Friday 22 May 2009

4 senior cadres helped to pen June 4 memoirs

Veteran officials persuaded Zhao Ziyang to use audio tapes

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4 senior cadres helped to pen June 4 memoirs

Veteran officials persuaded Zhao Ziyang to use audio tapes

Kristine Kwok in Beijing and Minnie Chan
22 May 2009

Four senior-ranking officials assisted ousted communist party leader Zhao Ziyang in penning his explosive memoirs that condemned the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, his former top aide said yesterday.

Zhao, who lived under house arrest from 1989 until his death in 2005, had planned to write a memoir since 1992, his aide, Bao Tong, said.

Mr. Bao said the four were the former director of General Administration of Press and Publication, Du Daozheng; former deputy party secretary of the Central Disciplinary Commission, Xiao Hongda; former chief editor of Guangming Daily, Yao Xihua; and former State Council secretary, Du Xingyuan. Lin Ruo, the former Guangdong party secretary, provided the tape recorder.

“Zhao Ziyang planned to write his memoirs as early as 1992,” Mr. Bao said in Beijing. “When I was in Qingcheng Prison, Zhao told my wife Jiang Zongcao personally that he wanted me to help him to write his memoirs.”

Mr. Bao, 76, was released from prison in May 1996 after seven years. But he said it was impossible for him to meet Zhao as they were both being closely watched. “I think Zhao started writing his memoirs in 1993 even though we can’t find any manuscripts left by him,” he said.

The idea of using tapes came from the veteran cadres, he said.

Du Daozheng, 86, told Hong Kong-based Yazhou Zhoukan magazine, said he was the key planner of the audio memoirs. He drafted an outline, while Mr. Lin, 85, provided a good recorder. Du Daozheng wrote the preface for the Chinese edition of the memoirs, Journey of the Reforms.

Mr. Bao said they turned his manuscript into audio recordings because “it was not easy shipping so many papers out under close watch”.

“To start with, apart from Mr. Lin who was is in Guangdong, the four other cadres were all at Zhao’s home when he was recording.”

He said the veterans would then pretend to be talking to him to hide the fact they were recording. “The guards would have been alerted hearing Zhao talking to himself.”

Mr. Bao said he had decided to press ahead with publishing the memoirs ahead of the June 4 anniversary, although Du Daozheng suggested waiting until afterwards. His son, Bao Pu, transcribed the tapes, and translated them into English, and oversaw publication.

“I appointed my son Bao Pu to do the job because he is the only person I trust,” Mr. Bao said. “And the reason we released the English edition first was to test the reaction of the central government.”

Mr. Bao said it was a great relief to have fulfilled his pledge to Zhao.

“I would like to tell everybody that I am still safe, no one has called me and questioned me so far,” he said, adding that he would leave Beijing during the June 4 anniversary and return when it was over.

Mr. Du’s daughter, Du Mingming said her father had not been harassed even though his preface was released yesterday.

“Nowadays the ruling party and government are much more open-minded than their predecessors because in the past, all of us should be jailed or sent to remote places,” Du told the Yazhou Zhoukan. “But now we wish it [the Chinese government] would move forward more quickly.”