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By Editorial Board, Published: January 16

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Foreign Affairs Plus: China’s Perspective

INSIDE CHINA’S POLITBURO

For the first time ever, reports and minutes have surfaced that
provide a revealing and potentially explosive view of decision-making
at the highest levels of the government and party in the People’s
Republic of China (prc). The materials paint a vivid picture of the
battles between hard-liners and reformers on how to handle the student
protests that swept China in the spring of 1989. The protests were
ultimately ended by force, including the bloody clearing of Beijing
streets by troops using live ammunition. The tragic event was one of
the most important in the history of communist China, and its
consequences are still being felt.
The materials were spirited out of China by a sympathizer of
Communist Party members who are seeking a resumption of polit
ical reform. They believe that challenging the official picture of
Tiananmen as a legitimate suppression of a violent antigovernment
riot will help unfreeze the political process. The extensive and
dramatic documentary picture of how China s leaders reacted to the
student protests is revealed in The Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese
Andrew J. Nathan is Professor of Political Science at Columbia
University and the author of numerous books, including China’s Transition,
He is co-editor with Perry Link, Professor of Chinese language and
literature at Princeton University, of The Tiananmen Papers, from which
this article is adapted, to be published this month by PublicAffairs, New
York, and in a Chinese edition later this year. Documents in the book
were compiled by Zhang Liang (a pseudonym). All rights reserved.
[2]
Council on Foreign Relations
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
Foreign Affairs
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®
The Tiananmen Papers
Leadership’s Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People?In
Their Own Words. This article is adapted from the extensive narrative
and documents in that book.
THE STUDENTS’ CHALLENGE
The 1989 demonstrations were begun by Beijing students to
encourage continued economic reform and liberalization. The students
did not set out to pose a mortal challenge to what they knew was a
dangerous regime. Nor did the regime relish the use of force against
the students. The two sides shared many goals and much common
language. Yet, through miscommunication and misjudgment, they
pushed one another into positions where options for compromise
became less and less available.
The spark for the student movement was a desire to commemorate
the reformer Hu Yaobang, who had died on April 15H. e had been
replaced two years earlier as general secretary (party leader) by another
moderate, Zhao Ziyang, after student demonstrations in December 1986.
Although there was a provocative edge to the behavior of students
in the spring of 1989, most of them stayed within the bounds of certain
pieties, acknowledging party leadership and positioning themselves
as respectful, if disappointed, supporters of the party’s long-term
reform project.
Once begun, however, the commemoration quickly evolved into a
protest for far-reaching change. On May 4, a student declaration was
read in Tiananmen Square calling on the government to accelerate
political and economic reform, guarantee constitutional freedoms,
fight corruption, adopt a press law, and allow the establishment of
privately run newspapers. The declaration said important first steps
would include institutionalizing the democratic practices that the
students themselves had begun to initiate on their campuses, con
ducting dialogue between students and the government, promoting
democratic reforms of the government system, opposing corruption,
and accelerating the adoption of a press law.
Zhao struggled to achieve consensus within the leadership
around a conciliatory line toward the students. Senior leader
Deng Xiaoping seemed willing to consider anything, so long as
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The Tiananmen Papers
the students were somehow cleared from the square in time for
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s upcoming summit visit. But
disaster struck for Zhao’s moderate strategy on May 13, when the
protesting students announced a hunger strike. During the next
few days, the intellectuals joined in, incidents in the provinces
began to erupt, and the summit that the authorities envisioned as
a triumphant climax to years of diplomacy with the Soviet Union
was thrown into the shadows. The huge foreign press contingent
that had come to Beijing for the summit turned its main attention
to the student movement.
Over the course of several weeks, the hunger strikers gained the
support of tens of millions of other citizens, who took to the streets
in scores of cities to demand a response from the government. The
government at first tried
to wait out the hunger
strikers, then engaged
them in limited dialogue,
and finally issued orders
to force them from the
square. In reaching that
decision, the party suffered
its worst high-level split
since the Cultural Revo
lution. Those favoring
political reform lost out
and their cause has been in
the deep freeze ever since.
The regime has, to be
sure, diminished the
range of social activities
it purports to control in
comparison with the to
talitarian ambitions of
its Maoist years. It has
fitted its goals of control
more to its means and no
longer aspires to change
THE TIANANMEN PLAYERS
Deng Xiaoping, 85M: ost influential
elder and chairman of the Central Military
Commission (cmc). As he correctly described
himself, “the core of the second
generation of Chinese Communist Party
leadership.” Twice purged, Deng made a
third return to power in 1976 after the death
of Mao Zedong. He began the economic
reforms that continue today. He died in 1997.
Yang Shangkun, 81: President of the
People’s Republic of China (with the right
to attend Politburo Standing Committee
meetings), standing vice chair of the cmc, and
close comrade of Deng Xiaoping. Retired in
1993, he died in 1994.
Li Peng: Premier and member of the
Politburo Standing Committee. Had
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The Tiananmen Papers
human nature. It has learned that many arenas of freedom are
inessential to the monopoly of political power.
Several noteworthy books and an important documentary film
have told the story of the Tiananmen events from the viewpoint
of students and citizens in Beijing. The book from which this ar
ticle is adapted provides the first view from Zhongnanhai?the
former imperial park at the center of Beijing that houses the Party
Central Office, the State Council Office, and the residences of
some top leaders. Although the leaders occupied distinct official
posts in a triad of organizations?the ruling Chinese Communist
Party, the State Council (government cabinet), and the Central
Military Commission?behind those red walls they acted as a
small and often informal community of perhaps ten decision
makers and their staffs.
