Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang

by Adi Ignatius

  However, after the 13th Party Congress, it was difficult to do political reform. First of all, the Party elders, including Comrade Deng Xiaoping, had differing opinions on economic reform but shared one opinion on political reform: they were opposed to changing the basics of the existing system. They feared that any real political reform would lead to challenges to the Communist Party’s power, thereby weakening the Party or even causing it to lose its ruling position.

  When drafting the 13th Party Congress Political Report, I was repeatedly warned by [Deng] Xiaoping not to be influenced by the Western concept of a tripartite separation of powers. He went so far as to say that not even a trace of this should be allowed to appear in the Political Report. What he intended by “reform of the political system” was in fact merely administrative reforms: simplification of organizations, streamlining of personnel, reduction of bureaucratic red tape, improved efficiency, etc. None of these touched upon the most essential problems in the political system.

  I then thought about enriching and improving the system of “cooperation by and in consultation with other political parties under the leadership of the Communist Party.” Those other parties could be made truly useful if they were allowed real political participation, if the system were genuinely functional instead of just in name. We could make the other political parties active and truly useful, with their political participation acting as a check. It would allow those people in society who had a strong desire for political participation to fulfill their wishes through joining other political parties, which would not yield when opposing the Party; something that would be outside of any existing framework. Doing this would constitute a kind of distribution of power, so that the Communist Party would not monopolize it all. However, it absolutely would not challenge the Communist Party’s ruling position. For this purpose, I proposed changing “multiparty cooperation system under the Communist Party” to “multiparty cooperation system with the Communist Party’s leadership.” The change was not a major one, but “leadership” was a political matter, while “under” also included an organizational aspect.

  I also suggested that skilled people from other political parties be promoted to positions of Vice Minister or even Minister levels in various branches of the State Council. This had been done in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. Also, on some issues, other political parties should no longer have to wait to be informed by the Communist Party only after it had made a final decision. We should be able to hear the opinions of other parties before making decisions. This would make it a “consultation” in reality, not just in name. The promotion of members of other political parties to leadership positions in ministries had won Deng Xiaoping’s approval, and he had said, “Do it as soon as possible.”

  Also, there was the issue of how to develop the potential of other parties. As long as there were going to be political parties, they should be parties with real political participation. That meant that they ought to function as real political parties, not just as a single representative at the National People’s Congress.

  These were ideas that I had in mind at the time, though without resolute certainty.

  Some people wondered: If the Communist Party could establish leading groups during National People’s Congress sessions, would other political parties be allowed to establish their own leading groups? I don’t know how this matter was relayed to Deng, but [his daughter] Deng Maomao sent a message to me via my secretary Li Yong: “When Deng spoke of expanding participation by other political parties, he was just talking. How can this be taken seriously? We absolutely must not allow other political parties to establish their leading groups during NPC sessions.” Deng was opposed to this idea and had sent this message.

  We could not even complete and bring substance to a system we already had in place, a system that had everyone’s approval. Imagine how difficult it would be to put through any other reforms.

  On the question of the separation of Party and state powers, many Party members were worried about implementing the factory managers’ responsibility scheme—and their resistance was fierce. Many local Party committees were opposed. They were used to the Party committee managing everything, with a monopoly on all powers, over the Party and administration. The final decision maker was the Party secretary.

  Implementing a separation of Party and state powers would strip the Party secretary of real power. Therefore, local-level officials refused to make the factory director a principal leader and the legal representative. The result would have been that the Party secretary no longer made all factory decisions, but would mainly be in charge of Party and political affairs.

  Separation of Party and state powers and the factory managers’ responsibility system did in fact touch upon the issue of the distribution of powers, so those who already had power were unwilling to give it up. The reform was therefore extremely difficult to carry out.

  I had said before that we needed to strengthen and reform our political and propaganda work, and that it was a major issue. Strengthening politics and propaganda while implementing reform was of course the right thing to do; the question was how to strengthen it.

  If we followed the old methods to implement this, we would end up with the opposite of what we had intended. Even though our politics and propaganda work had achieved positive things in the past, after 1957—for nearly twenty years—our politics and propaganda had been focused on class struggle. The politics and propaganda that had taken class struggle as its central focus viewed people as objects to be changed and controlled. Therefore, political and propaganda work had never used reasoning or tried to persuade, but had relied on coercion and labeling. The class struggle–based politics and propaganda had been seriously damaging and had created some of the worst habits. At the same time, there were problems with political affairs having become seriously bureaucratized. The organization was huge, with large numbers of nonproductive people.

  Therefore, I proposed reforming political and propaganda work, which meant fundamentally changing how it had been done—continuing some of the good traditions formed in the war years, while searching for ways to reinvent political and propaganda working methods. Primarily, we needed to search anew and reinvent.

