Bao Tong, Senior Chinese Official Supportive of Democracy and Spiritual Belief, Dies at 90

Bao Tong holds up a photo of Zhao in his home in Beijing. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Bao Tong, former political secretary of the deceased reformist party leader Zhao Ziyang, died in Beijing Wednesday, four days after his 90th birthday.

“Obituary notice for my late father Bao Tong, who passed away peacefully at 7:08 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2022, at the age of 90,” Bao’s son Bao Pu wrote on Twitter.

Bao’s daughter Bao Jian wrote in another tweet that her father was “still full of hope for this land.” She quoted him as saying on his 90th birthday: “Humans are a minute existence in history between heaven and earth … My reaching 90 or not is not significant; what is important is the future that we should fight for. It is important that we do what we can do, should do, and must do today, and do it well.”

A Democratic Reformist

Bao was sympathetic to the students’ pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square that was suppressed by the Chinese military in 1989. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after the massacre and was dismissed from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) central committee.

Bao was born in 1932 in Haining in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang. He joined the CCP in 1949 when he was chairman of the student union at Shanghai Nanyang High School.

Since 1980, Bao had served as the political secretary of Zhao Ziyang, the then-premier and later the general party secretary. He was also a leading member of China’s Economic System Reform Commission. In 1987, he rose to become a member of the Central Committee at the CCP’s 13th National Congress and the director of its political reform office. He helped draft documents relating to China’s political and economic reforms while he was in these posts.

In 1989, Bao opposed Deng Xiaoping’s decision to use force to suppress the peaceful protest of Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, who demanded democracy and anti-corruption. Bao supported Zhao’s ideas of handling the protest peacefully in line with democracy and the rule of law.

Deng, who was Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission at the time, didn’t accept Zhao’s ideas.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Zhao Ziyang (C) addresses the student hunger strikers through a megaphone in one of the buses at Tiananmen Square in Beijing where pro-democracy hunger strikers had been sheltered at dawn on May 19, 1989. Xinhua/AFP via Getty Images

The students’ protest ended in a violent massacre with armed troops and tanks on the night of June 3, 1989, and days after that. Bao called it a “massacre” in his commentary for Radio Free Asia published on June 4, 2022.

Bao was arrested in Beijing in May 1989 and sentenced in July to seven years in prison for “leaking state secrets” and “inciting counter-revolutionary propaganda.”

He spent the rest of his life under house arrest and surveillance after his release from prison.

Zhao Ziyang, a sympathizer of the student democratic movement, was ousted and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005.

Speaking Up for Falun Gong

Bao remained a sharp critic of the CCP, despite spending most of his time under house arrest and surveillance.

He had spoken up for Falun Gong and condemned the CCP for its suppression of Falun Gong in China.

In 2008, retired Shandong University professor Sun Wenguan published two open letters regarding the Tiananmen Massacre and the persecution of Falun Gong. Bao expressed his support of Sun when speaking with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times in March 2008.

“Matters such as the redress of the Tiananmen Massacre and ending the persecution of Falun Gong brought up by Professor Sun Wenguan are what people are concerned about most. Since the National People’s Congress represents the people, the Congress should care about matters that the people are concerned about and should discuss matters that people are concerned about most. Otherwise whom does the Congress represent?” Bao said in the interview.

In an interview with The Epoch Times in 2015, Bao told the publication that Zhu Rongji, then Chinese premier, said that the CCP would not ban Falun Gong and that he hoped Falun Gong practitioners could have the peace of mind to continue their practice.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese spiritual belief comprising five slow, gentle-moving exercises and moral teachings of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. It was made public in China in 1992 and 70 million to 100 million Chinese were practicing Falun Gong by 1999 before the persecution.

Jiang Zemin, former general secretary of the CCP, initiated a nationwide campaign to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, out of fear of the group’s popularity.

Bao said that Jiang’s persecution is “illegal.”

“Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong is a crime against humanity,” he said, “The persecution of any citizen is the persecution of all citizens and society.”

Gao Yu, a dissident Chinese journalist, posted on Twitter that she hoped she would be allowed to attend Bao’s funeral on Nov. 15, although she was barred from attending Bao’s wife’s funeral in August.

Bao’s wife Jiang Zongcao died of cancer on Aug. 21 at the age of 90. The Chinese communist regime only allowed 30 people—former colleagues, families, and relatives—to attend her funeral, according to Bao.

In 1989, Gao was first arrested for running a series of reports on the democracy protests at Tiananmen Square while serving as deputy chief editor of Economics Weekly. She has been repeatedly imprisoned in China for her work, including on charges of “leaking state secrets.” She was named one of the 50 World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute in 2000.

The CCP is to regard Bao’s funeral as “highly sensitive” and won’t allow dissidents and activists to attend, according to The Guardian.

Li Jing contributed to this report.