Little evidence new leader's father a man of the people

[Hideyoshi Toyotomi]

Little evidence new leader's father a man of the people

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John Garnaut

John Garnaut is The Age and Sydney Morning Herald's China correspondent.

Liberals believe Xi Zhongxun criticised the Tiananmen massacres. But did he really?

Xi Zhongxun reporterdly supported the demonstrators during 1989's Tiananmen Square protests. Photo: Reuters​

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WHEN China's long-suffering liberals look for clues about their incoming leader, Xi Jinping, they often take hope from a belief that his father courageously condemned the Beijing massacres that followed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Xi Jinping, who will replace Hu Jintao as general secretary of the Communist Party on Thursday in a once-in-a-decade leadership clear-out, has got to where he is in part because he is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a hero of the revolution. Chinese liberal intellectuals have asserted, and global media outlets have reported, that the elder Xi was appalled that his party turned its guns on the people it purported to serve.

Icon ... a lone protestor during the protests prevents a line of tanks from reaching Tiananmen Square. Photo: AAP

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Some speculate that the son will honour his father's legacy - and open the door to political reform that was slammed shut in 1989 - by overturning the official historical verdict that continues to vilify the protesters. The trouble is that nobody, it seems, can point to when the elder Xi made his comments, to whom, or what he said. ''Some comments and 'facts' seem to be rumour or fabrications,'' says Jia Juchuan, the party historian who wrote the chronicles on Xi Zhongxun after spending more than a decade examining records and interviewing the family, including Xi Jinping. The second volume of his work has been delayed for several years, stuck in a labyrinth of party committees.

'Hero of the revolution' ... Xi Zhongxun, pictured with his son, Xi Jinping. Photo: Supplied​

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The only evidence Jia Juchuan can find of the elder Xi's views on the massacres suggests a more complicated picture. The official Xinhua news agency reported on June 15, 1989 - when the blood and debris was still being swept from the streets - that Xi Zhongxun joined a high-level official delegation to ''warmly greet'' the People's Liberation Army and police who had carried out martial law.
According to Xinhua, the elder Xi praised the soldiers and condemned their victims.

He reportedly praised the ''wise'' and ''resolute'' measures that ''quickly pacified this counter-revolutionary riot, safeguarded the socialist system, safeguarded the people's regime and safeguarded lives and property of the people in the capital''. ''I express sincere regard and the highest respect to all of you,'' he reportedly said.

Historians with access to party archives do not suggest Xi's reported comments reflect his personal views, given the party's history of fabricating news and its ruthless demand for public demonstrations of allegiance at times of crisis. ''All leaders did that kind of thing, making their attitude clear,'' Mr Jia said. ''It was a 'work duty'.'' Leaders who did not demonstrate support for the massacres risked not only their own careers, but those of their supporters and children.

As it happened, Xi Zhongxun retired permanently to Shenzhen in 1990, where he grappled with mental illness until his death in 2002. Close friends of the Xi family, themselves advocating liberal change in China, say there is no question that the elder Xi was one of China's boldest reformers in the post-Mao era. They point to his record in pioneering China's export opening to the world, in the southern province of Guangdong, and to his courageous support for liberal party boss Hu Yaobang when he was purged by conservatives in 1987.

But even his closest liberal supporters are not convinced that Xi Zhongxun went so far as to condemn the massacres, even privately. ''I don't know whether Xi Zhongxun opposed June 4,'' says a family friend who is actively agitating for democratic change. ''Did he really criticise June 4?'' asks another, a prominent advocate for political reform and whose own father helped care for the ageing Xi. ''Quite a few of those senior guys were not comfortable with opening fire on students, but somehow they also realised that the student issue had to be dealt with otherwise the whole party could collapse.''

If Xi senior expressed contrary views behind closed doors, then the comments remain buried deep inside the family vaults and any files remain off-limits even for official party historians. ''The archive system on the mainland is very closed,'' said Han Gang, a leading party historian at East China Normal University, who is affiliated with the party school currently headed by Xi Jinping himself. ''At the moment, we can only access materials up until the late 1970s,'' he said.

Any opening of the Tiananmen files is unlikely to happen soon, given that all of the key patrons who brought Xi Jinping to power were themselves promoted as a result of the purge of reformers that accompanied the declaration of martial law in 1989.