The eight “elders,” re
_ tired senior officials who
together amounted to
Chinas extraconstitutional
final court of appeal, joined
their deliberations at cru
cial moments. (Bo Yibo is
the only one of these el
ders still alive, and he is no
longer politically active.)
Three of the elders were
most influential, and
among these the final voice
belonged to Deng Xiao
ping, who was retired from
all government posts ex
cept one and lived outside
Zhongnanhai in a private
mansion with his own
office staff. It was at this
house that the most crucial
meetings of these tor
mented months took place.
previously served as secretary in the Central Party
Secretariat and as vice premier. In 1998 he became
chairman of the National People’s Congress.
Zhao Ziyang: General Secretary of the
Chinese Communist Party. He previously
served as
premier and as party secretary in Inner
Mongolia, Guangdong, and Sichuan. After the
Tiananmen confrontation, he was removed from
all posts and placed under de facto house arrest.
Jiang Zemin: Shanghai party secretary and
Politburo member. Former minister of electronic
industries and mayor of Shanghai. He succeeded
Zhao Ziyang as Communist Party general secre
tary. In 1990 he added the chairmanship of the
cmc and in 1993 the presidency. Labeled by Deng
Xiaoping “the core of the third generation of
leadership.”
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The Tiananmen Papers
THE paper trail
Into Zhongnanhai flowed a river of documentation from the
agencies charged with monitoring and controlling the capital city of
Beijing and the vast nation beyond it. On a daily and hourly basis Party
Central received classified reports from government, military, and
party agencies and diplomatic missions abroad. The material included
reports on the state of mind of students, professors, party officials, mil
itary officers and troops, workers, farmers, shop clerks, street peddlers,
and others around the country. Also captured in these reports is the
thinking of provincial and central leaders on policy issues; the traffic on
railways; discussions in private meetings; man-in-the-street interviews;
and press, academic, and political opinion from abroad.
Often such materials were distributed only to the top forty or so
leaders, and many were limited even more sharply to the five-man
Politburo Standing Committee plus the eight elders. (The Communist
Party’s Political Bureau?or Politburo?Standing Committee is the
highest organ of formal political power in China, despite constitutional
provisions that legally give that role to the National People’s Congress.)
Certain documents went to only one or a few leaders. Taken as a
whole, these reports tell us in extraordinary detail what the central
decision-makers saw as they looked out from their compound on the
events unfolding around them, and how they evaluated the threat to
their rule.
Added to these are minutes of the leaders’ formal and informal
meetings and accounts of some of their private conversations. In these
we observe the conflict among a handful of strong-willed leaders.
We learn what the ultimate decision-makers said among themselves
as they discussed the unfolding events?how they debated the motives
of the students, whom they identified as their main enemies; which
considerations dominated their search for a solution; why they waited
as long as they did and no longer before ordering the troops to move
on Tiananmen Square; and what they ordered the troops to do. Perhaps
most dramatic of all, we have definitive evidence of who voted how on
key issues, and their reasons for those votes, in their own words.
The records reveal that if left to their own preferences the three-man
majority of the Politburo Standing Committee would have voted to
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The Tiananmen Papers
persist in dialogue with the students instead of declaring martial law.
At the crucial Politburo Standing Committee meeting of May 17, two
of the five members, Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili, voted against
martial law. The third-ranking member, Qiao Shi, abstained. We can
see from his remarks that he was not in favor of using force. But Qiao,
by abstaining, and Zhao, by offering his resignation, deferred to the
elders’ decision in favor of martial law.
Such seeming weakness was no doubt explained by the knowledge
that resistance to Deng Xiaoping would have been futile. The
Tiananmen papers reveal that the Politburo Standing Committee
was obligated by a secret intra-party resolution to refer any stalemate
to Deng and the elders. The documents further show that Deng
exercised absolute control over the military through his associate
Yang Shangkun, who was president of the prc and standing vice
chair of the Central Military Commission. Had the Standing Com
mittee refused to honor the elders’ wishes, Deng had ample means to
exert his authority.
Had the Standing Committee majority had its way, China’s recent
history and its relations with the West would have been very different.
Dialogue with the students would have tipped the balance toward
political reform. Instead, China has experienced more than a decade
of political stasis at home and strained relations with the West.
In 1989 Jiang Zemin was party secretary in Shanghai. He com
mitted no heinous act at that time, although his closing of the World
Economic Heraldnewspaper for being too sympathetic to the student
cause is still widely resented by intellectuals. What The Tiananmen
Papers reveals is that his accession to supreme power came about
through a constitutionally irregular procedure?the vote of the elders
on May 27?and that the elders chose him because he was a pliable
and cautious figure who was outside the paralyzing factional fray that
had created the crisis in the first place. This accession route was
widely suspected, but the details have never been known before.
Although Jiang is not necessarily a committed political conservative,
he has paid deference to the concerns of conservatives as a way of
balancing contending forces and maintaining his own power.
Today’s second-ranking member of the party hierarchy, Li Peng,
was premier in 1989. Not only did he advocate a hard line against the
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The Tiananmen Papers
students and go on television to declare martial law, as is already
known, but the papers show that he manipulated information to lead
Deng and the other elders to see the demonstrations as an attack on
them personally and on the political structure they had devoted their
careers to creating. The Tiananmen Papers also reveals his use of the
intelligence and police agencies to collect information that was used
to persecute liberal officials and intellectuals after the crackdown.