  My raising of this issue caused great unrest. Many elder comrades were opposed, as were comrades of Party committees at various local levels. Those who were doing political and propaganda work in the factories, and the large number of people across the country who relied on political and propaganda work for a living, believed that they were about to be pushed aside.

  I felt back then how difficult China’s economic reform had been at every step, and how little room there had been for taking risks. Any little problem that emerged provoked opposition.

  In political reform, however, every step was even more difficult. Because political reform was in certain respects changing the way the Communist Party governed, the way it exercised power, and the way it dealt with things, in the end it had to change the way the Party itself viewed power and its own monopoly on power. Therefore, resistance was tremendous.

  The resistance to political reform primarily came from the leadership, at all levels within the Party. If economic reform can be said to have easily gained the support of the “dukes,”* political reform met with their reluctance and resistance. I felt very strongly that China’s top-down and gradual approach of reforming the economic system was workable, but for political reform, the situation was truly much more difficult.

  However, I also felt that if the political system were not reformed, economic reform would run into difficulties as it continued to be deepened. For example, the standards for cadre promotions hadn’t changed. Even though China had already implemented ten years of reform, we had never attempted to resolve the imperative of putting people who supported reform in charge at various levels of leadership. Therefore, reform could not withstand any rocking of the boat.

  Some local authorities had taken pragmatic attitudes in
dealing with reform; they had done whatever was beneficial to them and resisted anything that might harm their interests. They would expand whatever worked to their benefit, and they would limit in scope whatever worked against their interests.

  There was also the problem of corruption. In 1988, I spent the Spring Festival holiday in Guangdong. After I learned more about the situation there, I had a profound sense of how reforming the economy had revitalized it, but also that corruption had emerged. At the time, I proposed that “the economy must prosper, but the government must stay clean.” By “government” here I meant the cadres, those in power. Afterward, I became increasingly aware that “being clean” was a major challenge.

  During the transition period from old to new economic systems, without checks, corruption was bound to grow, in the form of power-money exchanges, official profiteering, official monopoly of businesses, and bribery. To resolve these kinds of corruption issues, the key was transparency and democratic supervision, including scrutiny by the press and public opinion, and an independent judiciary.

  In other words, this was the issue of political reform. Without an independent judiciary, the courts could not judge a case with a disinterested attitude, the procurator could not exercise power independently, and even laws that were in place could not be carried out. This touched upon the issue of the judiciary’s relationship with the Party. I deeply believed that the political system needed to be reformed accordingly; of course, not via a wholesale copying of the West, but rather, something appropriate to China’s situation: gradually adding democracy and checks and balances to the Communist Party’s way of ruling. Power absolutely could not be monopolized and it needed checks.

  Almost no Party elders supported this kind of reform. The reality was that political reform was at a standstill. This created a problem. On the one hand, we had people making increasingly strong demands for democracy and an acceleration of political reform; on the other hand, no action had been taken on political reform since the 13th Party Congress. There was a wide gap between the people’s demands, especially the intellectuals’ demands, and the Party’s intentions.

  Because the political environment was still relatively relaxed, people spoke out boldly—unlike after June Fourth, when the political environment became highly repressive. The contrast between reality and public demand only intensified the desire for democracy, to the point that extreme ideas were expressed and actions taken that aggravated the conflict. Suggestions were made that a Western parliamentary system be implemented. A student by the name of Chen Jun, who had been studying in the United States, came back to China to organize well-known intellectuals to demand the release of [prominent dissident] Wei Jingsheng. There was a signature petition campaign in the United States to issue an open letter to Deng Xiaoping demanding Wei’s release. Similar activities took place in Hong Kong. In 1989, during the National People’s Congress, a Hong Kong delegation demanded human rights and the release of Wei Jingsheng. There were many activities in the universities as well. There were various kinds of salons and forums in which extreme ideas were expressed. Some intellectuals who held extreme views went to universities and colleges to give speeches expressing their disaffection. [Dissident astrophysicist] Fang Lizhi, who was abroad, attacked Deng Xiaoping personally, by name.

  All of this offered an excuse to those who opposed reform in the name of anti-liberalization. They used these occurrences to provoke the Party elders and make them and Deng even more anxious, and convince them that not even a shred of relaxation should be allowed in the political realm.

  This complicated situation emerged after 1988, amid the more relaxed political situation that followed the 13th Party Congress. Tensions heightened between some intellectuals and the Party. The political upheaval that occurred in 1989 was not completely coincidental. Hadn’t Deng Xiaoping stated that it had been caused by the general international climate and the domestic climate? I believe if there was a domestic climate, it was the condition that I described above. Certainly people were disgruntled with rising prices, but what made them even more dissatisfied, especially intellectuals and young people, was the standstill in economic reform and the restoration of the old methods.

