Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
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WANG RUOSHUI (1926–2002) was deputy chief editor of the People’s Daily and a well-known liberal scholar. Wang’s articles on “the alienation of socialism” triggered a public debate in the early 1980s that amounted to one of the first intellectual movements to challenge the Party line in the post-Mao era.
WANG RUOWANG (1918–2001) was on the board of directors of the Chinese Writers’ Association and deputy chief editor of Shanghai Literary Magazine. Wang was jailed for fourteen months for his participation in the 1989 protests before being exiled to the United States in 1992.
WANG WEICHENG (1929–) became Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department in 1987 and was later director of the Legislative Commission of the National People’s Congress.
WANG ZHEN (1908–93) became China’s Vice President in 1988. He was a powerful Party elder who often tried to resist reform. In 1989, Wang actively promoted the military crackdown on the students in Tiananmen Square.
WEI JIANXING (1931–) was the Communist Party’s Director of the Organization Department from 1985 to 1987, then Minister of Supervision from 1987 to 1992.
WEI JINGSHENG (1950–) is a Chinese dissident. In 1978, Wei was a leader of the Democracy Wall Movement, during which he wrote a poster, titled The Fifth Modernization, calling for democracy. Perceived by Deng Xiaoping as a critic of his authoritarian rule, Wei was sentenced to fifteen years of imprisonment in 1979 and became one of the best-known Chinese dissidents. Wei now lives in exile in the United States.
WEN JIABAO (1942–) was director of the General Office of the Central Committee from 1986 to 1992. Wen became a member of the Politburo Standing Committee in 2002 and China’s Premier in 2003.
GORDON WU (1935–), also known as Hu Yingxiang, is a Hong Kong entrepreneur, and the founder of Hopewell Holdings Limited.
WU XIUQUAN (1908–97) was Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Communist Party’s International Liaison Department from 1958 to 1975.
WU XUEQIAN (1921–2008) was a member of the Politburo and Vice Premier of the State Council. Wu was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1982 to 1988.
WU ZUGUANG (1917–2003) was a prominent playwright who was regarded as liberal among Chinese writers.
XIAO HONGDA (1918–2005) was director of the General Office of the Central Military Commission and deputy secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission from 1987 to 1992.
XIONG FU (1915–95) was Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department and the director of the Xinhua News Agency. From 1978 to 1988, Xiong was the chief editor of Red Flag, the official magazine of the Party’s Central Committee.
XU JIALU (1937–) was a professor of Chinese literature at Beijing Normal University and vice chairman of the China Association for Promoting Democracy.
XU JIATUN (1916–) was the Communist Party’s secretary of Jiangsu Province and later became chief of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, then China’s defacto official political presence in the territory. Xu has lived in the United States in exile since supporting the prodemocracy movement in Beijing in 1989.
XU SHIJIE (1920–91) was from 1988 to 1990 the Communist Party’s secretary of Hainan Province, one of the coastal regions designated as a Special Economic Zone during the reform era.
XU XIANGQIAN (1901–90) was the general chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army from 1949 to 1954. Xu served as Vice Premier and Minister of Defense from 1978 to 1981.
YAN JIAQI (1942–) is a political science scholar known for his 1979 proposal to abolish the lifelong leadership position held by the Chinese Communist Party and the state. Yan was a researcher at the Central Committee’s Political Reform Research Institute, headed by Bao Tong. Yan has been living in exile since the Tiananmen crackdown.
YAN MINGFU (1931–) was Director of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee from 1985 to 1990. He was removed from his official post for not actively supporting the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.
YANG SHANGKUN (1907–98) was a member of the Politburo from 1982 to 1987 and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He became President of the People’s Republic of China in 1988. Yang played a key role in 1989 by submitting to Deng Xiaoping’s decision to pursue a military crackdown on the Tiananmen protests. Yang was instrumental in mobilizing the army to carry out the order.
YANG WENCHAO (unknown) was a secretary for Zhao Ziyang in the early 1990s.
YAO XIHUA (unknown) was from 1987 to 1989 the chief editor of Guangming Daily, a newspaper influential among the intelligentsia.
YAO YILIN (1917–94) was Vice Premier from 1979 to 1993 and director of the State Planning Commission from 1980 to 1983. Often siding with conservative elders such as Chen Yun, Yao ascended to the Politburo Standing Committee in 1987. As one of the five members of the Politburo Standing Committee, Yao actively supported the military crackdown in Tiananmen in 1989.
YE JIZHUANG (1893–1967) was Minister of Trade and Minister of Foreign Trade in the early days after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
YE XUANNING (1938–) is the second son of China’s esteemed Marshal Ye Jianying. He was director of the Liaison Division of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department from 1990 to 1993.
YONG WENTAO (1932–97) was the Communist Party’s secretary of Guangdong Province and Guangzhou Municipality from 1965 to 1966.
YU GUANGYUAN (1915–) was a prominent economist in the 1980s and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
YU QIULI (1914–99) was Vice Premier from 1975 to 1982, and director of the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army from 1982 to 1987. A veteran of the State Planning Commission, Yu was its director from 1975 to 1980.
YUAN MU (1928–) was director of Premier Li Peng’s office and director of the Research Office of the State Council. Yuan became the official spokesperson during the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.
ZENG XISHENG (1904–68) was the Communist Party’s secretary of Anhui Province. From 1959 to 1961, he promoted the policy of contracting land to farmers instead of forcing them into people’s communes. He was purged in 1962 for opposing Mao’s wishes.
ZHANG GUANGNIAN (1913–2002) was a prominent poet and literary critic, known for his 1955 Chorus of the Yellow River.
ZHANG JINFU (1914–) was director of the State Economic Commission from 1982 to 1988 and secretary of the Central Committee’s Economic and Financial Leading Group.
