Legacy of Hu Yaobang to China's Tiananmen generation
Updated
Twenty years ago today, young students and activists throughout China mourned the death of one of their heroes - the disgraced former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang.
Mr Hu was the first party general secretary after Deng Xiaoping, and his political reforms and march towards greater democracy in China infuriated socialist hardliners, who forced him to retire in 1987.
A day after his death - 20 years ago today in 1989 - demonstrations by students and activists began, calling for his legacy to be restored. A week later, the day before Hu Yaobang's funeral, 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Cheuk Kwan, Hong Kong-born community activist and chairman of Toronto's Association for Democracy in China
- Listen:
- Windows Media
LAM: Cheuk Kwan, first of all, what did this generation admire about Hu Yaobang?
KWAN: Well, I think they hold him up as sort of a perfect role model for what China needed as it goes on the road to political reform, because Hu, more than Deng Xiaoping, is the political reformer. Deng Xiaoping was famous for his economic reform, pushing China to the role of capitalism, but it was Hu who started political reform right after Cultural Revolution. He had personally made it his objective to rehabilitate the victims of the Cultural Revolution, which was still a very sensitive topic at that time in China.
Because of what he has done, he displeases a lot of people, especially people in the very left wing faction of the party and this is why he was forced to resign by Deng Xiaoping in 1987, two years before his death.
LAM: And do you think the students started protesting because they felt that he was or he had been treated shabbily?
KWAN: No doubt, no doubt. I think even before he was forced out by Deng Xiaoping, the students had held him up as a benevolent political reformer and they look up to him more than they look up to Deng Xiaoping, because they kind of figure out that he was the key if ever there was one to pull China out of its conundrum.
So his untimely death, of course, triggered a lot of emotion and it was not surprising that the day after he died a lot of students started gathering sort of spontaneously at the square in front of the Monument for Fallen Heroes to mourn his death and openly put up "big character" posters, banners, or perhaps to send a message to the Central Government that 'look, this is somebody you toppled two years ago. He's still in our hearts and we look up to him for any of hope for the new China'.
LAM: Were people surprised when Hu Yaobang was sidelined back in 1987 fresh on the back of Deng Xiaoping's reform policies. Do you think people were caught by surprise?
KWAN: I think so, at least people in the know. Of course not everybody would be kind of knowledgeable or sympathetic as to what he has been doing. But certainly a lot of the younger people, the younger generation, who may not have gone through the Cultural Revolution like their older brothers and sisters. They see this as perhaps the key - that the fact that you can open admit to the wrongdoings of the Cultural Revolution - that was something that touched one or two peoples hearts.
Now of course that is exactly the same reason why Hu Yaobang had upset the left wing faction of the Communist Party, because there are a lot of people who are still kind of afraid to admit what they have done was wrong and even of course to apologise or to overturn the verdicts of the Cultural Revolution.
