Memorial Tributes to Ex-leader Zhao Ziyang, Who Opposed the Tiananmen Massacre, Shared Online Before the 20th Congress

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Zhao Ziyang (C) uses a megaphone to address the student hunger strikers at dawn in one of the buses at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on May 19, 1989. Xinhua/AFP via Getty Images

In the days leading up to the opening of the 20th congress, several old articles and videos commemorating former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Zhao Ziyang were circulated on Chinese social media.

The timing, ahead of the CCP’s most vital conference, “could be a sign of civil dissatisfaction with the authorities in Chinese society and within the CCP,” said New Zealand-based Chen Weijian, editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring, a monthly magazine focused on the Chinese democracy movement, headquartered in New York.

In 1989, Zhao, then general secretary of the party, was stripped of his post for opposing the military’s massacre of a student democracy movement that occurred at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Zhao later earned a good reputation among the Chinese people for taking such a strong stand.

Chen told The Epoch Times there are some open-minded leaders in the party from time to time, “but there is another rule in the CCP: ‘All those who are open-minded and really have reform ideas will be beaten down sooner or later, and the hardliners will prevail in the end.’”

U.S. President Ronald Reagan (R) and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, both holding umbrellas, walk arm in arm, as Reagan escorts him to his car through the rain after a meeting in the Cabinet Room in the White House, in Washington, on Oct. 1, 1984. AFP/AFP via Getty Images

A video released on the Chinese social media Weixin site on Oct. 11 presents a historical record of Zhao, then Premier (1980-1987), and shows him answering questions from foreign reporters before meeting with then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan on April 27, 1984, at the Great Hall in Beijing.

Zhao replied to all the questions posed by American reporters, some of which were quite sensitive to the Chinese political environment. For example, “President Reagan was a fierce opponent of communism, and he often denounced China in harshest terms, how do you feel about him coming here?” “How serious do you think this obstacle is now that the United States will continue to sell weapons to Taiwan?” and “What message will President Reagan’s visit send to the Soviet Union?”

After Reagan’s visit to China, U.S.–China relations developed relatively steadily and there was a short period of friendship.

Accompanying this short video, an 8,000-word article was posted recalling some of the events of Zhao’s life.

This memorial article was originally published in 2006, the first anniversary of Zhao’s death. It was written by Zhou Qiren, a Chinese economist and senior think-tank scholar of Zhao.

Zhou had worked at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he helped the rulers formulate rural policies, thus, had occasion to meet with Zhao. At that time, the CCP was in a period of so-called “reform and opening up” and needed to change its planned economic model.

Another article written by Tian Jiyun, former vice chairman of the Standing Committee, was also widely shared on WeChat, a Chinese social platform. The article was originally published in 2008 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the “reform and opening up” policy.

After the Cultural Revolution, the CCP was forced to carry out reforms to renew its own life. The article reviewed some of the historical circumstances of that time. Tian believes that Zhao and Hu Yaobang, another former general secretary of the party, played a crucial role in promoting the economic reform policy.

The article had been released in 2016 in the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, but the magazine was shut down amid an internal Communist Party crackdown, and all historical references, including those on the official website, were removed.

Student displays a banner with one of the slogans chanted by the crowd of some 200,000 pouring into Tiananmen Square in Beijing on April 22, 1989, in an attempt to participate in the funeral ceremony of former Chinese Communist Party leader and liberal reformer Hu Yaobang during an unauthorized demonstration to mourn his death. Catherine Henriette/AFP via Getty Images

In January 1987, liberal reformer Hu Yaobang was forced to resign his post as General Secretary of the party under the continuous criticism of the patriarchs, who blamed Hu’s “connivance” with the intellectuals for the student movement that happened at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1986.

Zhao succeeded Hu and was confronted with a wider pro-democracy demonstration in 1989. Zhao was accused of “splitting the party” because he disagreed with then-CCP head Deng Xiaoping’s crackdown on students. After the Tiananmen Massacre, Zhao was removed from all party positions. He then spent the last 16 years of his life under house arrest.

When Zhao died in 2005, his ashes were not buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, reserved for senior CCP officials. It was not until 2019 that Zhao’s ashes were buried in a civilian cemetery in a suburb of the Chinese capital.