by Adi Ignatius
I still hope that before he leaves this world (this is what I wrote down seven years ago [in 1992]), he comes to understand the true intentions of my remarks to Gorbachev. Not because after knowing this he might relax anything related to my case: I have no such wish. I know that even if he knew the truth, he would not relax a thing. I only want Deng to know that, having received his longtime trust and vigorous support, even though I refused to accept his decision of cracking down on the student demonstrations, I am not a man who would sacrifice others to protect myself in a crisis.
I believe that with such an understanding of the situation, he would feel better. I am truly unwilling to see him leave this world with this misconception. Yet I know the chances of his understanding this are very, very slim.
Deng died in February 1997. Zhao never saw him again after 1989.
PART 2
HOUSE ARREST
1
Zhao Becomes a Prisoner
Within days of the June Fourth massacre, Zhao is under house arrest, hidden away behind the high walls of his courtyard dwelling, where he will spend most of the remaining sixteen years of his life. Even mundane things, such as attempts to go golfing, set off tragicomic clashes with authorities who want him out of the public eye.
The time it takes for the official investigation of Zhao to run its course—more than three years—reflects how difficult it is for the leadership, especially Deng, to decide on Zhao’s fate. The subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc apparently hardens attitudes among Beijing’s leaders, who conclude that hanging tightly to power is the key to the Communist Party’s survival. The violent response to Tiananmen, they will argue, has been right all along.
But Zhao’s investigation ends without a proper conclusion: Party leaders clearly feel that any public verdict would only stir up more arguments about the Tiananmen Massacre itself. A careful study of the list of charges made against Zhao, which he details in this chapter, reveals that while it appears on its face to be a multipart condemnation of Zhao, it reads in part almost like praise for his actions, and certainly offers nothing that could have assisted a criminal inquiry. The document is never made public.
The Fourth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee [June 1989] stripped me of all my positions and resolved to continue the investigation. This was, in itself, historically unprecedented. Since harsh administrative punishment had already been imposed, there should have been no need to continue the investigation. If the matter had not been clarified and required further investigation, then the political and administrative judgments should not have already been made. I guess this was what you might call my “special treatment.”
The investigation lasted a total of three years and four months, from June 1989 to October 1992. During this time, I was denied freedom of movement. On the one hand, they said the investigation was intraparty in nature. On the other hand, however, they disregarded the laws of the state and placed me under house arrest. “Several Rules Governing Political Life in the Party” clearly states that even against Party members who have made an error, no actions should be taken that violate the law. I don’t know how they hope, in the future, to explain this crude trampling and violation of Party regulations and the laws of the state.
On September 3, 1989, [Vice Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consulative Conference] Wang Renzhong and [Vice Minister of State Planning] Ding Guan’gen called me to Huairen Tang [Hall of Compassion] in Zhongnanhai [the Party’s headquarters] for a talk. They officially notified me of the decision of the Fourth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee to establish a Special Investigative Group to take charge of an investigation of me. Wang Renzhong was to take the lead, with participation by [Director of the Department of Organization] Chen Yeping and [Deputy Secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission] Li Zhengting.
On September 29, these three people, Wang, Chen, and Li, called me to the Security Bureau’s meeting hall for a talk. It was my first talk with the Special Investigative Group. I never saw Chen Yeping or Li Zhengting ever again. I heard that the group was reorganized, with Chen and Li no longer involved, but I had no way of finding out why.
Afterward, Wang Renzhong spoke with me alone three times: on December 8, 1989, February 14, 1990, and March 2, 1990. He also sent me three letters, one on July 6, 1989, and the others on August 8, 1989, and November 14, 1989. I also replied to him three times: July 25, 1989, September 1, 1989, and October 7, 1989. By means of these conversations and letters, they asked me a number of questions. I provided explanations and clarifications in response.
Besides investigating whether I had manipulated the turmoil in direct or indirect ways, or had leaked any information to the outside world, the investigation mainly focused on why I had taken a stand and developed a policy that was contrary to Deng’s. What was my motivation? They demanded that I admit wrongdoing. They also wanted to settle issues from my years in office, of my having been too tolerant of certain things and having promoted certain people who were deemed bourgeois liberals.
They displayed avid interest in my “unspeakable motive” and “personal ambition.” They quoted unrelated materials from overseas publications, to which they added their own speculations, and concluded that since 1988 there had been a movement both within the country and abroad “to overthrow Deng and support Zhao,” aimed at forcing Deng to step down and hand over power to me. Purportedly, I was the ideal candidate to lead counterrevolutionary forces at home and abroad to restore capitalism, so “hopes had been placed in me.”
