Interview From the Beyond
Placed under house-arrest for sympathizing with student protesters in 1989, former Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang (1919-2005) spent the last 16 years of his life beyond the reach of foreign journalists eager to interview him. But he outfoxed his Beijing captors by making a series of voice recordings later smuggled out of China and now the basis for a remarkable book, Prisoner of the State, The Secret Journal of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009, Simon and Schuster, 306 pages, translated and edited by Bao Pu, Renee Chiang and Adi Ignatius).
If the now-deceased Zhao had been at liberty to grant a forthright interview to Cairns Media Magazine, it would have gone as follows. The revealing answers come from his book.
Were the student protests in 1989 really as alarming and destabilizing as many of your Communist Party colleagues believed?
“With the onset of reform, students, especially college students, had been exposed to many Western ways. Remarks critical of political leaders were made casually and considered inconsequential…. With hundreds of thousands of people involved, it’s impossible for there to have been no extreme or one-sided comments. Things appear extremely grave if you select only the 10 most extreme statements being expressed by all the people involved….
“It was obvious that some people were attempting to use the extreme words of a few students to aggravate the situation and push the government to the point of direct confrontation. With the implementation of reform, it should not have been such a big deal that students criticized leaders. They were just expressions of frustration and were not a challenge to our entire political system.”
Should the Chinese government have reacted differently and not sent the military against the student demonstrators in 1989?
“My general approach was to carry out reform in the areas of concern to the people, so that we could reduce the level of dissatisfaction among the people and the students, so as to reduce and end the student demonstrations, and at the same time we could seize the opportunity to boost political reform. Tackling these specific issues would enable the National People’s Congress to play its rightful role as the highest authority in the nation while directing the students’ attention toward furthering political reform.”
Why didn’t the few attempts at government dialogue with the student demonstrators work?
“Originally, the idea of the dialogue was to meet directly with the student demonstrators, but they (hard-line Communist leaders) not only denied the participation of any student organizations that had emerged during the demonstrations, they also prohibited the students from selecting their own representatives. They insisted on letting only students from official student organizations participate, which could not in any way have been representative of the student demonstrators. Wasn’t conducting dialogue in this manner the same as completely rejecting dialogue altogether?
“Also, when they did hold dialogues, they did not discuss things openly or seek diverse opinions with an attitude of sincerity. Instead they were merely paying lip service, in the same way they always handled foreign reporters at press conferences…. This left the students with the impression that the government’s offer to hold dialogues with them was totally insincere.”
What did you say to the students when meeting with them at their protest site in Tiananmen Square?
“I was merely trying to persuade them to end the hunger strike, telling them they were still young and must treasure their lives. I knew all too well that though their actions had won widespread sympathy both across the country and abroad, it was of no use against the group of elders who had taken a hard-line position. It would not matter if the hunger strike continued or if some people died; they (the elders) would not be moved. I felt it was a waste for these young students to end their lives like this.
“However, the students did not understand what I meant. Even less could they imagine the treatment in store for them. Of course, I was later the target of harsh criticisms and accusations for this speech to the students….
“From the evening of May 17 to May 19, none of the issues regarding martial law were imparted to me…. On the night of June 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.”
Are you still convinced the military crackdown was a terrible mistake?
“No matter what extreme, wrong or disagreeable things occurred in the midst of the student demonstrations, there was never any evidence to support the designation of ‘counter-revolutionary rebellion’. If it was not a ‘counter-revolutionary rebellion’, then the means of a military suppression should never have been used to resolve it.
“Even though the military suppression quickly quelled the situation, we have no alternative but to admit that the people, the army, the Party and the government, indeed our entire country, have paid dearly for that decision and action. The negative impact continues to exist in the relationship between the Party and the masses, the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and our country’s foreign relations….”
“As everyone knows, most of the students were demanding the punishment of corruption and the promotion of political reform, and were not advocating the overthrow of the Communist Party or the subversion of the republic. The situation would have subsided if we had not interpreted the students’ actions as being anti-Party and anti-socialist, but had accepted their reasonable demands and had adopted measures of patient negotiation, dialogue and reducing tensions.”