Both Li Peng and Jiang Zemin are scheduled to step down from
their high-level party and state offices in 2002 and 2003. Some
commentators expect Jiang will try to retain his third post, that of
chairman of the Central Military Commission, thus enabling him to
exert influence as a party elder from behind the scenes, as Deng did
in the period described in The Tiananmen Papers.
what’s in a name
Throughout the subsequent years, the issue of how to label the
student movement has remained alive. Just before ordering the troops
to move, the leadership made an official determination that the incident
was zfangeming baoluan (counterrevolutionary riot), an even more
severe label than that of “turmoil,” which the authorities had applied
up to then, and one that implied (falsely) that the demonstrators were
armed and had shed blood. Neither designation has ever been
officially withdrawn. But in deference to opinion at home and abroad,
informal official usage has gravitated to the softer term “political
storm” (zhengzhi fengbo, equivalent to “political flap”), a term first
introduced by Deng a few days after the crackdown.
Since 1989, there has been a constant stream of appeals for formal
reconsideration of the official determination. Ding Zilin, the mother
of a student who died on June 4, has led a movement to demand an
accounting. In 1999, former high-ranking Zhao Ziyang aide Bao
Tong circulated a letter urging the party leaders to acknowledge
the mistakes made ten years earlier, calling the opportunity to reverse the
verdict the current regime’s “greatest political resource” for reviving
its legitimacy. On a broader canvas, the party has faced constant
demands for political reform. It has responded with arrests and
purges of dissidents outside the party who demanded reform. But a
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The Tiananmen Papers
sharp debate over reform has also developed within the party. In the
course of this debate participants on both sides started to use a tech
nique that had previously been rare in prc history: that of leaking
documents to the outside world?a technique of which The Tiananmen
Papers is a spectacular extension.
The party believes it has learned from Tiananmen that democra
tization is not an irresistible force. There is a widespread view in the
West that where globalization and modernization occur, fundamental
changes in the party-state system are inevitable, leading to the rise of
civil society and some form of democracy. Whether this is right or
wrong, the leaders in power in China do not believe it. For them, the
lesson of Tiananmen is that at its core, politics is about force.
The events of 1989 left the regime positioned for its responses to
later challenges, such as the Chinese Democratic Party in 1998-99
and the Falun Gong religious movement since 1999. In both of these
incidents and others, the key to the party’s behavior was its fear of
independent organizations, whether of religious followers or students,
workers or farmers, with or without a broad social base, and with or
without party members as constituents. The core political issue has
remained what it was in 1989, even if the sociology has been different:
the party believes that as soon as it gives in to any demand from any
group that it does not control, then the power monopoly that it views
as the indispensable organizational principle of the political system
will be destroyed.
Many in China, however, share the view held widely overseas that
this kind of political rigidity cannot persist in the face of rapid social
and ideological change. Can the regime muddle through and survive,
or will it implode? This is the choice the backers of this book are
trying to avoid. By reopening the issues that were closed in 1989,
they seem to want to open a breach in the power monopoly without
causing a collapse.
Documents of the sort quoted in this article and in the book from
which it is adapted are available to only a tiny handful of people in
China. The compiler, who brought the contents of the documents
out of China, can be publicly identified only by the pseudonym Zhang
Liang. Issues of safety for the compiler and his associates do not allow
for public disclosure of the extensive efforts at authentication taken by
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The Tiananmen Papers
co-editor Perry Link and myself. China scholar Orville Schell, dean of
the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California,
Berkeley, wrote the book’s afterword, which explores the issue of au
thentication of such documents. Schell concurs that there are convincing
grounds to assume that the compiler’s motivations were honest and that
the documents were credible despite the impossibility of making an
absolute judgment about material in a closed society like China’s.
Following are excerpts from some of the key documents:
THE TIANANMEN PAPERS
Deng Xiaoping and the April 26 Editorial
On April 25, Li Peng and other officials went to Deng Xiaoping’s
home to report on the student demonstrations in Beijing and 20 other
cities. Deng’s response formed the basis of an April 26 editorial that
became the party’s verdict on the student movement.
Excerpts from Party Central Office Secretariat,
“Important meeting minutes,” April 25:
Li Peng: 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: 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 Chinas governance and power,”
and calls to institute broader elections and revise the Consti
tution, 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.
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Volume80No. 1
abbas/magnum photos
The studentsg ather: Paying tribute toH u Yaobang,
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, April1989
In Beijing there have been two attacks on Xinhua Gate in
quick succession; in Changsha and Xi’an there was looting and
arson on April 22, and inW uhan students have demonstrated
on the Yangtze River Bridge, blocking the vital artery between
Beijing and Guangzhou. These actions seriously harm social
stability and unity, and they disrupt social order. Those of us on
the Standing Committee all believe that this is turmoil and that
we must rely on law to bring a halt to it as soon as possible.
Deng Xiaoping: I completely agree with the Standing
Committee s decision. This is no ordinary student movement.
The students have been raising a ruckus for ten days now, and
we’ve been tolerant and restrained. But things haven’t gone our
way. A tiny minority is exploiting the students; they want to
confuse the people and throw the country into chaos. This is
a well-planned plot whose real aim is to reject the Chinese
Communist Party and the socialist system at the most funda
mental level. We must explain to the whole Party and nation
that we are facing a most serious political struggle. We’ve got
to be explicit and clear in opposing this turmoil.
Li Peng:… Shouldn’t we organize an editorial in the Peoples
Daily right away, in order to get the word out on what Comrade
Xiaoping has said?
