Zhao Ziyang, the memory and the shame of the party
Beijing (AsiaNews/Scmp) - Plain-clothes security officers stopped Bao Tang, a one-time aide to purged Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, from paying respects to his late mentor yesterday, his daughter says. They also knocked down Mr Bao's wife, Jiang Zongcao, who injured her back and was taken to hospital, said the couple's daughter, Bao Jiang. "They pushed my mother who fell and sprained her back. We're rushing her to hospital", she said. Ms Jiang was diagnosed with a broken chest bone and needed bed rest for 8 weeks. Mr Bao suffered a sprained wrist and finger in the incident. Bao Tong, a former director of the Office of Political Reform of the Communist Party Central Committee, was secretary to Zhao Ziyang from 1980 to 1985. We are now reporting his complete article, published today in the South China Morning Post with the title: "Forever a champion of the people".
The conditions under which Zhao Ziyang lived at the time of his death, in utter isolation from Chinese society due to an illegally imposed 15-year house arrest, shames both Chinese justice and the Communist Party.
Zhao's persecution was that of a leader who dedicated himself for more than a decade to groundbreaking efforts that became the foundations of China's economic reform. In the late 1970s, peasants had long since lost their rights to own their land, owing to collectivisation and the establishment of the People's Commune. It is a right they have never regained. Zhao, however, was the first to advocate giving autonomy back to the peasants and, so, initiated the first pilot tests to abolish the People's Commune.
Industry had been transformed into subsidiaries of government through nationalisation and central planning. Zhao was the first to propose "expanded autonomy for Chinese enterprises" and "restoration of a healthy relationship between government and industry". These were critical first steps whose success led eventually to full-blown economic reform.
These were among the many incremental victories Zhao won to help people break out of the suffocating stagnation of Maoist socialism. As premier, Zhao implemented 10 years of economic reforms that brought steady progress in which the people, especially the peasantry, enjoyed tangible improvements.
But Zhao was also the only leader to propose a political reform package to tackle the system of one-party rule. This unchallenged monopoly systematically ensured that every mistake turned into a prolonged nationwide crisis. For long-term stability, Zhao proposed reforms that ultimately aimed at the legalisation and systemisation of democracy. He wished to establish the kind of democratic politics that could support and nurture a healthy market economy.
Although the short-term practical objectives of Zhao's political reforms were limited by the circumstances in which they were proposed, the measures were all aimed at containing the party's power and represented a concrete step towards returning, peacefully, power to the people. Zhao's package - a sharp break with Mao Zedong's totalitarianism - was approved by the 13th party congress in 1987.
During his 20 months as general secretary, Zhao created a culture in which the Politburo refrained from interfering in the courts, and he stopped its attempts to control literature and the arts. Zhao abolished the policy of enterprises being run by party organisations and the system by which legal representatives were the core of enterprises.
Unfortunately, his reforms were terminated when he fell from power. The dreadful result was the indiscriminate denial of civil rights and the principles of democracy, and the rise of what today's leaders call "socialism with Chinese characteristics" - a bitter euphemism for unchecked party and government power entwined with commercial interests.
Zhao's fate is also a chilling reminder of other injustices that are on the consciences of those in power. The only reason for his continued ill treatment was his opposition to the violent repression of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989. Tiananmen was a tragedy for China, and another tragedy for the 20th century. Almost 16 years have passed, but the pain remains, buried in the hearts and minds of the people.
In those years, China's leaders have been responsible not only for Zhao's unlawful house arrest but also for a systematic effort to erase his name from history.
But their attempts to conceal the truth about the past only reveal their weakness and their shamelessness. There is one thing that they cannot change: Zhao remains with us, in the Chinese people's ongoing struggle for rights and democracy.
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