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Friday, 15 May 2009
Tapes smuggled out as music
The 30 musical cassette tapes were spirited out of the country by former aides and supporters. They had been secretly recorded by ousted party chief Zhao Ziyang.
The 30 musical cassette tapes were spirited out of the country by former aides and supporters. They had been secretly recorded by ousted party chief Zhao Ziyang.
On them he tells of his rise to national power in the 1980s, his battles with the old guard and his alliance and tussles with Deng Xiaoping. Recording over children’s songs and Peking Opera performances on the cassettes in his guarded compound north of Tiananmen Square, Zhao described his tenure as prime minister and then party secretary.
Zhao had initially made written notes and then, in around 2000, decided to tape them, spreading the cassettes among four visitors who were present during the recordings, said Bao Tong, Zhao’s former top aide who remains under tight surveillance in Beijing.
Mr. Bao said this week that he learned about the tapes in 2007 and had helped assemble the complete set, calling the memoir “very rare historical material” that “belongs to all the people of China and to the world”. He said their authenticity was not in doubt.
His son, Bao Pu, a translator and editor of the published memoirs, said: “This is the first time that such a high Chinese leader has been in a position to tell the truth. At that point the truth is all he had.”
Also credited as translators and editors are Renee Chiang, a publisher in Hong Kong, and Adi Ignatius, an American journalist who covered China in the 1980s.
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Tapes smuggled out as music
The New York Times
15 May 2009
The 30 musical cassette tapes were spirited out of the country by former aides and supporters. They had been secretly recorded by ousted party chief Zhao Ziyang.
On them he tells of his rise to national power in the 1980s, his battles with the old guard and his alliance and tussles with Deng Xiaoping. Recording over children’s songs and Peking Opera performances on the cassettes in his guarded compound north of Tiananmen Square, Zhao described his tenure as prime minister and then party secretary.
Zhao had initially made written notes and then, in around 2000, decided to tape them, spreading the cassettes among four visitors who were present during the recordings, said Bao Tong, Zhao’s former top aide who remains under tight surveillance in Beijing.
Mr. Bao said this week that he learned about the tapes in 2007 and had helped assemble the complete set, calling the memoir “very rare historical material” that “belongs to all the people of China and to the world”. He said their authenticity was not in doubt.
His son, Bao Pu, a translator and editor of the published memoirs, said: “This is the first time that such a high Chinese leader has been in a position to tell the truth. At that point the truth is all he had.”
Also credited as translators and editors are Renee Chiang, a publisher in Hong Kong, and Adi Ignatius, an American journalist who covered China in the 1980s.
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