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The Tiananmen Papers
That afternoon the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) Central
Committee General Office telegraphed the decision to Zhao Ziyang,
party general secretary, who was on an ill-timed official visit to North
Korea. Zhao wired back: “I completely agree with the policy decision
of Comrade Xiaoping with regard to the present problem of turmoil.”
Excerpt from the People’s Daily,
April 26,1989, editorial, “The necessity
for a clear stand against turmoil”:
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 fun
damental level. This is a most serious political struggle that
concerns the whole Party and nation.
The editorial re-ignited the waning student movement, which
mounted huge next-day demonstrations in major cities. In Beijing,
50 thousand students from many campuses marched, carrying banners,
including one bearing quotations from Deng Xiaoping and Lenin
favoring democracy. With irony, they sang the song “Without the
Chinese Communist Party There Would Be No New China,” and
they elicited tears from bystanders when they shouted, “Mama, we
haven’t done anything wrong.”
In the three days after publication the State Security Ministry
and Xinhua News Agency sent 36 reports to Zhongnanhai on the
reactions of various social strata. Many citizens felt that the editorial
was too harsh?that it “defined the nature of the incident at too
high a level of seriousness” and that it was not helpful for resolving
the problem. The reports described widespread sympathy and pro
tective feelings for the students among university presidents and
other high-ranking party and administrative officials. One official
revealed that on his campus, two-thirds of faculty members were
refusing to attend meetings to study the editorial. Others pointed
out that the blame for the demonstrations ultimately lay in the failings
of the party itself, without which the students would have no need
to protest.
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Strains Among the Leaders
On the morning of May 13 Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang
and PRC President Yang Shangkun went to Deng Xiaoping’s home
and reported on their recent work. Yang was Deng Xiaoping s closest
confidant and business manager within the leadership. Zhao ex
plained the positions he had taken at several Politburo meetings.
Excerpts from memoranda of conversations
supplied by a friend of Yang Shangkun who
cannot be further identified:
Zhao Ziyang:
… IVe noticed that this movement has two
particular features we need to pay attention to: First, the student
slogans all support the Constitution; they favor democracy and
oppose corruption. These demands are basically in line with
what the Party and government advocate, so we cannot reject
them out of hand. Second, the number of demonstrators and
supporters is enormous, and they include people from all parts
of society. So I think we have to keep an eye on the majority
and give approval to the mainstream view of the majority if we
want to calm this thing down.
Deng Xiaoping: It was obvious from the start that a tiny
minority was stirring up the majority, fanning the emotions of
the great majority.
Zhao Ziyang: That’s why I think we have to separate the
broad masses of students and their supporters from the tiny
minority [who are] using the movement to fish in troubled
waters, stir up trouble, and attack the Party and socialism.
We have to rely on guidance. We have to pursue multilevel,
multichannel dialogue, get in touch with people, and build
understanding. We mustn’t let the conflicts get nasty if we expect
things to settle down quickly.
Deng Xiaoping: Dialogue is fine, but the point is to solve
the problem. We cant be led around by the nose. This move
ment s dragged on too long, almost a month now. The senior
comrades are
getting worried. … We have to be decisive. IVe
said over and over that we need stability if we re going to
develop. How can we progress if things are in an utter mess?
Yang Shangkun: Gorbachev will be here in two days, and
today I hear that the students are going to announce a hunger
FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February2001 [ 13]
strike. They obviously want to
turn up the heat and get a lot of
international attention.
Deng Xiaoping: Tiananmen
is the symbol of the People s
Republic of China. The
Square has to be in order when
Gorbachev comes. We have to
maintain our international
image. What do we look like if
the Square s a mess?
Zhao Ziyang: Til stress the
importance of the Gorbachev
visit one more time in the media this afternoon.
Deng Xiaoping: As IVe said before, the origins of this incident
are not so simple. The opposition is not just some students but
a bunch of rebels and a lot of riffraff, and a tiny minority who
are utterly against opposing bourgeois liberalization. … This
is not
just between the students and the government.
Zhao Ziyang: The consensus in the Politburo has been to
use the policies of guiding and dividing, winning over the great
majority of students and intellectuals while isolating the tiny
minority of anticommunist troublemakers, thereby stilling the
movement through democratic and legal means.
Deng Xiaoping: What do the ordinary people in society think?
Zhao Ziyang: The protests are widespread but limited to
cities that have universities. The rural areas arent affected, and
the farmers are docile. So are urban workers, basically. The
workers are unhappy about certain social conditions and like
to let off steam from time to time, so they sympathize with the
protesters. But they go to work as usual and they arent striking,
demonstrating,
or
traveling around like the students.
Deng Xiaoping:
..W. e must not give an inch on the basic
principle of upholding Communist Party rule and rejecting a
Western multiparty system. At the same time, the Party must
resolve the issue of democracy and address the problems that
arise when corruption pops up in the Party
or government.
Zhao Ziyang:… When we allow some democracy, things might
look “chaotic” on the surface; but these little “troubles” are normal
inside a democratic and legal framework They prevent major up
heavals and actually make for stability and peace in the long run.
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DENG XIAOPING The Tiananmen Papers
Zhao Ziyang and Jiang Zemin Clash
On May 10, the full Politburo clashed over how to handle the student
movement. Members agreed on the danger of the situation but dis
agreed over Zhao s line on how it should be handled. Zhao criticized
Jiang Zemin for mishandling the World Economic Herald incident,
and Jiang stoutly defended himself. (In a private conversation a day
later, Yang Shangkun and Deng Xiaoping agreed that Jiang s han
dling of this incident struck the right balance between discipline and
reform-mindedness.)
