14 May
2009
14 May
'09
8:56 a.m.
Zhao Ziyang Tapes Reveal Call for Democracy
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HONG KONG, May 14, 2009-Twenty years after the People's Liberation Army crushed the
student-led pro-democracy movement in China with guns and tanks, a former top Communist
Party official has released audio recordings in which former premier Zhao Ziyang calls for
parliamentary democracy for China, Radio Frede Asia (RFA) reports.
Zhao, who fell into political disgrace in the wake of the crackdown, described it in
recordings as "a tragedy to shock the world, which was happening in spite of attempts
to avert it."
He recalls hearing the sound of "intense gunfire" on the evening of June 3, 1989
while sitting at his Beijing home, where he was held under house arrest until his death.
He concludes in extracts read from an unpublished political memoir that the only way
forward for China is a parliamentary democracy.
"Of course, it is possible that in the future a more advanced political system than
parliamentary democracy will emerge," Zhao said. "But that is a matter for the
future. At present, there is no other."
He said China could not have a healthy economic system, nor become a modern society with
the rule of law without democracy.
"Instead, it will run into the situations that have occurred in so many developing
countries, including China: the commercialization of power, rampant corruption, and a
society polarized between rich and poor."
Released by aide
Zhao's former political aide, Bao Tong, who served a seven-year jail term in the wake
of the crackdown, released the tapes ahead of the 20th anniversary of the violent
suppression of the 1989 student movement, in which hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000,
died.
"Zhao Ziyang left behind a set of audio recordings. These are his legacy," Bao
wrote to RFA's Mandarin service from under house arrest at his Beijing home.
"Zhao Ziyang's legacy is for all of China's people. It is my job to transmit
them to the world in the form of words and to arrange things," he said.
"Their contents have implications for a history that is still influencing the people
of China to this day. The key theme of this history is reform," Bao said.
Authorities in Beijing suppressed any public displays of grief for Zhao in the days after
his death on Jan. 17, 2005, detaining dozens of people for wearing white flowers in his
honor or attempting to pay their respects at the former premier's home.
Zhao was openly mourned by thousands in the former British colony of Hong Kong, however,
where is seen by many as a symbol of the territory's own struggle for political
change.
Educating China's youth
Bao said his purpose in releasing the tapes, which he described as "political
task," was partly to educate a whole generation of young people in China who had
never heard of Zhao Ziyang.
"On the mainland at the current time, this part of history has been sealed off and
distorted, so it will be useful to discuss some of this history for younger
readers."
"The name of Zhao Ziyang was erased from news media, books and periodicals, and the
historical record within China," Bao wrote in a six-part essay accompanying the
tapes, titled "The Historical Background to the Zhao Ziyang Recordings."
"Zhao wanted to address the issues of official corruption and democracy which were
the concerns of most ordinary Chinese people, using the principle of the rule of
law," Bao wrote of the conflict between his former political mentor and late supreme
leader Deng Xiaoping.
"He wanted to instigate reforms of China's political system alongside deepening
economic reforms, concentrating the attention of the whole of society onto the issue of
reforms."
The Chinese authorities have already begun tightening security in and around Beijing ahead
of the sensitive anniversary.
Articles and forum posts connected in any way to the events of 20 years ago are being
deleted regularly from Chinese cyberspace, including an appeal for the rehabilitation of
Zhao and Hu Yaobang, whose death on April 15, 1989 triggered the student movement.
Original reporting by RFA's Mandarin service. Mandarin service director: Jennifer
Chou. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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News Director, English
Radio Free Asia (RFA)
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