By Dr. Tao Peng, Germany
(The Chinese version of this article has been published in World Journal, New York, USA on January 20, 2015, 06:00 am)
January 17, 2015 is the day of the 10th anniversary of the desth of the Ex-General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Zhao Ziyang. Hundreds of people went into the alley Fuqiang in Beijing to express his condolences. Unlike in previous years, the Chinese authority (the headquarters of the Central Committee of the CCP) had not blocked the mourning events this time. And before, the Regime also sent a chief officer to Zhao’s family to negotiate the burial of Zhao’s ashes.
As in the past, however, Zhao’s case is still a closely guarded secret for the Communist Party leadership. There has therefore been no signal of a change of the evaluation of Zhao. The official newspaper of the Chinese government “Global Times” wrote that “silence of the authorities was also an attitude” , and it showed that the current rating of the Communist Party that Zhao had made the “valuable contributions” and “a serious mistake at a critical time” would not be changed for Zhao’s case.
The evaluation of the performance of the also overthrown CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang is, however, completely different. Hu has been praised as “a great proletarian revolutionist and statesman” and was remembered publically.
Why has the CCP treated Hu and Zhao differently? Why can Zhao Ziyang not rehabiliert? Is it possible that Zhao’s case would eventually be revised even if the political system of the CCP does not change?
The reasons why the CCP has treated Hu well but mistreated Zhao can be briefly stated as follows. Above all, in the eyes of the party leadership, the nature of the case of Zhao is quite different than that of Hu. Hu Yaoban’s accusation is that he was “weak in the fight against bourgeois liberalization”. This error may yet be tolerated, although Hu’s death led to the student democracy movements in 1989. However, Hu had no direct relation to the movements and bore no personal charge for it.
The Communist Party of China accused Zhao that he has donated unrest at a critical time and split the party. The charge can be classified entirely in the category of “irreconcilable enemy”. In addition, Zhao bore direct and “inevitable” Responsibility for the student movements in 1989.
Furthermore, Hu and Zhao have had not the same attitude towards the punishment by the party headquarters because of their deviations from the party line. Due to his convictions of the party line, Hu Yaobang made no resistance to the removal of him from office by Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other conservative patriarch.
By contrast, Zhao Ziyang had not avowed his guilty before and after the Tiananmen massacre. He refused to meet the conditions for reducing the charge to keep a certain position for him in the party leadership. Zhao had twice rejected the temptations of the party categorically that had offered him membership of the Politburo and the Central Committee.
Besides, Zhao’s political beliefs and philosophy distinguished from that of Hu. Hu Yaobang’s reform has intended to save the party, to inherit glorious tradition and fine things of the party and to deliver them continuously. He was a party loyalist.
Zhao’s political philosophy, however, is to achieve economic and political modernization in China. He had a comprehensive insight into the Chinese Communist Party and its culture, i.e.: Zhao could have had the idea of restructuring the system and of line changes. For the CCP, Zhao is therefore more dangerous and subversive than Hu.
The reasons that the leadership of the CCP has not rehabilitated Zhao for a long time and placed him under house arrest for 16 years until his death could be summarized as follows: First, Zhao was accused by some people in the party leadership that he intended to use the student movements in 1989 to overthrow Deng Xiaoping and to seize all power. This triggered a great shock for Deng Xiaoping. Then Deng decided to overthrow Zhao Ziyang finally.
Secondly, Zhao did not have much contact with the people of the ruling class in comparison to Hu Yaobang. On the contrary, he made many enemies among senior figures in the party. This is the reason why almost no one in the party leadership has put in a good word for him in front of Deng Xiaoping.
Hu, however, has rehabilitated a large number of cadres in the party during his tenure and thus gained a lot of popularity and many contacts at all levels within the party. For this reason, there are many people in the guide layer who are grateful to him for it.
Thirdly, the disciplines of the Communist Party of China do not allow an easy change of the attitude of the party headquarters towards a former leader who has committed a serious error. Such change might otherwise undermine the foundation of the organization and operation mechanism of the CCP, so that no one in the party would be subject to the party disciplines, and the Central Committee of the party would be then powerless.
In addition, Zhao refused to admit that he had made a mistake and rejected changing his political beliefs. Zhao’s behavior makes the rules and regulations of the Communist Party of China ineffective and frail. For the party, it is absolutely unacceptable.
And fourthly, the revision of the case of Zhao is a large and complex problem that affects many areas of policy. It could be implicaded, for example, in the “4 June” movements in 1989 and causes the doubts about the legitimacy of the communist regime.
One can therefore assume that as long as the Chinese Communist Party does not intend to change the political system in China, it will not be possible that Zhao’s case would be reviewed and so that he would receive a fair evaluation.
This corresponds to the announcement of the official media that a review of the case in the future has almost no chance because the Chinese Communists refused to allow a fundamental change of China’s political system, which “a small number of people” together with foreign forces preach and wish for.
Although the authorities have been intended to solve the problem with the burial of Zhao’s ashes, but it should be not misinterpreted as if the CCP would change its attitude towards Zhao Ziyang.
So it will be very likely that Zhao Ziyang must be an “eternal prisoner” under the communist regime.