The student movement was also divided. Although some students
returned to classes, others advocated continuing the strike. New leaders
emerged, and various groups presented various demands. Journalists
and intellectuals spoke out, new issues were added to old ones, and
demonstrations burgeoned in the provinces.
Despite the now clear divisions on strategy, the Politburo at its
May 10 meeting decided to make further efforts at dialogue with the
students. Dialogue had been attempted a number of times in April
and May. Some efforts were rebuffed, as when student leaders during
the memorial service for Hu Yaobang mounted the steps of the Great
Hall of the People with a seven-item petition. No officials would
meet with them.
At other times, meetings between student representatives and
mid-level government officials were exercises in avoidance. An April
29 meeting between government officials and 45 student representatives
was marked mostly by the officials evading questions by changing
the subject.
On May 13, the students announced their hunger strike.
Excerpts from State Security Ministry, “Trends
in Tiananmen Square,” fax to Party Central and
State Council duty offices, 11:58 pm, May 14:
Today, more than one thousand students began a hunger
strike in the Square. About twenty thousand students and
citizens looked on during the day, and this number grew to one
hundred thousand in the evening.
… The striking students
were regularly supplied with drinking water, soda, sugar, and
medicine. By 10 pm more than a dozen of them had fainted or
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The Tiananmen Papers
suffered stomach cramps and were rushed to first-aid centers
in ambulances provided by the Beijing Government.
The Gorbachev Visit
On May 16, while Deng Xiaoping met with Gorbachev inside the
Great Hall of the People, thereby bringing about the long-sought
normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, tens of thousands of people from
all corners of society demonstrated outside in support of the students.
On the evening of May 16, Zhao Ziyang called on Gorbachev at
the elegant state guest house called Diaoyutai. It was here that Zhao
made his fateful comment to Gorbachev that even though Deng
Xiaoping had retired from his party posts in 1987, the party had rec
ognized that his wisdom and experience were essential and that for the
most important questions he would still be at the helm. Zhao s observa
tion could be interpreted as a veiled way of saying that any mishandling
of the student protests was ultimately Deng’s responsibility, and it
became one of the counts against him when he was later dismissed
from the party leadership.
The Standing Committee Meets in Emergency
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. …W e’ve had dialogues with
their representatives and have promised we’ll take them seriously
and keep listening to their comments, asking only that they
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The Tiananmen Papers
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. Were supposed
to have had two sessions of summit talks today in the Great
Hall of the People, but we had to meet at Diaoyutai instead.
That s the kind of anarchy were in.
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. 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: Its 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 for the movement. The students
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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
Q?i, 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. …
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Li Peng: I think Comrade Ziyang must bear the main re
sponsibility 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 Com
rade 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 Committees 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 protest
ers “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 dont understand why Comrade Ziyang men
tioned Comrade Xiaoping in his talk with Gorbachev yester
day. 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 in
vestors’ confidence in Chinas 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
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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 Xiaopings 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
Xiaopings 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 move
ment has gotten steadily worse. Of course we want to build
socialist democracy, but we cant 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 stead
fastly 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.
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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.
Standing Committee Stalemates
At 8 PM the meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee resumed
at Zhongnanhai. Committee members Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, Qiao
Shi, Hu Qili, and Yao Yilin attended. Yang Shangkun and Bo Yibo
participated in their role as party elders.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of the May 17
Politburo Standing Committee meeting”:
Zhao Ziyang: The question for this evening’s meeting is
martial law. First we need to consider whether the situation
has reached a point where martial law is our only option. Will
martial law help solve the problem or only enlarge it? Is it in
fact necessary to impose martial law? I hope we can discuss
these questions calmly.
Li Peng: The decision on martial law, Comrade Ziyang, was
made by Comrade Xiaoping at this morning s meeting. I support
Comrade Xiaoping’s views on martial law. I believe that the
topic for the present meeting is not whether martial law should
or should not be imposed but, rather, what steps to use in
carrying it out.
Yao Yilin: I strongly support Comrade Xiaoping’s proposal
to impose martial law in Beijing’s urban districts. Taking this
powerful measure will help restore the city to normalcy, end
the state of anarchy, and quickly and effectively stop the turmoil.
Zhao Ziyang: I’m against imposing martial law in Beijing. My
reason is that, given the extreme feelings of the students at this
juncture, to impose martial law will not help calm things down
or solve problems. It will only make things more complicated and
more sharply confrontational. And after all, things are still under
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our control. Even among the
demonstrators the vast
majority
is patriotic and supports the
Communist Party. Martial law
could give us total control of
the situation, yes; but think of the
terror it will strike in the minds of
Beijing’s citizens and students.
Where will that lead?
In the forty years of the
People’s Republic, our Party has
learned many lessons from its
political and economic mistakes.
Given the crisis we now face at home and abroad, I think that
one more big political mistake might well cost us all our re
maining legitimacy. So I see martial law as extremely dangerous.
The Chinese people cannot take any more huge policy blunders.
Qiao Shi: I’ve wanted to express my view all along. We can’t
afford any more concessions to the student movement, but
on the other hand we still haven’t found a suitable means for
resolving the situation. So on the question of martial law, I find
it hard to express either support or opposition.
Bo Yibo: This is a Standing Committee meeting in which
Comrade Shangkun and I are only observers. We don’t have
voting rights, but we both support Comrade Xiaoping’s
proposal to impose martial law. Just now everyone on the
committee had a chance to express his opinion. I think we
should make the opinions
even clearer by taking
a vote. …
Following Bo Yibo s suggestion, the five members of the Standing
Committee took a formal vote. Li Peng and Yao Yilin voted for martial
law; Zhao Ziyang and Hu Q?i voted against it; Qiao Shi abstained.
