Beijing Newspeak

Three years ago on Thursday, January 17, Zhao Ziyang died at the age of 85 while still under the house arrest that had been imposed 15 years earlier for his sympathetic approach to the Tiananmen Square protests. Human Rights in China released a report yesterday saying Li Jinping, who has dedicated a room in his Beijing home to the memory of the former Premier, was receiving an extra dose of police harrassment as the anniversary drew near. All this inspired me to spend my day - some might say idly if they are judging me on polishing prolificacy - reading how the last moments of Zhao’s political life, and subsequently his actual life, were reported to the world by Xinhua’s English service. I suppose this is old ground for some but I thought it was interesting anyway.

We pick up the story on May 18, 1989:

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, Premier Li Peng and other two members of the standing committee of the political bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, went to two local hospitals early this morning to visit students who have been on hunger strike and receiving medical treatment.

They wished the students an early recovery.

Reaffirming the patriotic spirit of the students, the Party leaders said that the students’ enthusiasm for democracy and legality, opposing corruption and promoting reform was “highly commendable”. The Party Central Committee attaches great importance to and will earnestly study their reasonable demands in a bid to improve the Party and government work.

Zhao said the Party, the government and the students have common goals and they have no fundamental conflicting interests. He urged the students not to resort to hunger strike, saying there are many ways to exchange views and solve problems.

“You are still young and have a long way ahead for you to contribute your shares to the Chinese nation and our country,” Zhao told the students. “You must take good care of yourselves.”

The next day at dawn, accompanied by Li Peng, Zhao made his famous coded plea to the students to leave the square. Xinhua reported the following: (polishers do not seem to have been involved in these unless Xinhua actively employed people lacking the grammar gene during the 80s):

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and Premier Li Peng arrived at the Tiananmen Square at 04:45 this morning to visit the hunger-striking students there.

Yesterday morning the hunger strikers moved into buses to seek shelter from the rain.

When the two leaders approached their buses, the students shouted: “Comrade Ziyang has come.” “Comrade Li Peng has come.” Many of them clapped their hands. Others stretched their arms through the widow (window) and shook hands with Zhao and Li.

Zhao entered one of the buses where he shook hands with the hunger strikers and said hello to them.

“We’ve come too late,” Zhao told the students. “You have good intentions. You want the country to become better. The problems you have raised will eventually be resolved. But things are complicated and there must be a process to resolve these problems.”

He added: “You’ve been on hunger strike for six or seven days. The whole of Beijing is discussing it. The Party and the government hope you will become calm and stop hunger strike immediately. The Party and government will not stop trhe dialogue with you when you put an end to hunger strike.”

Li urged the students to stop hunger strike and go back to campuses.

It was his last public appearance. The Economist wrote this opening paragraph shortly after Zhao’s death in 2005 about it:

AT DAWN on May 19th 1989, when the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square were at their height and looking like a serious threat to Chinese Communist Party rule, the party’s leader, Zhao Ziyang, suddenly appeared among the protesting students. Addressing them tearfully through a megaphone, he said he had come “too late”. He did not say what he meant but, in the coded language of Chinese political rhetoric, his message was abundantly clear. He had come too late to save the demonstrators—and he wanted them to leave the square before it was too late for them. The next day, martial law was declared in Beijing. Fifteen days later, with the protesters still ignoring Mr Zhao’s warning, soldiers from the People’s Army opened fire on them, killing hundreds.

Six days later, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman assured the international press corps that Zhao was still the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, a line similar to the dreaded vote of confidence that terrifies football managers. And then silence from Xinhua for three and a half weeks (due to orders from the propaganda department rather than the fact Xinhua reporters had staged a protest and a mini-strike in the compound of the news agency following the events of June 4). On June 16, NBC was treated to an interview with a State Council spokesman, which was reported by Xinhua a full day later. So much for the state news agency having all the government access. The spokesman refused to refer to Zhao by name.

“A certain individual in the top leadership erred in supporting riots,” Yuan Mu, spokesman of the State Council, told the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) of the United States yesterday.

In an exclusive interview, when NBC’s anchorman Tom Brokaw asked whether General Secretary Zhao Ziyang is out of his job and whether the Party has a new general secretary, Yuan said that the recent meeting between senior leader Deng Xiaoping and commanders of the martial law enforcement troops in Beijing “tells the entire world that the Chinese leadership is stable. It is true that a certain individual in the top leadership erred in supporting riots. The problem will be dealt with and made public soon.”

Asked whether Zhao Ziyang will be put to trial, Yuan Mu said that “the problem is one within the Party and will be dealt with in accordance with the Party constitution.”

A week later, Zhao was dismissed from his posts. A report delivered by Li Peng on behalf of the political bureau included the following:

At the critical juncture involving the destiny of the Party and the State, the communique noted, Zhao Ziyang made the mistake of supporting the turmoils and splitting the Party, and he had unshirkable responsibilities for the shaping-up of the turmoils. The nature and consequences of his mistakes are very serious, it added.

Although Zhao did something beneficial to the reform, the opening of China to the outside world and the economic work when he held leading posts in the Party and the government, he obviously erred in guide lines and practical work. Especially after taking charge of the work of the CPC Central Committee, he took a passive approach to the adherence to the four cardinal principles and opposition to bourgeois liberalization, and gravely neglected party building, cultural and ethical development and ideological and political work, causing serious losses to the cause of the Party, the communique said.