ZHANG SHUGUANG (1920–2002) was the Governor of Hebei Province and Secretary of the Party Committee of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the 1980s. Zhang became a member of the Central Advisory Commission after 1987.
ZHANG WEI (1913–2001) was vice president of Tsinghua University and member of the Degree Commission of the State Council from 1980 to 1987.
ZHANG XIANYANG (1936–) was an outspoken liberal intellectual who was in charge of the study of Lenin and Stalin at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Zhang was expelled from the Communist Party in 1987.
ZHANG YUEQI (1938–) was both deputy director of the General Office of the Central Committee and Zhao Ziyang’s secretary from 1987 to 1989.
ZHAO JIANMIN (1912–) was governor and Party secretary of Shandong Province and a member of the Central Advisory Commission from 1987 to 1992.
ZHENG BIJIAN (1932–) was a special adviser to General Secretary Hu Yaobang in the 1980s. In 1992, Zheng became Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department.
ZHOU ENLAI (1898–1976) was one of the founding leaders of the People’s Republic of China. Zhou held the position of Premier from 1949 to 1976. Zhou’s mostly pragmatic and moderate approach, in contrast to Mao’s radicalism and ruthlessness, earned him enormous admiration among the populace. His death set off the “April 5th Incident” of 1976, the first large-scale public demonstration in the People’s Republic of China.
ZHU HOUZE (1931–) was Director of the Propaganda Department from 1985 to 1987. His moderate stance was not tolerated by the Party elder
s, and he was removed from his post after Hu Yaobang’s ouster. Zhu served as deputy director of the Rural Development Center of the State Council from 1987 to 1988.
Acknowledgments
The editors would like first of all to express their sincere gratitude to Bao Tong, whose efforts were instrumental in making this publication possible. With his inside knowledge of China’s recent reform efforts, Bao Tong—who was once Zhao Ziyang’s top aide—provided us with insight at almost every stage of this endeavor. Bao Tong, who is the father of Bao Pu, one of the book’s translators and editors, spent seven years in prison for siding with Zhao in opposing the Tiananmen crackdown. At his home in Beijing, he remains under constant surveillance.
We would also like to thank Adi Ignatius’s wife, Dorinda Elliott, a Chinese speaker who was Newsweek’s Beijing bureau chief during the period described in this book. She provided valuable counsel and editing ideas throughout the development of this project. Without her sustained fascination with China and her ability to cross cultural divides, this material would have had a more difficult time finding its way to the English reader.
We’re grateful for the wise and elegant contribution of Roderick MacFarquhar, the Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science at Harvard University and the author of many books on China, most recently Mao’s Last Revolution (coauthored with Michael Schoenhals, Harvard Universtiy Press).
We have been impressed at the speed and competence of the team at Simon & Schuster. Our wonderful editor, Priscilla Painton, and publisher, David Rosenthal, were enthusiastic from the start about a project they could only refer to as “Untitled” by “Anonymous” as it moved through the publication process. Aileen Boyle, Irene Kheradi, Lisa Healy, Linda Dingler, Michael Szczerban, and Daniel Luis Cabrera brought their usual rigor and high standards to the making and marketing of the book, and made sure it was handled with care.
Lastly, we want to thank our friend and literary agent Rafe Sagalyn, who helped us shape an idea into a book.
There are many who must remain unnamed who have worked behind the scenes from inside China. They took unimaginable risks to safeguard, preserve, and transport Zhao Ziyang’s secret tapes to safety outside the country. We only hope that this publication gives them gratification and that in the future their own stories can be told.
Photographic Insert
Zhao in 1948, just before the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war. Already a county administrator with a successful record in land reform, Zhao was soon to be sent to Guangdong and eventually became the Party Secretary in the coastal province.
Zhao was very public about his love of golf, cultivating an image that would have been unthinkable for a Communist Party leader in Mao’s era. That image probably reinforced the impression among conservative Party elders that Zhao had learned “too much foreign stuff.”
The reform-minded General Secretary Hu Yaobang and Premier Zhao Ziyang operated in a political environment where the Party elders dominated. From left: Hu Yaobang, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Zhao Ziyang, Deng Yingchao (widow of deceased Premier Zhou Enlai), and Peng Zhen.
Deng Xiaoping warned Zhao before the 13th Party Congress not to include anything resembling the Western-style tripartite division of powers. The final report should include “not even a trace of it,” Deng said.
President Ronald Reagan, right, escorted Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang following a White House meeting on January 10, 1984. AFP/Getty Images.
After thirty years of rupture between the Soviet Union and China, President Mikhail Gorbachev paid an official visit to Beijing, where he was greeted by General Secretary Zhao Ziyang on May 17, 1989. Zhao, who advocated talking with pro-democracy student demonstrators on Tiananmen Square during the visit, was later ousted from his post. © Jacques Langevin/CORBIS SYGMA.
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.
* 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).
† 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.
* 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.
† Three Transformations was Mao’s social program to nationalize agriculture, handicrafts, and the mercantile sector in the 1950s.
* Although Zhao recorded these journals in 1999–2000, he was usually reading from texts that he had prepared in some cases many years earlier.
* Although Zhao recorded these journals in 1999–2000, he was usually reading from texts that he had prepared in some cases many years earlier.
* 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.
* “Commodity economy” was a euphemism for “market economy” to avoid ideological conflicts in the early stages of economic reform in China.
* 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.”
* 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.
* A catty is a Chinese unit of weight equal to 500 grams.
* Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link, The Tiananmen Papers (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002).
* The “rural household land contract scheme” is also known as the “rural household responsibility system.”
* Britain officially returned Hong Kong to China’s control in 1997. Two years later Portugal did the same with Macau.
* 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.