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Despite a little over 20-odd years that separate us from the Tiananmen Square massacre of June, 1989, it still remains fresh in the memory as a defining moment in the recent history of Mao’s China. The protests provoked by reports of mounting corruption and rising commodity prices had attracted hundreds of thousands of young students to Beijing in a public mourning following the news of the death of Hu Yaobang. The liberal reformer Hu, it may be recalled, had been ousted from his position as the Chinese Communist Party’s general secretary two years earlier. Zhao, then Party chief, had improvised a speech to persuade the students to end their hunger strike: "They were still young and must treasure their lives". Even though their actions had won widespread sympathy and support across the country, they would cut no ice with the hardliners in the party; it was "a waste" for these youngsters who little imagined the "treatment in store for them".
Zhao who died in 2005 was to spend more time under house arrest than pursuing his reform programme!`A0While as a prisoner, he had time to reflect on Deng’s ideas, Hu Yaobang’s and his own. He concludes that professions to the contrary notwithstanding, Deng did not believe in political reform—"only in tighter administration". More, that if Hu had survived the party onslaught, China’s political reform may have moved towards democratisation. His own emphasis on important economic measures may not have succeeded for a market economy without democratic reform would be hard to sustain. Sadly, he was less than sure that the party as at present constituted was prepared to accept such reform. While under house arrest, somewhere around the year 2000, Zhao found a way to record about 30 tapes, each of about 60 minutes, in which he put down his thoughts and recollections on some of modern China’s critical moments—of the Tiananmen crackdown, his clashes behind the scenes with his powerful rivals, of the not infrequent "petty bickering" that lay behind policy making. Above all of how China had to evolve politically to achieve long-term stability. He passed the tapes to several trusted friends— each with only a part of the total recordings. When Zhao died in 2005, some of those who were in the know gathered the materials in one place and transcribed them for publication.`A0Later, another set of tapes was found hidden in plain view among his grandchildren’s toys in his study!`A0Prisoner of the State is a near-complete presentation of Zhao’s recorded journal. The book gives its readers a front row seat as it were to view the functioning of the "most secretive" government in the world. It is the story of a man who tried to bring about liberal change in China and, at the height of the Tiananmen protests, tried to stop the massacre. When China’s army moved in to mow down hundreds of demonstrators and other protestors, Zhao not only lost his job but was put under house arrest.`A0While in detention, he produced a memoir in complete secrecy, methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on what had happened behind the scenes during many of modern China’s most critical moments.`A0The tapes he produced were smuggled out of the country and form the basis for Prisoner of the State.`A0 In this intimate journal, Zhao provides fascinating details about the crackdown and reveals inter alia the ploys and double crosses China’s top leaders indulge to gain advantage over one another. It is a moot point but if Zhao had survived the hardliners at TS, he may have succeeded in moving China’s political system towards more openness and tolerance. As it is, we have a country with a booming economy and a regressive government.
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The party leadership was
sharply split on measures to deal with the protestors. The
conservative faction that had supported the toppling of Hu argued for
a crackdown. But Zhao, who had succeeded Hu as party chief, feared
the political consequences of a hard-line backlash that could inter
alia derail the economic reforms.`A0Understandably, even as the
protests continued, the power struggle within the Politburo
intensified. While Zhao was away on an official visit to North
Korea, the long-awaited decision came out in the form of an editorial
in the People’s Daily, the party mouthpiece. Its strident,
uncompromising tone meant that the die had been cast in favour of the
violent suppression that was to follow, resulting in the shameful
massacre of June 4.