Death of Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Zi Yang died on Jan 17th, 2005. These days, I have been thinking the legacy Zhao has left for the nation. He is definitely a victim of that era.

I still remember 1989 vividly. Initially the students were not allying themsleves with any particular top leader. In fact, in Bejing University's posters, Zhao was also named one of the corrupt party leaders, along with Yang Shangqun and others. I still have a copy of the so-called "genealogy of the revolutionary families", describing how younger generations of the "revolutionary families" benefited from their "revolutionary parents". Zhao and Li Peng were on top of that list.

It was only one day before the martial law declaration (May 19th), did we realize that Zhao was a student sympathizer. Zhao went to Tiananmen to ask students to leave the square. There was this famous quote of his in his distinctive Henan accent:"we are old, not useful any more. But you are still young. Please cherish yourselves. Go home now, please."

The fall of Zhao was inevitable. Even before 1989, there were signs that Zhao has lost the power struggle with the conservatives. In 1988 (?), we was named the General Secretary of the CCP, a more ceremonial position than Premier of the goverment, the position that was handed over to Li Peng. I still recall his unusually direct comment showing his disappointed with the new assignment: "I am a practitioner in nature, actually more suited forthe Premier position." This kind of comment was unheard of before in Chinese politics. That showed Zhao's frustration over his loss of power.

The mid-1980s were a tumultuous period for China. Inflation was running very high. Corruption started to show up. Economic reform showed initial success in the agricultural sector, but ran into significant obstacles in the industrial sectors. Populous demonstrations, student protests were very frequent. Conservatives started to get really nervous about the reform, and reformers were losing the grip of power.

In 1987, Zhao started a gradual process of pricing relaxation on certain comodities. All of a sudden, a furor of mechandise stocking ran through the whole nation, because people were expecting the prices would rise rapidly. The government had an emergence meeting in the summer in Beidaihe. After the meeting, Zhao lost power over economic issues. And his policy on price deregulation was reversed, and Li Peng succeeded him as the Premier.

I believe Zhao wanted to use the student movement in 1989 to regain his power. But that effort failed spectacularly. Remember at that time, Deng was still the mastermind behind the scene.

Now almost 15 years later, many Chinese believe that China was right to take a more gradual course of reform. June 4th was a tragedy and the government made a huge mistake. But things were more complicated than on the surface. Student protest lasted from April 15th to June 4th. The government did show some degree of tolerance, to be fair. However, there should be no excuse for killing.

I am the first-hand witness and participant of the 1989 student movement. I was a graduate student, and more mature than the college freshmen and sophomores that were on the street. I felt it wasn't right from early on. We could have concluded the whole movement without either side losing face, after the April 27th procession/March. I thought the whole thing was over after that day. In fact, many students started to go back into the classroom because the mid-term exams were coming. But out of nowhere someone started a fasting campaign (I recall it was on May 12th or 13th, a Saturday night). From then on things just got out of control, culminated with the June 4th massacre.

May God rest Zhao's soul.