{"id":58137,"date":"2016-07-29T18:53:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=58137 "},"modified":"2016-07-29T18:53:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T18:53:00","slug":"58137-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=58137","title":{"rendered":"A Communist Insider Turned Exile, and the Secrets He Never Shared"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 28, 2016<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/div>\"201672828ChinaLetter-web-articleLarge.jpg
\u00a0<\/div>

Pro-democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989.<\/span><\/p>

Catherine Henriette\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

BEIJING \u2014 Xu Jiatun, a former senior Communist Party official, took many secrets to his grave, say people who knew him.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Since his death in June after 26 years of exile in the United States, new details have emerged of Mr. Xu\u2019s daring escape from China after the suppression of the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations in June 1989 and about the party\u2019s presence in Hong Kong, where from 1983 to 1989 Mr. Xu headed the local office of Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. That made him China\u2019s de facto representative in what was then a British colony.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

This is of more than historical interest, with the forces of communism and democracy locked in a bitter contest in Hong Kong. The Communist Party has always maintained an omert\u00e0-like silence about its activities in the territory, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Martin Lee, the founder of Hong Kong\u2019s Democratic Party, met with Mr. Xu several times during Mr. Xu\u2019s tenure at Xinhua, Mr. Lee said in an interview.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u201c<\/span>One time he and I had lunch, and he told me not to worry too much. Beijing had already brought about 50,000 people into Hong Kong to work in all sectors of life \u2014 the civil service, the professions.\u201d If Britain pulled out before the handover, he said, \u201cthese people would just take over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

He intended this to be reassuring, Mr. Lee said. \u201cBut now when you look at Hong Kong, I think that they are running this place. Our chief executive is one of them, a secret Communist Party cadre, obviously,\u201d he said, referring to Leung Chun-ying, the territory\u2019s leader.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Leung has denied that he is a party member.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Xu made many friends in Hong Kong, including democrats and tycoons, said Kam Kin-yat, whose father, Kam Yiu-yu, was the editor of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po and an old friend of Mr. Xu\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Xu was open-minded, but making friends was also part of his job, Mr. Kam said by telephone from Los Angeles.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Xu encouraged Mr. Lee, a lawyer, and Szeto Wah, a union organizer, to set up political parties, Mr. Lee said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

In Mr. Xu\u2019s discussions with Mr. Szeto, Mr. Lee said, \u201che added one thing that he didn\u2019t tell me \u2014 that Szeto Wah didn\u2019t have to worry about money. And now, of course, in Hong Kong the pro-Beijing political parties are paid by Beijing, indirectly through local tycoons.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Szeto became an outspoken critic of the party after the Tiananmen protests.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

As those protests rocked China, Mr. Kam said that Zhao Ziyang, the party general secretary, asked Mr. Xu to evaluate the government\u2019s best response to the demonstrations from a Hong Kong point of view. Mr. Xu told Zhao that a \u201cpeaceful resolution\u201d was necessary.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Zhao agreed, but he was dismissed for this stance and placed under lifelong house arrest by hard-liners including Deng Xiaoping. In 1989, Mr. Xu asked to retire but was instead dismissed from his post. In January 1990, a conservative, Zhou Nan, was appointed as his successor.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Xu moved to Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, apparently awaiting news of his fate from Beijing. But he took his fate into his own hands.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

About 8 p.m. on April 30, Mr. Xu went for his usual evening stroll out of the Xinhua headquarters in Shenzhen, according to Mr. Kam, who said this was the first time he was publicly sharing details of an escape he helped plan.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u201c<\/span>He went for a walk empty-handed,\u201d Mr. Kam said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t bring a single suitcase.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Kam\u2019s role was confirmed by Ho Pin, the publisher of Mirror Media Group, who is based in New York.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Accompanied by a family member, Mr. Xu crossed the border into Hong Kong at Lo Wu, wearing a golf cap for a disguise. He boarded a train, alighting at the Sheung Shui station, and walked about 100 feet along the tracks to where Mr. Kam was waiting in a car.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

That same evening, an order from Beijing arrived at the Xinhua office in Shenzhen to confiscate Mr. Xu\u2019s passport, Mr. Kam said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

In Hong Kong, Mr. Xu wrote a letter to Deng, in care of Xinhua in Hong Kong, promising he wouldn\u2019t reveal any secrets. He hoped his family in China would be treated leniently if he remained loyal to that promise, said Mr. Kam, who mailed the letter. The United States Consulate issued Mr. Xu a visa and helped arrange a last-minute air ticket.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Mr. Xu kept his secrets, but the party never granted his wish to return home.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>


<\/p>

For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>Since his death in June after 26 years of exile in the United States, new details have emerged of Mr. Xu&#8217;s daring escape from China after the suppression of the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations in June 1989 and about the party&#8217;s presence in Hong Kong, where from 1983 to 1989 Mr. Xu headed the local office of Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. That made him China&#8217;s de facto representative in what was then a British colony.<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}