Press Release
Ghosts
of Tiananmen
Tiananmen
Square was eerily quiet on June 4, 1989, just after People's Liberation Army
soldiers killed hundreds of student protesters.
"The Tiananmen Papers"
(2001)
For Further Information: James F. Hoge, Jr.,
Editor (212) 434- 9504 (Office)
January 8, 2001, NEW YORK --- In its
January/February issue, Foreign Affairs is publishing "The
Tiananmen Papers," an extraordinary compilation of documents that
illuminate how battling Chinese leaders ultimately decided to suppress the
massive student demonstrations in 1989, then purged dissenters from the
country's leadership and put political reform in a deep freeze.
"The Tiananmen Papers" --- adapted from a
forthcoming book of the same title --- contains the minutes of meetings of
the Politburo and its Standing Committee, reports from intelligence
agencies to the leaders and even recordings of Deng Xiaoping phone calls,
meetings at his home and gatherings of the Eight Elders, the extralegal
group of senior revolutionaries that then constituted the ultimate
authority in China.
This unprecedented trove of hitherto secret documents
was spirited out of China by a representative of reform elements within
the Communist hierarchy who say they believe that opening the political
process is essential to successfully continuing a difficult modernization
of the Chinese economy.
They say they hope that airing the behind-the-scenes
struggles of a decade ago will jump start consideration of political
reform at a time when China is beginning to wrestle with party and
government leadership changes scheduled for 2002 and 2003.
The compiler and his associates also say they believe
that rekindling a spirit of political reform begins with reversing the
official verdict of the Tiananmen demonstrations as being the work of a
"small group of counter-revolutionaries" and instead
acknowledging that the students were patriotic Chinese seeking to advance
the modernization of their country.
The minutes and reports show the unsuccessful efforts
between protestors and rulers to find common ground for a peaceful
resolution of the demonstrations that at their high point saw some 100
million people participating in one form or another in more than 50
Chinese cities. As the demonstrations wore on, the gap widened between
officials counseling continued negotiations and those who came to favor
repression as the only way to preserve public order and rule by the
Communist party. The stand off culminated in the fatal clash of military
forces and protestors in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, followed
by the arrest and imprisonment of student leaders.
The documents also show how the Elders, all retired or
semi-retired, extralegally imposed martial law and replaced the country's
top leader, Zhao Ziyang, with Jiang Zemin even though that authority
belonged to the Politburo and the State Council.
Three American scholars, Andrew Nathan, Perry Link and
Orville Schell, spent months debriefing the compiler who brought the
documents out of China. They also checked other sources where possible and
matched the documents against other evidence, including their own
knowledge from years of studying and traveling in China. They, and other
China experts queried by them and by Foreign Affairs were unanimous
in considering the documents authentic, while also recognizing that an
absolute judgment is not possible given the closed nature of the Chinese
regime.
After conferring at length with them and with the
Chinese compiler, the editor of Foreign Affairs concurred that
there are "convincing grounds" to assume the documents are
credible and since they deal with important events are therefore,
deserving of publication.

CUBAn-CHINESE WEAPONS BUILD-UP
Below are excerpts from the 15,000-word Foreign
Affairs article:
Party Central Office Secretariat,
"Important meeting minutes," April 25, 1989:
Li Peng (then Premier): Some of the protest
posters and the slogans that students shout during the marches are
anti-Party and anti-socialist. They're clamoring for a reversal of the
verdicts on bourgeois liberalization and spiritual pollution [Communist
Party jargon for Western cultural influences].
The spear is now pointed directly at you and the others
of the elder generation of proletarian revolutionaries.
Deng Xiaoping (most influential Elder): Saying
I'm the mastermind behind the scenes, are they?
Li Peng: There are open calls for the government
to step down, appeals for nonsense like "open investigations into and
discussions of the question of China's governance and power," and
calls to institute broader elections and revise the Constitution, to lift
restrictions on political parties and newspapers, and to get rid of the
category of "counterrevolutionary" crimes. Illegal student
organizations have already sprung up in Beijing and Tianjin...The small
number of leaders of these illegal organizations have other people behind
them calling the shots.
People's Daily,
April 26, 1989, editorial:
This is a well-planned plot to confuse the people and
throw the country into "turmoil." Its real aim is to reject the
Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system at the most fundamental
level. This is a most serious political struggle that concerns the whole
Party and nation.
Party Central Office Secretariat,
"Minutes of May 17th Politiburo
Standing Committee meeting":
Deng Xiaoping: After thinking long and hard about
this, I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Liberation Army
[PLA] and declare martial law in Beijing--more precisely, in Beijing's
urban districts. The aim of martial law will be to suppress the turmoil
once and for all and to return things quickly to normal. This is the
unshirkable duty of the Party and the government.
Party Central Office Secretariat,
"Minutes of an important meeting on May 18th":
Yang Shangkun (then President of the People's
Republic of China): ...The problem we now face is that the two
different voices within the party have been completely exposed; the
students feel that someone at the Center supports them, so they've gotten
more and more extreme. Their goals are to get the April 26 editorial
repudiated and get official recognition for their autonomous federations
[as opposed to the student organizations organized and controlled by the
government].
Wang Zhen (an Elder): ...These people are really
asking for it! They should be nabbed as soon as they pop out again. Give 'em
no mercy! The students are nuts if they think this handful of people can
overthrow our Party and our government! These kids don't know how good
they've got it! ...If the students don't leave Tiananmen on their own, the
PLA should go in and carry them out. This is ridiculous!
Bo Yibo (an Elder): The whole imperialist Western
world wants to make socialist countries leave the socialist road and
become satellites in the system of international monopoly capitalism. The
people with ulterior motives who are behind this student movement have
support from the United States and Europe and from the KMT [Kuomintang]
reactionaries in Taiwan.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat,
"Minutes of important meeting, May 21, 1989":
Deng Xiaoping: ...In the recent turmoil Zhao
Ziyang has exposed his position completely. He obviously stands on the
side of the turmoil, and in practical terms he has been fomenting
division, splitting the Party, and defending turmoil. It's lucky we're
still here to keep a lid on things. Zhao Ziyang stimulated turmoil, and
there's no reason to keep him. Li Xiannian (an Elder): ...In political
action and party loyalty, Jiang Zemin has been a constant. And of course,
he's got a good knack for economic work. Shanghai's built a good economic
foundation these last few years....I like the idea of him as general
secretary.
"Minutes of the CCP Central
Politburo
Standing Committee meeting,"
June 6:
Deng Xiaoping: If we hadn't been firm with these
counterrevolutionary riots--if we hadn't come down hard--who knows what
might have happened? The PLA has suffered a great deal; we owe them a lot,
we really do. If the plots of the people who were pushing the riots
had gotten anywhere, we'd have had civil war. And if there had been civil
war--of course our side would have won, but just think of all the
deaths!...We should mete out the necessary punishments, in varying
degrees, to the ambitious handful who were trying to subvert the People's
Republic... Activities that break the law must be suppressed. We can't
just allow people to demonstrate whenever they want to. If people
demonstrate 365 days a year and don't want to do anything else, reform and
opening will get nowhere....
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