Ceremonies to commemorate Hu's birthday are scheduled for November 20. Some observers view this as an attempt by President Hu Jintao to wear the mantle of Hu Yaobang's legacy.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has decided to rehabilitate his predecessor Hu Yaobang whose death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, this according to independent sources.

The government has never publicly commemorated the birth or death of Hu Yaobang since he died on April 15, 1989, out of fear that publicity could reignite the democratic spark snuffed out on June 4 that year.

Hu Jintao decided recently that the party would officially mark the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth in the Great Hall of the People, said a source close to the family.

The party would not however overturn its verdict that the Tiananmen protests were counter-revolutionary, the source said.

Some of the nine members of the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, which Hu Jintao heads, would attend the commemoration—Hu Jintao cut his teeth in the Communist Youth League founded by Hu Yaobang.

A three-volume biography of Hu Yaobang written by former aides would be published this year after a two-year delay.

Modest official commemorative events are also to be held in Hunan, where Hu Yaobang was born, and in Jiangxi, where he was buried.

For some analysts, the rehabilitation of Hu Yaobang might burnish the president's dented reformist credentials. "Hu Jintao wants to play the Hu Yaobang card and inherit his political resources," one source said.

It would be one of Hu Jintao's boldest political moves since taking the party helm in 2002 and is likely to win plaudits from some liberal intellectuals.

The president's image has been tarnished by a series of crackdowns on liberal intellectuals, the media, the internet and non-governmental organisations.

Analysts said the fact that the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled as party chief in 1989 and held under house arrest for 15 years, passed without incident might have emboldened the leadership.

Hu Yaobang resigned as party chief in 1987 over a wave of student unrest after party hardliners had accused him of allowing "bourgeois liberalism" to spread. His resignation set off a wave of student protests.

Hong Kong political commentator Johnny Lau Yui-sui said opinions differ among the leadership over Hu Yaobang's life and contribution to the party—although the Communist Party recognised him as its leader when he died in 1989, his official eulogy made no mention of his part in political reforms.

• china
• chinese
• communist
• party
• rehabilitation
• hu
• yaobang
• hu
• jintao
• piazza
• tiananmen
• june
• 4
• 1989