News: Who is Zhao Ziyang?

BBC: Why Zhao was seen as a symbol of democratic reform (Video)

Purged Chinese Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang dies
Mon Jan 17, 7:08 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) – Former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who put China on the road to economic reform but was purged for opposing the bloody 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement, died aged 85 after nearly 16 years under house arrest.
Photo
AFP/File Photo

Zhao had been seriously ill in a Beijing hospital for a month with a lung problem and lapsed into a coma on Friday after suffering a stroke. His death was confirmed in a short dispatch by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

"Comrade Zhao Ziyang died of illness in a Beijing hospital Monday," said Xinhua. State radio and television did not mention his death in their evening prime time news broadcast.

Zhao’s daughter Wang Yannan sent a short text-message to friends by mobile phone. "He left peacefully this morning, he is free at last," said the message.

Vice President Zeng Qinghong paid a pre-dawn visit to Zhao about an hour before he died, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said, citing members of Zhao’s family.

Zhao had served as communist party secretary general and prime minister for much of the 1980s. But he was unceremoniously stripped of his party post after he opposed using military force to end the six-week-long student-led protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

After his removal from power, Zhao lived under house arrest in a tightly guarded compound in central Beijing.

Although the ruling party discredited his political reform plans, his economic reforms in the 1980s set the stage for the opening up of China’s economy and 25 years of dramatic economic growth.

Zhao had been handpicked by then-patriarch Deng Xiaoping to become prime minister in 1980 after turning around the disastrous Maoist economic policies in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

He was seen as an efficient technocrat, a realist unburdened by communist dogma.

Overseas leaders mourned his death, with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urging China to move forward with the political reforms that Zhao had once envisioned.

"I want them to make efforts for democratization," Jiji Press news agency quoted Koizumi as saying.

Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, on a visit to the Chinese terrority of Macau, offered his "deep condolences" and said Zhao was "noted for his humanity and his moderation".

The government of arch-rival Taiwan urged China to reassess Zhao’s role during the 1989 crackdown.

"We urge Beijing to re-examine the history and honestly face the truth at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989," cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai said.

"We urge the Chinese government to learn from Mr. Zhao’s tolerance, to push for democratic and political reforms and respect the call for an open and diverse society."

In Beijing, political dissidents also mourned Zhao.

"Zhao Ziyang was a great and enlightened Chinese leader," veteran dissident and democracy activist Ren Wanding told AFP.

"He opposed military violence to resolve the 1989 democracy protests. A lot of Chinese leaders were unable to do this. This is where his greatness lies."

Ren and other activists called for a public funeral.

"The Chinese government, at the very least, should have an open and public funeral for Zhao Ziyang," said Jiang Peikun, whose 17-year-old son was gunned down in the streets of Beijing during the 1989 protest.

Analysts have said the government would be concerned the death of Zhao could become a rallying point for public disillusionment, especially over the growing gap between rich and poor.

However, on Tiananmen Square and around Zhao’s house in central Beijing Monday, security appeared normal.

Zhao was last seen in public on May 19, 1989 with current Premier Wen Jiabao when he visited Tiananmen Square and urged the students to leave. The next day the government imposed martial law, leading to the assault by troops on the night of June 3.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed citizens and protesters were gunned down during the assault. The government, including Wen, continues to maintain the crackdown was necessary to safeguard political stability for ongoing economic reforms.

In a series of interviews conducted in the 1990s and recently published in Hong Kong, Zhao blamed late paramount leader Deng for the fateful events of Tiananmen and insisted he could have ended the protests peacefully.

He was born in 1919 in central Henan province to a family of well-known landowners. After the communists took power in 1949, he held a series of senior positions in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan before being summoned to Beijing.