In Hong Kong and overseas, many people demand that the Communist Party must change its “official verdict” of the student protesters as little better than hooligans. What do you think?
“Sooner or later, the issue of re-evaluating June 4th must be resolved. Even if it’s delayed for a long time, people will not forget. It is better to resolve it earlier rather than later, proactively rather than passively, and in stable rather than in troubled times.”
After the military killed so many students, how did your fellow leaders react to you, knowing you’d opposed such violence?
“They sought to completely destroy my political and moral standing. Some of the speeches delivered… were entirely in the style of the Cultural Revolution: reversing black and white, exaggerating personal offenses, taking quotes out of context, issuing slanders and lies – all in Cultural Revolution language….
“Cultural Revolution-style tactics that had been condemned and abandoned long ago were taken up to be used against me. These tactics included inundating the newspapers with critical articles making me out to be an enemy and casual disregard of my personal freedoms.”
Why did the authorities insist on keeping you under house arrest? From then on, you rarely could leave home and only under tight restrictions.
“One time, I asked to go to Yang Feng Jia Dao Club to play pool. At first they refused, but I insisted. They said the chauffeur would not drive me. I said I could take a bus. They finally acquiesced, but they restricted it to two morning sessions a week. I went two or three times during which I did not see anybody in the club. I learned later that they had emptied the club, preventing other comrades from being there, to create a kind of ‘private function’ just for me. Why? Because Yang Feng Jia Dao Club was a club for old senior cadres, and they were afraid that I would meet old friends and acquaintances….
“Concern over the alleged ‘impact’ (of any outings) was the excuse they made to cover their plan that I never again appear in public – so people gradually would forget me, consigning me to oblivion through silence. The so-called ‘fear of impact’ implied that the very sound of my name would cause social instability.”
Did you have many visitors when under house arrest?
“They said that I could receive guests at home, as long as they were not reporters or foreigners. But in reality, no one was allowed in without an appointment. Without letting me know, they turned everyone away…. The entrance to my home became a cold, desolate place.”
What laws did you break to earn such punishment?
“House arrest and the deprivation of my personal freedoms as a citizen suggest that I am receiving the treatment of a criminal. I do not even know what specific laws I have violated, nor do I know which state law enforcement agency and what procedure of law have been used to authorize my house arrest. How can subjecting a person to this kind of undeclared house arrest and depriving his rights as a citizen not constitute a crude trampling of the socialist legal system?”
In the 1980s, you and former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping played leading roles in reforming China’s economy and opening it to the world. Why were the economic reforms so successful?
“Only under the conditions of an open-door policy could we take advantage of what we had, and trade for what we needed. Each place and each society has its strengths; even poor regions have their advantages, such as cheap labor. That is a great advantage in international competition.
“The result of doing everything ourselves (previously) was that we were not doing what we did best. We suffered tremendous losses because of this. I now realize more and more that if a nation is closed, is not integrated into the international market, or does not take advantage of international trade, then it will fall behind and modernization will be impossible.”
Overseas, China has a reputation for being riddled with corruption, both political and economic. Can that corruption ever be eliminated?
“To fight corruption, reform of the political system must be carried out. Emerging nations have periods of widespread corruption in the early stages of their development. The economy is growing at high speeds while political power is highly concentrated. The behavior of officials is not checked by public opinion. If a political party has no check on its power, its officials easily become corrupt. The situation will eventually improve with the building of democratic politics, a wider variety of political activities, a wider slice of the populace participating in the process, and checks on power by public opinion….
“Another important issue – in fact the most essential – is the independence of the judiciary and rule of law. If there is no independent enforcement of law, and the political party in power is able to intervene, then corruption can never be effectively resolved.”
For more information about Zhao Ziyang and Prisoner of the State: www.simonandschuster.co.uk
ARCHIVES
|
|