The following month, Zhao Ziyang was blamed for the increasing corruption among corruption officials:

The State Council spokesman Yuan Mu blamed Zhao Ziyang for increasing corruption on the part of Party and government officials.

Asked why, at a news briefing held here this morning, there was so much corruption in the Party and government, Yuan said it was hard to explain in a few minutes, but, he added, “our ex-general secretary should be held responsible for the worsening problem”.

I presume someone in Xinhua was trying to give the comments a ludicrous tinge but you never know. In August, a signed article appeared in the Guangming Daily under the headline “How did comrade Zhao Ziyang cripple the political and ideological work of the Party?” and was reported by Xinhua. Far better to convey stinging criticism through commentaries written by invisible propaganda bods rather than through the dulcet tones of senior officials.

 Zhao Ziyang’s errors in the field of political and ideological work are not accidental, they have a deep social and historical background, and Zhao himself has faulty ideological roots. Bascially this stems from his inability to stand the test of the reform and open-door policies. We should take further steps to expose and criticise comrade Zhao’s errors, so that the political and ideological work of the Party can be strengthened.

The following month, Jiang Zemin was much more friendly. He said Zhao was still “leading a quite comfortable life” (quite as in bloody marvellous rather than so-so, I think) and quipped: “Comrade Zhao Ziyang has a longer record in serving the Party, so I think he enjoys better life treatment than I do.” While admitting Zhao had done “something beneficial”, he said he “erred in implementing concrete policies”. He also noted, “The consistent policy of the Party Central Committee is that when a Party member commits mistakes, his life should not be affected,” Jiang noted.

In November, Xinhua reported comments from Li Peng’s interview with Die Welt more than two weeks after it was published because the text took a while to be released officially in China. Li said if Zhao “can correct his mistakes by actual deed, we will welcome it”.

Skip forward to April 4, 1990, and Li Peng says Zhao “is a free man now living in his home in Beijing”. Then leap ahead to October 10, 1992 with this statement from Xinhua:

The examination and investigation into the mistakes Zhao Ziyang made during the political turmoils in 1989 has been completed, and the conclusion on his mistakes made by the fourth plenary session of the 13th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is maintained.

And that’s the last we hear of Zhao until January 16, 2005 when Xinhua turns out a three-line report:

Zhao Ziyang has lately suffered from an illness recurrence and his physical condition has stabilized after careful treatment, Xinhua learned Sunday afternoon.

Zhao is still receiving continued careful treatment at the moment.

A day later, four simple lines. No mention of the fact he used to be Premier. Just a comrade.

Comrade Zhao Ziyang died of illness in a Beijing hospital Monday. He was 85.

Comrade Zhao had long suffered from multiple diseases affecting his respiratory and cardiovascular systems, and had been hospitalized for medical treatment for several times. His conditions worsened recently, and he passed away Monday after failing to respond to all emergency treatment.

His death was not reported on Chinese television and according to Wikipedia ahem (it’s late at night and I’m tired), Chinese newspapers all carried the same 59-word obituary on the day after his death. Mourners posted praise on Internet forums which were deleted. The BBC reported:

Zhao’s daughter Wang Yannan said Zhao died “peacefully”, adding: “He is free at last.”

Zhao’s son Liang Fang told Reuters news agency that “national leaders” visited Zhao in hospital before his death.

It was “not convenient” to reveal their identities, Mr Liang said.

Speculation built over the likely nature of Zhao’s funeral. David Shambaugh, author of “The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyang’s Provincial Career”, delivered some suggestions via the International Herald Tribune, which never looked remotely realistic:

Since Zhao was a disgraced ex-leader, there is no good reason for the current leaders to convene a formal memorial, and they have every incentive to play down his passing. But if President Hu Jintao & Co. are politically savvy and serious about instituting real political reforms, this would be a good way to signal it. They have offered some indications in recent months that they are inclined to move ahead with limited political reforms in order to strengthen the one-party system. That is exactly what Zhao was trying to do in the late 1980s.

If Hu and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (who was standing behind Zhao in his last public appearance in Tiananmen Square in 1989) seek to send such a signal, they can do so by drawing on Zhao’s reformist contributions and the fact that he remained a Communist Party member to his death.

The final act came on January 29. Zhao was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing. The highest-ranking official to attend was Jia Qinglin, fourth in line to the throne. The Xinhua report, which did not linger on details, said Zhao had made “contributions to the cause of the Party and the people”. The next line said, “In the political turbulence which took place in the later spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.” Over and out.

Being a troublesome Westerner, I’ll end with the words of Zhao’s former secretary, as reported in the New York Times:

Mr. Zhao’s former secretary, Bao Tong, who spent seven years in prison and still lives under government surveillance, said the 16-year isolation of Mr. Zhao was a “showcase of shame” for the Chinese Communists, whose “attempts to conceal the truth about the past only serve to reveal their weaknesses and their shamelessness”…

…The party’s determination to restrict Mr. Zhao’s freedom when he was alive - and perhaps the minimal rites granted him after his death - are part of a “systematic effort to erase Zhao Ziyang’s name from history,” Mr. Bao said.