself, follow Ziyang."
In January 1987, Deng forced reformist leader Hu Yaobang to resign for being too lenient to student protestors; Zhao replaced him as CPC General Secretary, whose vacated premiership was in turn filled by Li Peng. This put Zhao in the position to succeed Deng as paramount leader. While General Secretary Zhao favored loosening government controls over industry and creating free-enterprise zones in the coastal regions, Premier Li favored a cautious approach that relied more on central planning and guidance.
In the 1987 Communist Party Congress Zhao declared that China was in "a primary stage of socialism" that could last 100 years. Under this premise, China needed to experiment with a variety of economic systems to stimulate production. Zhao proposed to separate the roles of the party and state, a proposal that has since become taboo. According to western observers, the two years Zhao served as General Secretary were the most open in modern Chinese history—many limitations on freedom of speech and freedom of press were relaxed, allowing intellectuals to freely propose improvements for the country.
Equally important, in the economic arena, Zhao was one of the first leaders to advocate the reduction of state control in enterprises by increasing private ownership via stock. Although the idea also became taboo during Zhao's era, it did begin to become a reality since 1990s.
Zhao's proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988 to 1989.
The second half of 1988 saw the increasing deterioration of Zhao's political environment. In fact, Zhao found himself in multi-front turf battles with the party elders, who grew increasingly dissatisfied with Zhao's hands-off approach to ideological matters, as well as the conservative faction in the politburo led by Li Peng and Yao Yilin, who were constantly at odds with him in economic and fiscal policy making. In the mean time, Zhao was under growing pressure to combat the runaway corruption by the rank-and-file officials and their family members. As the year of 1989 kicked off, it was evident that Zhao was faced with an increasingly difficult uphill battle, to some extent he was fighting for his own political survival. If he was unable to turn things around rapidly, a showdown with the party conservatives would be all but inevitable. As it happened, the student protests triggered by the sudden death of former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang, widely seen as a reform-minded leader, provided Zhao with a golden opportunity to regain political upperhand and to advance his reform agenda.
Purged after Tiananmen Square Protests
The death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for the large-scale protest of 1989 by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population. Student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, reacted to a variety of causes of discontent, which they attributed to the slow pace of reform. Ironically, some of the original invective was also directed against Zhao. The party hardliners increasingly came to the opposite conclusion, regretting an excessively rapid pace of change for causing the mood of confusion and frustration rife among college students. The protesters called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. Protests also spread through many other cities, including Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The tragic events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 sealed Zhao's fate and rendered impossible any further democratic movement. While he was paying an official visit to Pyongyang, the party hard-liners exploited the opportunity to declare the ongoing protests "counter-revolutionary." Upon returning from Pyongyang, Zhao made several attempts to steer the course toward what he called "a track based upon democracy and the rule of law". He opened up channels for direct dialogues between students and the government at multiple levels. He also ordered the news media to cover the student demonstrations with unprecedented openness. A number of legislative initiatives aimed at the reform of press, news media and education were also under way. However, Zhao's initiatives, along with his conciliatory attitude toward the students, were seen by the elders and other party hard-liners as hastened steps toward breaking free the party control, therefore a recipe for ultimate disaster. The evening of 16 May marked the point of no return of Zhao's political career. At the onset of his meeting with the visiting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhao made a stunning announcement declaring that Deng Xiaoping, though officially no longer a member of the party central committee, was still having final say in major decision-making. Zhao's move was viewed as an unmistakable sign of departing company with the party leadership, especially the aging paramount leader. It was at this point that Zhao completely lost the trust of Deng Xiaoping, his long-time political patron and mentor. On the night of 18 May, Zhao was summoned to Deng's residence and a hastily called Politburo Standing Committee was called to endorse martial law with Zhao casting the lone dissenting vote.
Shortly before 5 A.M. on the morning of 19 May, Zhao appeared in Tiananmen Square and wandered among the crowd of protesters. Using a bullhorn, he had the following famous speech with the students at the square. It was first broadcast through China Central Television nationwide.
" ??????,?????" - "We are already old, it doesn't matter to us any more." became a famous quote after that. That was his last public appearance.
House arrest until death
The protesters did not disperse. A day after Zhao's 19 May visit to Tiananmen Square, Premier Li Peng publicly declared martial law. In the power struggle that ensued, Zhao was stripped of all his positions. What motivated Zhao remains, even today, a topic of debate by many. Some say he went into the square hoping a conciliatory gesture would gain him leverage against hard-liners like Premier Li Peng. Others believe he supported the protesters and did not want to see them hurt when the military was called in. After the incident, Zhao was placed under house arrest and replaced as General Secretary by Jiang Zemin, who had suppressed similar protests in Shanghai without any bloodshed.