Yang Shangkun: The Party permits differing opinions. We
can refer this evening’s vote to Comrade Xiaoping and the
other Party Elders and get a resolution as soon as possible.
The Elders Decide on Martial Law
On the morning of May 18, the eight elders?Deng Xiaoping, Chen
Yun, Li Xiannian, Peng Zhen, Deng Yingchao, Yang Shangkun, Bo
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Yibo, and Wang Zhen?met with Politburo Standing Committee
members Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Q?i, and Yao Yilin and with Military
Affairs Commission members General Hong Xuezhi, Liu Huaqing,
and General Qin Jiwei and formally agreed to declare martial law in
Beijing. General Secretary Zhao Ziyang did not attend the meeting.
Li Peng opened by describing the split that had emerged within
the Standing Committee on the evening of the 17th over the question
of martial law. Bo Yibo provided additional detail. Then the elders
began explaining why martial law was necessary.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of an important
meeting on May 18,” document supplied
to Party Central Office Secretariat for its
records by the Office of Deng Xiaoping:
Deng Xiaoping: We old comrades are meeting with you
today because we feel we have no choice. The Standing Com
mittee should have come up with a plan long ago, but things
kept dragging on, and even today there’s no decision. Beijing
has been chaotic for more than a month now, and we’ve been
extremely restrained through the whole thing, and extremely
tolerant. What other country in the world would watch more
than a month of marches and demonstrations in its capital and
do nothing about it?. …
LiXiannian: I feel like the rest of you, and I think it’s too
bad that an accurate assessment of what’s going
on here has to
depend on us old comrades. We have no choice but to show
concern when things get as chaotic as
they
are now. General
Secretary Zhao Ziyang has an undeniable responsibility here.
What’s the difference between what we’re seeing all across the
country and the Cultural Revolution? It’s not just Beijing; all
the cities are in chaos. …
Deng Xiaoping: The April 26 editorial defined the nature
of the problem as turmoil. Some people object to the word, but
it hits die nail on the head. The evidence shows that the judgment
is correct.
Li Peng:… The reason Comrade Zhao Ziyang has not come
today is that he opposes martial law. He encouraged the students
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right from the beginning. When he got back from North
Korea, he came out with his May 4 speech at the Asian Devel
opment Bank without clearing it with anyone else on the
Standing Committee.
The speech’s… tone was completely different from the April
26 editorial’s, but it got wide distribution and had a big propa
ganda impact. From then on we felt it was obvious that Com
rade Zhao Ziyang’s opinions were different from Comrade
Xiaoping’s and those of the majority of comrades on the
Standing Committee. Anyone with political experience could
see this, and certainly the ones causing the turmoil could also
see it. …
Yang Shangkun:
… 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].
The situation in Beijing and the rest of the country keeps
getting grimmer. So we have to guarantee the stability of
the whole country, and that means starting with Beijing. I res
olutely support declaration of martial law in Beijing and resolutely
support its implementation.
Wang Zhen: … 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 peo
ple 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: 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.
There is a lot of evidence that the U.S. Congress and other
Western parliaments have been saying all kinds of things about
this student movement and have even held hearings? Members
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of the overseas Chinese Alliance for Democracy, which we
have declared to be an illegal and reactionary organization, not
only voice support for the student movement but openly admit
that they advise the students and even plan how to reenter
China and meddle directly.
… So you see, it was no accident
that the student movement turned into turmoil.
Hong Xuezhi: For a soldier, duty is paramount. I will res
olutely carry out the order to put Beijing under martial law.
Qin Jiwei:… I resolutely support and will resolutely carry out
the orders of Party Central and the Military Affairs Commission
for martial law in Beijing.
Li Peng Meets with Student Leaders
Also on May 18, Li Peng and other government officials met at the
Great Hall of the People with Wang Dan, Wuerkaixi, and other student
representatives. Li said that no one had ever claimed the majority of
students had been engaged in turmoil, but that too often people with
no intention of creating turmoil had in fact brought it about.
He stood firm on the wording of the April 26 editorial and said the
current moment was not an appropriate time to discuss the students’ two
demands. Wang Dan had said that the only way to get the students
out of Tiananmen Square was to reclassify the student movement
as patriotic and put the student-leader dialogue on Uve television.
Zhao Ziyang’s Sorrowful Speech
At 4 am on May 19, following the close of the Politburo Standing
Committee meeting, Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng visited Tiananmen
Square, accompanied respectively by Director of the Party Central
Office Wen Jiabao and Secretary-General of the State Council
Luo Gan. Knowing his political career was near an end, Zhao
made remarks that brought tears to the eyes of those who heard him.
“
We have come too late,” he said, and he begged the students to protect
their health, to end the hunger strike, and to leave the Square before
it was too late.
“We demonstrated and lay across railroad tracks when we were
young, too, and took no thought for the future,” he told the students.
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“But I have to ask you to think carefully about the future. Many issues
will be resolved eventually. I beg you to end the hunger strike.”
Zhao was exhausted, and his doctor urged him to rest. On the
morning of May 19 he requested three days’ sick leave.
Provincial Students Converge on Beijing
Many students had come from universities outside Beijing to camp.
On the eve of martial law, the Railway Ministry reported to Zhong
nanhai 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.
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.
