Foreign Affairs January / February 2001 (continued)
<<<<<<<
Following are excerpts from some of the key documents:
THE STANDING COMMITTEE MEETS IN EMERGENCY
On May 13, the demonstrating students announced a hunger
strike. On the evening of May 16 the members of the Politburo
Standing Committee -- Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Qili,
and Yao Yilin -- held an emergency meeting. Party elders Yang
Shangkun and Bo Yibo also attended. The hunger strike had
evoked a strong, broad response in society, and the leaders
were under pressure to find a solution.
Excerpts from Party Central Office Secretariat, "Minutes of the
May 16 Politburo Standing Committee meeting":
Zhao Ziyang: ... The students' hunger strike in the square has
gone on for four days now. ... We've had dialogues with their
representatives and have promised we'll take them seriously and
keep listening to their comments, asking only that they stop
their fast, but it hasn't worked. The Square is so crowded -- all
kinds of excited people milling about with their slogans and
banners -- that the student representatives themselves say
they have no real control of things.
Yang Shangkun: These last few days Beijing's been in something
like anarchy. Students are striking at all the schools, workers
from some offices are out on the streets, transportation and lots
of other things are out of whack -- it's what you could call
anarchy. We are having a historic Sino-Soviet summit and
should have had a welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square,
but instead we had to make do at the airport. ...
Zhao Ziyang: ...When I got back from North Korea I learned that
the April 26 editorial had elicited a strong reaction in many parts
of society and had become a major issue for the students. I
thought it might be best simply to skirt the most sensitive issue
of whether the student movement is turmoil, hoping it would
fade away while we gradually turn things around using the
methods of democracy and law. But then on May 13 a few
hundred students began a hunger strike, and one of their main
demands was to reverse the official view of the April 26 editorial
[that was published in People's Daily]. So now there's no way to
avoid the problem. We have to revise the April 26 editorial, find
ways to dispel the sense of confrontation between us and the
students, and get things settled down as soon as possible.
Li Peng: It's just not true, Comrade Ziyang, that the official view
in the April 26 editorial was aimed at the vast majority of
students. It was aimed at the tiny minority who were using the
student movement to exploit the young students' emotions and
to exploit some of our mistakes and problems in order to begin a
political struggle against the Communist Party and the socialist
system and to expand this struggle from Beijing to the whole
country and create national turmoil. These are indisputable
facts. Even if a lot of the student demonstrators misunderstood
the April 26 editorial, still it served an important purpose in
exposing these truths.
Zhao Ziyang: As I see it, the reason why so many more
students have joined the demonstrations is that they couldn't
accept the editorial's label [of 'turmoil'] for the movement. The
students kept insisting that the party and government express a
different attitude and come up with a better way of
characterizing the movement. I think we have to address this
problem very seriously because there's no way around it. ...
Li Peng: Comrade Ziyang, the key phrases of the April 26
editorial were drawn from Comrade Xiaoping's remarks on the
25th: "This is a well-planned plot," it is "turmoil," its "real aim is
to reject the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist
system," "the whole Party and nation are facing a most serious
political struggle," and so on are all Comrade Xiaoping's original
words. They cannot be changed.
Zhao Ziyang: We have to explain the true nature of this student
movement to Comrade Xiaoping, and we need to change the
official view of the movement.
ZHAO ZIYANG LOSES GROUND
On the morning of May 17 the Standing Committee of the
Politburo met at Deng Xiaoping's home. Besides Zhao Ziyang, Li
Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Qili, and Yao Yilin, elders Yang Shangkun and
Bo Yibo also attended.
Excerpts from Party Central Office Secretariat, "Minutes of the
May 17 Politburo Standing Committee meeting," document
supplied to Party Central Office Secretariat for its records by
the Office of Deng Xiaoping:
Zhao Ziyang: The fasting students feel themselves under a
spotlight that makes it hard for them to make concessions. This
leaves us with a prickly situation. The most important thing right
now is to get the students to de-link their fasting from their
demands and then to get them out of the Square and back to
their campuses. Otherwise, anything could happen, and in the
blink of an eye. Things are tense.
Yang Shangkun: ... Can we still say there's been no harm to the
national interest or society's interest? This isn't turmoil? If
anybody here takes the position that this isn't turmoil, I don't
see any way to move ahead with reform and opening or to
pursue socialist construction. ...
Li Peng: I think Comrade Ziyang must bear the main
responsibility for the escalation of the student movement, as
well as for the fact that the situation has gotten so hard to
control. When he was in North Korea and the Politburo asked
Comrade Ziyang's opinion, he sent back a telegram clearly
stating that he was "in complete agreement with Comrade
Xiaoping's plan for dealing with the unrest."
After he came back on April 30 he again said at a Politburo
meeting that he endorsed Comrade Xiaoping's remarks as well as
the word "turmoil" that appeared in the April 26 editorial.