They also attacked me for so-called “neo-authoritarianism”* and claimed that the bourgeois liberals regarded me as their “neo-authority” and that the TV series River Elegy† had been made to glorify me. They believed that my ardent refusal to agree with Deng Xiaoping had not been a singular occurrence, but that I had been corresponding and collaborating with people from these movements all along. They also thought that because I had been feeling insecure in my position due to economic and political difficulties, I had attempted to shirk responsibilities and fish for political capital by using the student demonstrations to protect myself.
The so-called “background material” distributed at the Fourth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee, together with [Beijing mayor] Chen Xitong’s “June Fourth Report” on behalf of the State Council to the National People’s Congress, speeches by [influential Party elder] Li Xiannian and others, and the letters that Wang Renzhong wrote to me, all pointedly raised these same questions and accusations.
In the conversations and letters with Wang Renzhong, I emphatically rebutted these accusations and made clarifications.
First, there was no such thing as a movement since 1988 “to overthrow Deng and support Zhao.” Someone had fabricated this for some purpose. There had indeed been many rumors circulating during that period; they referred, however, not to “overthrowing Deng” but instead to “overthrowing Zhao.” There had been lots of discussion at home and abroad about my position being unstable, that my powers had been reduced, and that the conservatives had been putting pressure on Deng and demanding a change of leadership. I wrote to them that public opinion both at home and abroad had always connected my fate and my political future together with Deng’s. “Overthrow Deng” and “support Zhao” could not be linked in one saying. If one were to “overthrow Deng,” one could not “support Zhao” at the same time, and vice versa.
Second, at the same time that rumors were spreading everywhere that “Zhao’s position is unstable,” “his power has been reduced,” “he is unable to take direct command of economic affairs,” Deng revealed his [support of] me many times. He confirmed not only that he had no intention of changing the structure of the leadership, but that he wanted me to continue as General Secretary for an additional two terms.
Just after New Year’s Day in 1989, Deng had spoken to Li Peng and had asked him to relay this message to the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee. This was in response to the
Standing Committee’s administrative meeting in early 1989 at which Li Peng and Yao Yilin had criticized me and made accusations against me on economic issues. When Li Peng explained the incident to Deng Xiaoping, Deng had revealed his intentions, which was to stand by me. He had asked them to support me as well.
At the close of January 1989, just before Deng was to leave for Shanghai for the Spring Festival holiday, he talked with me personally and with sincerity, to tell me he had recently been considering whether or not he should resign as chairman of the Central Military Commission and hand over the position to me. He said, “If I did that, you could do your job better.”
He expressed his determination and his faith in me. He also said that without his retirement, other elders would not retire, either, making things more difficult to manage. By retiring himself, it would be easier to persuade others to do so. During the conversation, I also told him very sincerely that I felt that, no matter what, he should not do that: “Your staying on is helpful to me.” We were facing difficulties with fluctuating market prices, so it wasn’t the right time to raise such an issue. The arrangement with the elders at that time was advantageous to my work. This was the content of our conversation at the end of January 1989.
Even in April 1989, when I visited him at his house prior to my trip to North Korea, he told me that after my return from North Korea, he would call for a meeting especially to talk about my two subsequent terms; not only was the leadership structure not to be changed then, but I would continue into the next term. He also talked with [Party elders] Chen Yun and Li Xiannian, who expressed their agreement.
When I wrote my letter to Wang Renzhong, Deng was still living, so he could confirm the truth of this. Under these circumstances, it’s clear that I could not have been feeling insecure about my position.
Third, I did not think that the economic situation was so poor. It must be acknowledged that great achievements had been made in ten years of reform. The nation’s economic power had greatly expanded. Living standards had also risen significantly. Though inflation hit in 1988, I believed that the condition was neither all that grave, nor so difficult to resolve. There was no truth to the notion that my image had been tarnished from my failure to manage the economy, so much so that I had had to regain political capital by manipulating the student demonstrations to improve my image. (There were indeed many problems with the economy that year. However, to this day, I still believe that they were not that serious, as proven in the reality of the market slowdown in the spring of 1990. I will talk about this later.)
Fourth, I reminded Wang Renzhong in my letters that I had been in the Party for several decades. It was impossible for me not to understand the workings of high-level politics within the Party. Manipulating the student demonstrations for my own personal agenda? There was no way that I could have been that ignorant or juvenile!
Fifth, the reason that I refused to accept Deng’s response to the student demonstrations was, as I have explained above, a difference of opinion about both the nature of the demonstrations and the consequences of a crackdown. I felt I had to be responsible to history. I refused to become the General Secretary who cracked down on students.
Wang Renzhong’s harshest accusations came in his letter of November 8, 1989, which was followed by a talk on December 8. After that, the situation seemed to become less intense. Perhaps after investigating my case for half a year, they had come to discover that their original analysis and assessments were not supported by the facts.
On February 14 [1990], Wang Renzhong also asked me to expound on my view of the drastic changes that had taken place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Before the arranged talk, a batch of documents related to those events written by research organizations of the Central Committee had been delivered to me. Wang attempted to persuade me to write a good self-criticism, while revealing to me that some people had suggested expelling me from the Party. Having my self-criticism in hand would make it easier for him to change these people’s minds.