Zhao remained under tight supervision and was allowed to leave his courtyard compound or receive visitors only with permission from the highest echelons of the party. There were occasional reports of him attending the funeral of a dead comrade, visiting other parts of China or playing golf at Beijing courses, but the government rather successfully kept him hidden from news reports and history books. Over that period, only a few snapshots of a gray-haired Zhao leaked out to the media. On at least two occasions Zhao wrote letters, addressed to the Chinese government, in which he put forward the case for a reassessment of the Tiananmen Massacre. One of those letters appeared on the eve of the Communist Party's 15th National Congress. The other came during a 1998 visit to China by U.S. President Bill Clinton. Neither was ever published in mainland China.
Death and muted response
In February 2004, Zhao had a pneumonia attack that led to a lung malfunctioning and was hospitalized for three weeks. Zhao was hospitalized again with pneumonia on 5 December 2004. Reports of his death were officially denied in early January 2005. Later, on 15 January, he was reported to be in a coma after multiple strokes. According to activist Frank Lu, Vice President Zeng Qinghong visited Zhao in the hospital. Zhao died on 17 January in a Beijing hospital at 07:01 at the age of 85. He is survived by his second wife, Liang Boqi, and five children (a daughter and four sons).
The government's response to Zhao's death was notably muted, probably out of fear that mass mourning would spark national protests as had occurred after the deaths of Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. The official government Xinhua News Agency reported as "Zhao Ziyang died at 85" in the English version, while the Chinese title was "Comrade Zhao Ziyang died." It did not make any note of his official titles or legacy as a leader. This is considered unusual, because people who have lower ranks than he did would usually get numerous titles, such as the great revolutionist, loved by the people, etc. Zhao's death was not mentioned on state-run television and radio programs. All Chinese newspapers carried the exact same 59-word obituary on the day following his death, leaving the main means of mass dissemination through the Internet. Internet forums, such as the Strong Nation Forum and the SINA.com Forum were flooded with messages expressing condolences for Zhao, but these messages were promptly deleted by moderators, leading to more postings attacking the moderators for deleting the postings.
In Hong Kong, 10,000–15,000 people attended the candlelight vigil in remembrance of Zhao. Mainlanders such as Chen Juoyi said that it was illegal for Hong Kong legislators to join any farewell ceremony, stating "...under the 'one country, two systems' a Hong Kong legislator cannot care anything about mainland China." The statement caused a political storm in Hong Kong that continued for three days after his speech. Szeto Wah, the chairman of The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said that it was not right for the Communists to suppress the memorial ceremony. The twenty-four pan-democrat legislators went against the chairperson of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, insisting that security be tightened at Tiananmen Square and at Zhao's house, and that the authorities try to prevent any public displays of grief.
Similar memorials were held around the world, notably in New York City and Washington, DC where American government officials and exiled political dissidents attended.
Zhao's positions would have normally entitled him to a state funeral, but the PRC government stated that the funerary arrangements for past leaders had been streamlined and state funerals were no longer held. Skeptics have questioned whether future funerals of Chinese ex-leaders will be as muted as Zhao's.
On 29 January 2005 the government held a funeral ceremony for him at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, a place reserved for revolutionary heroes and high government officials, that was attended by some 2,000 mourners that had been pre-approved to attend. Several dissidents, including Zhao's secretary Bao Tong and Tiananmen Mothers leader Ding Zilin, were kept under house arrest to prevent them from attending. The most senior official to attend the funeral was Jia Qinglin, fourth in the party hierarchy. Mourners were allowed five at a time to view Zhao's flag-covered body and to pay respect to his family. They were forbidden to bring flowers or to inscribe their own messages on the government-issued flowers. There was no eulogy at the ceremony because the government and Zhao's family could not agree on its content: while the government wanted to say he made mistakes, his family refused to accept he did anything wrong. On the day of his funeral, state television mentioned Zhao's death for the first time and issued a short obituary acknowledging his contribution to economic reforms, but saying he made "serious mistakes" during the 1989 protests. After the ceremony, Zhao was cremated. His ashes were taken to his Beijing home as the government denied him a place at Babaoshan.
Push for rehabilitation
In 2005, former NPC Chairman Wan Li joined more than 20 retired Politburo members, including Tian Jiyun, former Vice Premier,
in asking the Central Government to rehabilitate Zhao’s name and hold memorial services for him for his many important contributions to China. The Chinese government agreed to hold a ceremony to honor the late Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, but the response fell far short of satisfying the requests from both inside and outside the CPC.
See also
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