But then, just a few days later, on the afternoon of May 4 at
the Asian Development Bank meetings -- and without consulting
anybody else on the Standing Committee -- he gave a speech
that flew in the face of the Standing Committee's decisions,
Comrade Xiaoping's statement, and the spirit of the April 26
editorial.
First, in the midst of obvious turmoil, he felt able to say, "China
will be spared any major turmoil."
Second, in the presence of a mountain of evidence that the aim
of the turmoil was to end Communist Party rule and bring down
the socialist system, he continued to insist the protesters "do
not oppose our underlying system but demand that we eliminate
the flaws in our work."
Third, even after many facts had clearly established that a tiny
minority was exploiting the student movement to cause turmoil,
he said only that there are "always going to be people ready to
exploit" the situation. This explicitly contradicts Party Central's
correct judgment that a tiny minority was already manufacturing
turmoil. ...
Yao Yilin: ... I don't understand why Comrade Ziyang mentioned
Comrade Xiaoping in his talk with Gorbachev yesterday. Given
the way things are right now, this can only have been intended
as a way to saddle Comrade Xiaoping with all the responsibility
and to get the students to target Comrade Xiaoping for attack.
This made the whole mess a lot worse.
Zhao Ziyang: Could I have a chance to explain these two
things? The basic purposes of my remarks at the annual meeting
of the directors of the [Asian Development Bank] were to pacify
the student movement and to strengthen foreign investors'
confidence in China's stability. The first reactions I heard to my
speech were all positive, and I wasn't aware of any problems at
the time. Comrades Shangkun, Qiao Shi, and Qili all thought the
reaction to the speech was good; Comrade Li Peng said it was a
good job and that he would echo it when he met with the ADB
representatives. ...
Now, about my comments to Gorbachev yesterday: Ever since
the Thirteenth Party Congress, whenever I meet with Communist
Party leaders from other countries I make it clear that the First
Plenum of our Thirteenth Central Committee decided that
Comrade Xiaoping's role as our Party's primary decision-maker
would not change. I do this in order to make sure the world has
a clearer understanding that Comrade Xiaoping's continuing
power within our Party is legal in spite of his retirement. ...
Deng Xiaoping: Comrade Ziyang, that talk of yours on May 4 to
the ADB was a turning point. Since then the student movement
has gotten steadily worse. Of course we want to build socialist
democracy, but we can't possibly do it in a hurry, and still less
do we want that Western-style stuff. If our one billion people
jumped into multiparty elections, we'd get chaos like the "all-out
civil war" we saw during the Cultural Revolution. ...
I know there are some disputes among you, but the question
before us isn't how to settle all our different views; it's whether
we now should back off or not. ...To back down would be to
give in to their values; not backing down means we stick
steadfastly to the April 26 editorial.
The elder comrades -- Chen Yun, [Li] Xiannian, Peng Zhen, and
of course me, too -- are all burning with anxiety at what we see
in Beijing these days. Beijing can't keep going like this. We first
have to settle the instability in Beijing, because if we don't we'll
never be able to settle it in the other provinces, regions, and
cities.
Lying down on railroad tracks; beating, smashing, and robbing; if
these aren't turmoil then what are they? If things continue like
this, we could even end up under house arrest.
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. I am
solemnly proposing this today to the Standing Committee of the
Politburo and hope that you will consider it.
Zhao Ziyang: It's always better to have a decision than not to
have one. But Comrade Xiaoping, it will be hard for me to carry
out this plan. I have difficulties with it.
Deng Xiaoping: The minority yields to the majority!
Zhao Ziyang: I will submit to Party discipline; the minority does
yield to the majority.
BACKLASH TO MARTIAL LAW
When martial law was declared, it applied to only five urban
districts of Beijing. But it elicited fierce opposition throughout
the capital, nationwide, and internationally. Troops from 22
divisions moved toward the city, but many were stopped in the
suburbs or blocked in city streets and failed to reach their
destinations. In the first of what would be many similar
instructions, on May 20 Yang Shangkun ordered that the soldiers
should never turn their weapons on innocent civilians, even if
provoked.
Provincial authorities voiced the requisite support for Beijing
while taking actions locally to try to assure that nothing
spectacular happened in their own bailiwicks. On May 21,
student leaders in the square voted to declare victory and
withdraw but reversed their decision under pressure of
widespread sentiment among new recruits in the square to
continue the strike.
Many students had come from universities outside Beijing to
camp. On the eve of martial law, the Railway Ministry reported
to Zhongnanhai that a total of 56,888 students had entered the
city on 165 trains between 6 pm on May 16 and 8 pm on May
19. The flood of students had stressed the already
overstretched system. Most of the students had demanded to
ride without tickets, took over the trains' public-address
systems, asked passengers for contributions, hung posters in
and on the cars, and even demanded free food.
Of some 50,000 students in Tiananmen Square on May 22, most
were from outside Beijing, and many of the Beijing students had
returned to their campuses or gone home. Official records
showed that at least 319 different schools were represented in
the square.
>>>>>>> continue
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