I told Wang that I hoped the long investigation would be brought to an end soon. Any wrongdoings to which I’d conceded, I had already acknowledged in my speech at the Fourth Plenum. If I were to write another self-criticism, it would be exactly the same as before.
I also suggested that the investigation pay more attention to researching and checking the facts, and not get caught up with my so-called “attitude problem.” The enlarged Politburo meeting had been displeased with the attitude of my speech and had already passed down harsher punishment as a result. What more could they possibly do now in response to my attitude?
The last time Wang Renzhong asked me for a talk was on May 2 [1990]. On February 20, before this talk, I had written to Deng again, for the third time. Of my letters to Deng, the first was to forward letters from senior cadres pleading with him to reconsider his response to the student demonstrations; the second letter explained my comments to Gorbachev. In this third letter, I wrote to ask that my investigation be brought to an end as soon as possible.
Wang acknowledged when we met that he knew about the letter I’d written to Deng. The Sixth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee [held March 9–12, 1990] was to be held soon, but he said that my problem could not be resolved by the plenum. He even mentioned that it might not be necessary to resolve my problem at a Party plenum. I don’t know what he meant by this. In any case, he meant to convey that the problem would not be resolved at that time. Talks proceeded very calmly.
On June 21, Wang Renzhong forwarded the investigation report, “Issues Relevant to Comrade Zhao Ziyang and the Political Turmoil of 1989.” He asked for my feedback. The document contained thirty items.
Even if one were to overlook the many incidences of quoting out of context, twisting the original meanings of statements, and outright contradictions of fact, even if all of the thirty statements had been accurate, it would still have been insufficient to support the judgment made against me of “supporting turmoil” and “splitting the Party.”
On June 27, I replied to Wang Renzhong with a letter containing my suggestions for revisions to the aforementioned document. I refuted twelve items among the thirty. But after that, Wang never communicated with me again, nor did anyone else come by to check over any material with me. In fact, the investigation was aborted without a conclusion.
I was to learn later that after the Special Investigative Group had submitted its report, Central Committee leaders had considered announcing an end to the investigation after the 1990 Asian Games [a regional multi-sport event held that year in Beijing], but then had started worrying about the possible response, both domestic and international. They also worried about my moving about freely and attending activities. Plus there was the vehement opposition of several elders. They decided instead to drag the issue on without coming to a conclusion; to leave it hanging for an extended time, meanwhile continuing my house arrest in the name of the investigation.
I wrote three letters—on August 28, 1990, December 7, 1990, and May 9, 1991—to Jiang Zemin [who had been brought in from Shanghai to replace Zhao as Party General Secretary], Li Peng, and the Politburo Standing Committee, respectively. The point of these letters was to request an end to the investigation and house arrest and the restoration of my personal freedoms as early as possible.
I also mentioned in those letters that since so much time had already passed since the Fourth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee launched its investigation, I didn’t believe there could still be anything left to clarify. I truly had no idea what could cause my investigation to go on for so long. Since June 1990, no one had come to talk to me about issues related to the investigation, nor had anyone come to check on any related material. If anything remained unclear, why didn’t they just ask me? I could help to clarify things. This tactic of dragging things out without a resolution, of a perpetual suspension in the name of an ongoing investigation, was beneficial neither to me nor to the Party.
I also pointed out that since the
Fourth Plenum, Central Committee leaders had repeatedly announced to domestic and foreign reporters that I was free to move about, that I was neither under house arrest nor even partial house arrest. However, what is the truth? The fact is, since the Fourth Plenum, I have been continuously detained in my house.
In the past, it was common practice to curtail the personal freedoms of senior cadres who had held opposing views or made mistakes, especially during the Cultural Revolution. However, the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee had acknowledged the lessons from this past, and now, after more than ten years of implementing reform and with the current emphasis on establishing the rule of law, we must not repeat this behavior.
I therefore demanded my immediate release from house arrest and the restoration of my personal freedoms, regardless of whether or not the investigations were over.
All these letters of mine fell like stones dropped into the sea, disappearing without a trace. Their tactic was simply never to respond.
In fact, limitations on my freedom of movement began as early as June 1989. However, I was never officially notified, and there was no written documentation of it. In order to prove that these limits really did exist, and also because I was feeling gloomy from the protracted house arrest, in October 1990, just before the Asian Games, I made a decision to go out golfing.
When the Security Bureau of the General Office discovered my plan to go out to play golf, they informed the secretary working in my home to advise me against it. They said, “It has never been said that going out was permitted.” I replied that no one had ever told me I was not permitted to go out. If there was such a rule, then they should show it to me. They neither showed me any such document containing the rules of prohibition, nor allowed me to go out.
