Reformist leader Zhao Ziyang release memoir from the grave
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During the 1980s, Zhao Ziyang was Premier of the People's Republic of China, and one of the architects of China's dramatic turn towards a market economy.
In 1987, Zhao was named General Secretary of the Communist Party, answering only to Deng Xiaoping, China's supreme leader. But the struggle between reformers like Zhao, and the ageing Communist Party stalwarts ensued... especially in the lead up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests .. following the death of former reformist secretary-general Hu Yaobang. By the time the government sent in the military on a bloody crackdown, which Zhao opposed, he was already out of power and under house arrest. Zhao Ziyang spent the last sixteen years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Bao Pu, political commentator and human rights activist and one of three editors of Zhao Ziyang's memoirs Prisoner of the State, published by Simon & Shuster, New York
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ZHAO: On the night of June the 3rd while sitting in the courtyard with my family I heard intense gunfire. A tragedy to shock the world had not been averted and was happening after all. I prepared the above-written material three years after the June the fourth tragedy. Many years have now passed since this tragedy. Of the activists involved in this incident, except for the few who escaped abroad, most were arrested, sentenced and repeatedly interrogated.
LAM: China's late reformer, Zhao Ziyang. Well, the world was never meant to hear Zhao Ziyang's voice again. But now, four years after his death, comes the publication of his memoirs - 'PRISONER OF THE STATE - The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang.' One of its three editors is Bao Pu, a political commentator and human rights activist, and also the son of a former top advisor to Zhao Ziyang. Bao Pu joins us from Hong Kong. Bao Pu joins us from Hong Kong. Welcome to Radio Australia.
BAO PU: Hi.
LAM: First of all, can you tell us how Zhao Ziyang both managed to write this memoir and then get it out to the rest of the world? Presumably, he was being very closely watched?
BAO PU: Yes, what we learn is he actually carefully prepared a written outline in 1993. But he did not know what to do with it and in year 2000, a group of his old friends convinced him to have a recorded conversation and that is how he started these recording sessions. But because he was unable to freely move around and it was very difficult for him to meet with his old friends, to continue to record. So he must have found his recordings very effective message, so he completed most of his recordings on his own. We learned about these recordings shortly after he died in 1995 and was able to gather these tapes and we started translation in the year 2007 and just finished a few months before.
LAM: So now that the book is out, will there be domestic political repercussions from this book, even for those for instance, who helped to make the tapes public, those who managed to squirrel the tapes out of China?
BAO PU: Oh, we tried I think a lot of us whose involved with the project try to refuse that line of thinking, that is oh may be this will offend somebody very powerful and therefore we should not do it. We cannot base our action on speculation what might or might not happen. And the way that we think is this is a work to be published and is legal to publish in Hong Kong, so we do it.
LAM: So, have you had, now that the book is out, have you had or heard of any reactions from China's leadership?
BAO PU: Not that I know of.
LAM: Well, Zhao Ziyang, the man, let's go to him for a bit. He spent six years working in a factory and yet managed to rise to become one of the most powerful men in China. How did he do that? It's quite an extraordinary journey?
BAO PU: Yes, he was a very experienced provincial leader, known for his ability to find real solutions, to boost agricultural production, though his measures were at the time bordering on being so-called capitalist. But when the reform era began, his skills stand out among all the bureaucrats who were trained a certain way. So he was quickly to be promoted to a top power position because of that.
LAM: But apart from his own personal skills and talents, he must have been a very tough political animal as well, do you think?
BAO PU: Absolutely. While he is known for finding his practical solution, I mean, he was a practical leader. And he's not very vocal on those political issue, but he cares about what should be done and what can be done.
LAM: Well, Zhao Ziyang is remembered often in a very warm cuddly way by China watchers. He is remembered as a reformer and in fact also remembered as an advocate for a softer approach to the protesting students at Tiananmen. To your mind, did he have any human flaws at all, any negative traits?
BAO PU: It is possible for a political leader not having any obvious mistake, but because of the situation, to still lose. And I think he was on the Tiananmen particular incident, he fought a uphill battle to begin within at a timing of not his own.
LAM: And Bao Pu, the book of course is remarkable in that it gives us an intimate look in the final days of paramount leader, Deng Xiaopeng's leadership. In your view, what was the most remarkable revelation of these tapes?
BAO PU: I think he offered his version of history and he is the probably the only Chinese leader had done that in the history of the PRC. And what's remarkable is he was in the position of telling the truth. And that he's siding along and the only thing on his side is truth.
LAM: He also depicted very clearly, the power struggle in the final days of Deng Xiaopeng's regime. How much of that power struggle described in the book exists today in present day China between the old guard?
BAO PU: I think the so-called power struggle is reflection of debate among the Chinese leaders over reform and that debate was essentially over in 1992. The result of that debate shaped the current day China and the results was a renewed insistence on authoritarian autocracy, while taking up the whole spectrum of market reform and transform China into a market economy.
LAM: So you think in the end, the reformers lost out to the hardliners, certainly in terms of democracy?
BAO PU: Well, not in terms of economic reform. I mean you have to remember in the 80s, what was the most important as whether China should go down to the track of a market economy or not. And on this track, the conservatives lost completely. In terms of democracy, by the end of 1980, the problem of democracy, of rule of law was just at the beginning of the debate. And because the paramount leader, Deng Xiaopeng never favoured, the opening of a political system, so it (debate on greater democracy) never took off.