  They were having doubts about the future of economic reform. Meanwhile, political reform had been silenced and no progress had been made. People were angry about corruption and they believed that without political reform to put checks on the Communist Party’s rule, the corruption problem could not be resolved. At its core, the spirit of the student demonstrations was a demand for the deepening of reform and an opposition to the conservative forces. The most convincing evidence of this is the fact that, even as inflation dominated public attention, the students cautiously avoided this sensitive issue, out of concerns that it would only lead to opposition to the reforms. Their primary motivation was to promote reform, to oppose undemocratic ways and oppose official profiteering.

  [Party elder] Li Xiannian was very active in the “Overthrow Zhao” campaign, both as a front man and behind the scenes. In October 1988, at the Third Plenum of the 13th Central Committee, there had been plans to approve a public announcement on reorganization until [Party elder] Wang Zhen suddenly launched an attack on River Elegy* and demanded that the Central Committee issue an official criticism of it. I managed to brush him aside.

  After the incident, [son of Marshal Ye Jianying] Ye Xuanning told me that Wang Zhen had ardently denounced [Zhao aide] Bao Tong in his presence, saying that Bao Tong was a scoundrel who had supported the production of River Elegy—an allegation Wang Zhen had heard from Li Xiannian.

  In fact, this was completely fictitious. Bao Tong never had anything to do with River Elegy, nor had he ever spoken to me about it.

  There was more that Wang Zhen had not said. When Li Xiannian named “Bao Tong,” he in fact was referring to me, implying that I had supported River Elegy. It is possible that Wang Zhen himself had been displeased with River Elegy, and Li Xiannian had taken the opportunity to link me with River Elegy to provoke Wang Zhen’s anger against me. In order to provoke dissatisfaction in some elder comrades toward me, Li Xiannian had been willing to go so far as to fabricate a rumor.

  After June Fourth, when they published criticisms against me in the newspapers, River Elegy was a major issue. Many of the accusations were entirely fictitious, such as the claim that I had supported the production of River Elegy, had ordered x number of copies of tapes to be distributed nationwide, had suppressed criticisms of the production. None of this was true.

  5

  The Way Forward

  Despite spending his career in the Communist Party, Zhao ultimately acknowledges that China’s system is far from a democratic ideal and concludes that a parliamentary democracy is the best course for a modern state and should be China’s goal. He even suggests that China could learn a thing or two from Taiwan.

  After I stepped down in 1989 and with the changes that occurred both at home and abroad, I started to develop a new understanding of China’s political reform.

  I once believed that people were the masters of their own affairs not in the parliamentary democracies of the developed nations in the West, but only in the Soviet and socialist nations’ systems with a people’s congress, making the latter system more advanced and a better-realized form of democracy.

  This, in fact, is not the case. The democratic systems of our socialist nations are all just superficial; they are not systems in which the people are in charge, but rather are ruled by a few or even a single person.

  Of the various political systems that existed in the world during the twentieth century, absolute monarchies and the fascist dictatorships of Germany and Italy have been eliminated. There have been military dictatorships, but they have existed briefly or are losing support. Even though they often appeared in very underdeveloped nations—for example, military rule in South American nations—they have all steadily turned out to be brief episodes in these nations’ gradual march toward parliamentary politics.
For several decades during the twentieth century, the so-called “new democratic system,” the proletarian dictatorship, competed with the Western parliamentary system. But in the vast majority of these nations, it has since receded from the historical stage.

  In fact, it is the Western parliamentary democratic system that has demonstrated the most vitality. This system is currently the best one available. It is able to manifest the spirit of democracy and meet the demands of a modern society, and it is a relatively mature system.

  Of course, this system is not perfect; it has many problems. Yet relatively speaking, this system is best suited to a modern civilization, more adaptable to shifts in public opinions and most capable of realizing democracy. Moreover, it is more stable. The vitality of this system has grown increasingly clear. Almost all developed nations have adopted a parliamentary democracy.

  In the past few decades, the newly emerging nations with their fast-paced development have illustrated more clearly the trend to converge on a parliamentary democratic system. I am certain this is not by chance. Why is there not even one developed nation practicing any other system? This shows that if a country wants to modernize, to realize a modern market economy, it must practice parliamentary democracy as its political system.

  Of course, it is possible that in the future a more advanced political system than parliamentary democracy will emerge. But that is a matter for the future. At present, there is no other.

  Based on this, we can say that if a country wishes to modernize, not only should it implement a market economy, it must also adopt a parliamentary democracy as its political system. Otherwise, this nation will not be able to have a market economy that is healthy and modern, nor can it become a modern society with a rule of law. Instead it will run into the situations that have occurred in so many developing countries, including China: commercialization of power, rampant corruption, a society polarized between rich and poor.