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From Wall Street Journal Op Ed….
As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre approaches, that history remains as relevant to China's future as ever. The soon-to-be-released memoirs of the late Zhao Ziyang, who was secretary general of the Communist Party during the student protests, show why.
Zhao was a champion of economic liberalization and famous among China's farmers for his agricultural reforms. In the spring of 1989, he agreed with student demands for transparency, less corruption and a freer press. As Bao Pu explains on the previous page, Zhao's political opponents ultimately outmaneuvered him, resulting in Zhao's ouster from the Party, the tragic events of June 4, 1989 and his 16-year house arrest. He died in 2005.
Zhao's memoirs provide a rare insider's view of debates among Chinese leaders, and they indict the Communist Party's monopoly on power and the statist economic model. Zhao was initially a supporter of "soft authoritarianism." But he understood the importance of economic reforms, which he implemented as a leader in Guangdong and then Sichuan province. His policies, which included giving land rights to farmers and lifting state production quotas, were so immediately successful that a popular description became, "If you want to eat, look for [Zhao] Ziyang." Zhao also opened up the eastern coastal region to trade and development.
Only after his house arrest did Zhao conclude that a truly free economy also requires political liberalization, particularly a free press and independent judiciary. "If a country wishes to modernize, not only should it implement a market economy, it must also adopt a parliamentary democracy as its political system," he wrote in his memoirs.
This represented a shift in his thinking. "I once believed that people were masters of their own affairs," he wrote, "not in the parliamentary democracies of the developed nations in the West, but only in the Soviet and socialist nations' systems with a people's congress . . . This, in fact, is not the case. The democratic systems of our socialist nations are all just superficial; they are not systems in which the people are in charge, but rather are ruled by a few or even a single person."
The memoirs criticize some of China's leaders, not least Deng Xiaoping. Deng was originally Zhao's mentor and appointed him to carry out economic reforms, but Zhao criticizes Deng's idea of political reform as merely "a kind of administrative reform." What Zhao describes as Deng's beliefs have since become the conventional wisdom among China's top leaders: "Deng believed that a precondition of reform was an upholding of the Communist Party's one-party rule. . . . Deng was particularly opposed to a multiparty system, tripartite separation of powers, and the parliamentary system of Western nations."
This is more than a history lesson. China's current leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, owe their careers to the political coup that took place in 1989. Mr. Hu indirectly benefited when he was praised for his bloody crackdown on protests in Tibet. Mr. Wen, who once considered Zhao a mentor and accompanied him to Tiananmen Square to speak to students before the crackdown, seems not to have been influenced by Zhao's political beliefs. But this generation will not run China forever.
The English translation of Zhao's memoirs will be published next week, followed by the release of the Chinese-language version in Hong Kong later this month. Zhao recorded the memoirs on tapes, hoping to invalidate any claim by Beijing that his book is a forgery. It's hard to argue with the authenticity of a voice.
In the Internet age, Zhao's memoirs are sure to reach millions of Chinese readers. They could include some who, inspired by the students who died on June 4, 1989, will one day help to make Zhao's dream of democracy in China a reality.
From Wall Street Journal Op Ed….
As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre approaches, that history remains as relevant to China's future as ever. The soon-to-be-released memoirs of the late Zhao Ziyang, who was secretary general of the Communist Party during the student protests, show why.
Zhao was a champion of economic liberalization and famous among China's farmers for his agricultural reforms. In the spring of 1989, he agreed with student demands for transparency, less corruption and a freer press. As Bao Pu explains on the previous page, Zhao's political opponents ultimately outmaneuvered him, resulting in Zhao's ouster from the Party, the tragic events of June 4, 1989 and his 16-year house arrest. He died in 2005.
Zhao's memoirs provide a rare insider's view of debates among Chinese leaders, and they indict the Communist Party's monopoly on power and the statist economic model. Zhao was initially a supporter of "soft authoritarianism." But he understood the importance of economic reforms, which he implemented as a leader in Guangdong and then Sichuan province. His policies, which included giving land rights to farmers and lifting state production quotas, were so immediately successful that a popular description became, "If you want to eat, look for [Zhao] Ziyang." Zhao also opened up the eastern coastal region to trade and development.
Only after his house arrest did Zhao conclude that a truly free economy also requires political liberalization, particularly a free press and independent judiciary. "If a country wishes to modernize, not only should it implement a market economy, it must also adopt a parliamentary democracy as its political system," he wrote in his memoirs.
This represented a shift in his thinking. "I once believed that people were masters of their own affairs," he wrote, "not in the parliamentary democracies of the developed nations in the West, but only in the Soviet and socialist nations' systems with a people's congress . . . This, in fact, is not the case. The democratic systems of our socialist nations are all just superficial; they are not systems in which the people are in charge, but rather are ruled by a few or even a single person."
The memoirs criticize some of China's leaders, not least Deng Xiaoping. Deng was originally Zhao's mentor and appointed him to carry out economic reforms, but Zhao criticizes Deng's idea of political reform as merely "a kind of administrative reform." What Zhao describes as Deng's beliefs have since become the conventional wisdom among China's top leaders: "Deng believed that a precondition of reform was an upholding of the Communist Party's one-party rule. . . . Deng was particularly opposed to a multiparty system, tripartite separation of powers, and the parliamentary system of Western nations."
This is more than a history lesson. China's current leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, owe their careers to the political coup that took place in 1989. Mr. Hu indirectly benefited when he was praised for his bloody crackdown on protests in Tibet. Mr. Wen, who once considered Zhao a mentor and accompanied him to Tiananmen Square to speak to students before the crackdown, seems not to have been influenced by Zhao's political beliefs. But this generation will not run China forever.
The English translation of Zhao's memoirs will be published next week, followed by the release of the Chinese-language version in Hong Kong later this month. Zhao recorded the memoirs on tapes, hoping to invalidate any claim by Beijing that his book is a forgery. It's hard to argue with the authenticity of a voice.
In the Internet age, Zhao's memoirs are sure to reach millions of Chinese readers. They could include some who, inspired by the students who died on June 4, 1989, will one day help to make Zhao's dream of democracy in China a reality.