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The Elders Discuss a Successor
The same day, Deng Xiaoping again convened the party elders,
since the younger generation of leaders seemed unable to manage.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of important meeting,
May 21,1989,” document supplied to
Party Central Office Secretariat for its
records by the Office of Deng Xiaoping:
Deng Xiaoping: We can all see what’s happened. Martial
law hasn’t restored order. This isn’t because we cant do it; it s
because problems inside the Party drag on and keep us from
solving things that shouldVe been solved long ago. … Zhao
Ziyang s intransigence has been obvious, and he bears undeniable
responsibility. He wouldn’t even attend the party-government
army meeting that the Standing Committee of the Politburo
convened.
When others saw that the Party general secretary didn’t
show up, they all knew something was wrong. He exposed the
differences within the Standing Committee for all to see. He
wanted to draw a strict line between himself and us in order to
make his stand clear. So we’ve got to talk about the Zhao
Ziyang problem.
LiXiannian: I’ve said all along that the problems inside the
party. The party now has two headquarters. Zhao Ziyang s got
his own separate headquarters. We have to get to the bottom
of this, have to
dig
out the roots. Otherwise there can never
again be unity of thought inside the Party…. When he opposed
martial law he had his own political agenda, which was to force
us senior people to hand over power and step down, so that he
could go ahead with his program of bourgeois liberalization.
With us senior people in the way, his hands were tied and he
was stuck. Zhao Ziyang is no longer fit to be general secretary.
Wang Zhen: Zhao Ziyang’s never paid a whit of attention
to people like us. … What he really wants is to drive us old
people from power. We didnt mistreat him; he s the one who’s
picked the fight. When he falls it’ll be his own fault. …
Yang Shangkun:
..W. e should look at the big picture and
make solidarity our top priority. This isn’t the right moment
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for replacing a general secretary. Instead we could ask Zhao
Ziyang for a self-criticism and avoid making big changes on
the Politburo Standing Committee. …
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 fo
menting 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. Hu
Qili is no longer fit for the Standing Committee, either.
Chen Yun: … Comrade Xiannian has pointed out to me
that Comrade Jiang Zemin from Shanghai is a suitable can
didate. Every time I’ve gone down to Shanghai he always
sees me, and he strikes me as a modest person with strong
party discipline and broad knowledge. He gets along well in
Shanghai, too.
Li Xiannian:… I noticed, after the April 26 editorial, that
again it was Shanghai that took the lead in pushing the spirit
of Party Central. Jiang Zemin called a meeting of more than
ten thousand officials the very next day, and he yanked the
World Economic Herald into shape. That was something! That
move?given what was
going on?put him under tremen
dous public pressure, but he stood firm, didn’t budge, and
stuck to principle.
Then, when the Party, government, and army at the Center
declared martial law, again it was Shanghai that took the lead
in action. This kind of firm attitude’s hard to come by. In
political action and party loy
alty, 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.
The Selection of Jiang Zemin
On the night of May 27, Deng Xiaoping
and the other seven elders met for about
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five hours at Deng’s residence to finalize a successor to Zhao Ziyang
as Communist Party general secretary.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of important meeting,
May 27,1989,” document supplied to
Party Central Office Secretariat for its
records by the Office of Deng Xiaoping:
Deng Xiaoping: I’ve checked with Comrades Chen Yun and
Xiannian, and they completely agree with my view that the new
leadership team must continue to carry out the political line,
principles, and policies of the Third Plenum of the Eleventh
Central Committee. Even the language should stay the same.
The political report of the Thirteenth Party Congress was
approved by all representatives at the time. Not a single word
of it can be changed. The policies of reform and opening must
not
change, for several decades; we’ve got to press them
through to the end. This should be what we expect and require
from the new generation of [Party] Central leadership.
Unless someone objects, I move that the new Standing
Committee of the Politburo be made up of the following six
comrades: Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Yao Yilin, Song
Ping, and Li Ruihuan, with Comrade Jiang Zemin as
general secretary.
The motion to appoint Jiang as general secretary and to add Li and
Song to the Standing Committee had been approved by the elders by
a show of hands. But this violated the Chinese Communist Party
Constitution, which stipulates that the Politburo Standing Committee
should make such decisions.
The Elders Decide to Clear Tiananmen Square
On the morning of June 2, party elders Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian,
Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, Bo Yibo, and Wang Zhen met with the
Standing Committee of the Politburo, which at that juncture consisted
only of Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin.
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Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of important meeting,
June 2,1989,” document supplied to
Party Central Office Secretariat for its
records by the Office of Deng Xiaoping:
Li Peng: Yesterday the Beijing Party Committee and the
State Security Ministry both submitted reports to the Politburo.
These two reports give ample evidence that following the de
claration of martial law a major scheme of the organizers and
plotters of the turmoil has been to occupy Tiananmen Square
to serve as a command center for a final showdown with the Party
and government. The square has become “a center of the
student movement and eventually the entire nation.”
Whatever decisions the government makes, strong reactions
will emerge from the Square. It has been determined that, fol
lowing the declaration of martial law, events such as putting
together a dare-to-die corps to block the martial law troops,
gathering thugs to storm the Beijing Public Security Bureau,
holding press conferences, and recruiting the Flying Tiger
Group to pass messages around were all plotted in and
commanded from the Square.
…
The reactionary elements have also continued to use the
Square
as a center for hatching counterrevolutionary opin
ion and manufacturing
rumor. Illegal organizations such as
the AFS [Autonomous Federation of Students] and afw
[Autonomous Federation of Workers] have installed loud
speakers on the Square and broadcast almost around the
clock, attacking party and state leaders, inciting overthrow
of the government, and repeating
over and over distorted
reports from [the Voice of America] and the Hong Kong
and Taiwan press.
