BEIJING : In a quiet alleyway about a block from the Chinese capital’s bustling shopping district Wangfujing, lives the highest-ranking official held as a political prisoner in China.
But 15 years after former premier and Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang was put under house arrest for sympathizing with pro-democracy student demonstrators and opposing the government’s bloody crackdown in 1989, his impact on Chinese politics and people has become debatable.
Even some of his neighbors do not know who he is.
“I’ve heard Zhao Ziyang lives here, but I don’t know what he did in the past,” said a woman who lives nearby.
Locked away in his old Beijing courtyard home, allowed only occasional chaperoned travel and blocked from seeing almost anyone except close family, Zhao, who championed economic reforms that helped propel China into the economic powerhouse it is today, has become almost forgotten.
That’s exactly how the government wants it.
Not seen in public since May 1989 when he urged student demonstrators to leave Tiananmen Square before it was too late — he was arrested a month later and the Tiananmen bloodbath carried out — Zhao now stands more as a symbol than a real threat to the government, Chinese political analysts said.
China’s leaders in 1989 sent in tanks and troops to crush the unprecedented demonstrations, killing hundreds and Zhao is seen as the highest ranking official to oppose the crackdown.
“I think the Chinese leadership knows the political forces within China are limited in raising the Zhao issue into a big political play,” said Shi Yinhong, a political expert at People’s University.
“In this respect, Zhao’s impact is much more dramatically declined than in the immediate years after 1989.”
But the 84-year-old remains a source of worry for the leadership because he is the best-known living victim in the public’s eye of the government’s wrongdoings 15 years ago.
Each year around the June 4 anniversary of the crackdown, rumors surface about his poor health.
This year was no different. Sources confirmed he had been hospitalized for nearly a month with bronchitis, but said he has recovered and is not in serious condition.
His death, some say, could ignite grief, renew calls for a reevaluation of the 1989 events and, most importantly, as other popular leaders’ deaths did in Chinese history, could spark protests calling for political reform.
“He’s more popular after 1989 than before 1989,” said Gao Yu, a journalist who was jailed in the crackdown.
But Gao and others said it was unlikely mourning for Zhao would erupt into the Tiananmen Square protests launched by the death of Zhao’s predecessor Hu Yaobang exactly 15 years ago Thursday.
The government will bar public mourning, said Gao, while Shi said China today was different to 15 years ago.
“Chinese people’s perceptions of their own society are much more complex now (than in 1989),” Shi said.
“At that time, people were more idealistic. Now they have practical concerns. People feel that regardless of what happened then, it cannot happen again.”
Perhaps due to dissipating fears that Zhao could pose a threat, there are signs the government’s view on Zhao may have relaxed.
Several of his children fled abroad following 1989, uncertain of their fate, but in recent years at least one has returned, said a source close to Zhao’s few contacts.
In an unusual move, a recent article in an internal version of Reform Magazine published for Chinese officials mentioned Zhao by name, said Gao.
The article praised the five “Number One Documents” issued by Zhao’s administration in the 1980s on how to address problems of China’s farmers.
China’s younger generation of leaders led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have followed along the same lines as Zhao by focusing on the countryside since coming to power in 2003.
Recently, Hu and Wen issued a “Number One Document” also drawing attention to the need to improve farmers’ lives.
“They are directly influenced by Hu (Yaobang) and Zhao. Otherwise why would they call their policy the Number One Document?” Gao said.
Wen was Zhao’s aide in 1989, accompanying him on Tiananmen Square when he pleaded with students to leave.
Memories of Zhao remain positive, despite nothing published on him and no mention of him in school textbooks.
His home on Fengqiang alley looks like any old Beijing house on first glance, except a soldier stands at a watch tower inside his yard 24-hours a day. Two others guard the street entrance and barbed wire stands atop his home’s high walls.
“The Chinese government still thinks he’s a potential problem,” said a Chinese analyst requesting anonymity.
“Every nation has its history. 1989 is the most important part of China’s recent history. The Chinese government hopes everyone will forget about him and he will pass away very quietly without any agitation in any corner.”
– AFP
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 