The reactionary elements believe the government will even
tually crack down if they refuse to withdraw from the square.
Their plot is to provoke conflict and create bloodshed incidents,
clamoring that “blood will awaken the people and cause the
government to
split and collapse.” A few days ago these reac
tionary elements openly erected a so-called goddess
statue in
front of the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Today they are
planning to launch another hunger strike in the Square.
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..W. hen the turmoil began employees of the U.S. embassy
started to collect intelligence aggressively. Some of them are
c?a agents. Almost every day, and especially at night, they
would go and loiter at Tiananmen or at schools such as Peking
University and Beijing Normal. They have frequent contact
with leaders of the afs and give them advice. The Chinese
Alliance for Democracy, which has directly meddled in this
turmoil, is a tool the United States uses against China. This scum
of our nation, based in New York, has collaborated with the
pro-KMT Chinese Benevolent Association to set up a so-called
Committee to Support the Chinese Democracy Movement.
They also gave money to leaders of the afs.
As soon as the turmoil started, kmt intelligence agencies in
Taiwan and other hostile forces outside China rushed to send
in agents disguised
as visitors, tourists, businessmen, and so
on. They have tried to intervene directly to expand the so-called
democracy movement into an all-out “movement against
com
munism and tyranny.” They have also instructed underground
agents to keep close track of things and to collect all kinds of
information. There is evidence that kmt agents from Taiwan
have participated in the turmoil in Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian,
and elsewhere. … It is becoming increasingly clear that the
turmoil has been generated by a coalition of foreign and domestic
reactionary forces and that their goals
are to overthrow the Com
munist Party and to subvert the socialist system.
Wang Zhen: Those goddamn bastards! Who do they think
they are, trampling on sacred ground like Tiananmen so long?!
They’re really asking for itW! e should send the troops right
now to grab those counterrevolutionaries, Comrade Xiaoping!
What’s the People’s Liberation Army for, anyway? What are
martial law troops for? They’re not supposed to just sit around
and eat! They’re supposed to grab counterrevolutionaries!
We’ve got to do it or we’ll never forgive ourselves! We’ve got to
do it or the common people will rebel! Anybody who tries to
overthrow the Communist Party deserves death and no burial!
Li Xiannian: The account that Comrade Li Peng just gave
us shows quite clearly thatW estern capitalism really does want
to see turmoil in China. And not only that; they’d also like to
see turmoil in the Soviet Union and all the socialist countries
of Eastern Europe. The United States, England, France,
Japan, and some other Western countries are
leaving
no stone
FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February2001 [ 31 ]
The Tiananmen Papers
unturned in pushing peaceful evolution in the socialist countries.
They’ve got a new
saying about “fighting
a smokeless world
war.” We had better watch out. Capitalism still wants to beat
socialism in the end.
Deng Xiaoping: Comrade Xiannian is correct. The causes
of this incident have to do with the global context. The Western
world, especially the United States, has thrown its entire
propaganda machine into agitation work and has given a lot of
encouragement and assistance to the so-called democrats or
opposition in China?people who in fact are the scum of the
Chinese nation. This is the root of the chaotic situation we
face today.
… Some Western countries use
things like “human
rights,” or like saying the socialist system is irrational or illegal,
to criticize us, but what they’re really after is our
sovereignty.
Those Western countries that play power politics have no right
at all to talk about human rights!
Look how many people around the world they’ve robbed of
human rights! And look how many Chinese people they’ve
hurt the human rights of since they invaded China during the
Opium war! …
Two conditions are indispensable for our developmental
goals:
a stable environment at home and a
peaceful environment
abroad. We don’t care what others say about us. The only thing
we
really
care about is a
good environment for developing
our
selves. So long as history eventually proves the superiority of
the Chinese socialist system, that’s enough. We can’t bother
about the social systems of other countries. Imagine for a
moment what could happen if China falls into turmoil. If it
happens now, it cl be far worse than the Cultural Revolution.
… Once civil war got started, blood would flow like a river, and
where would human rights be then? In a civil war, each power
would dominate a locality, production would fall, communica
tions would be cut off, and refugees would flow out of China
not in millions or tens of millions but in hundreds of millions.
First hit by this flood of refugees would be Pacific Asia,
which is currently the most promising region of the world. This
would be disaster on a global scale. So China mustn’t make a
mess of itself. And this is not just to be responsible to ourselves,
but to consider the whole world and all of humanity as well. …
Li Xiannian: … Tiananmen Square is now that root of our
turmoil-disease. Just look at that thing?like neither human
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The Tiananmen Papers
nor demon?that they’ve erected there in our beautiful Square!
Are the people going to accept that? Absolutely not! Were
never going to get a voluntary withdrawal from the Square.
Tiananmen has been polluted for more than a month now, rav
aged into a shadow of itself! We cant breathe free until the
Square is returned to the hands of the people. We have to pull
up the root of the disease immediately. I say we start tonight.
Yang Shangkun: The fact that were going to clear the
square, restore order, and stop the turmoil in no way means
that we re
giving up on reform or
closing
our country off from
the world.
Deng Xiaoping: No one can keep Chinas reform and opening
from going forward.W hy is that? It s simple:W ithout reform and
opening our development stops and our economy slides downhill.
Living standards decline if we turn back. The momentum of re
form cannot be stopped. We must insist on this point at all times.
Some people say we allow only economic reform and not
political reform, but that’s not true. We do allow political
reform, but on one condition: that the Four Basic Principles are
upheld. [The Four Basic Principles areM arxism-Leninism-Mao
Zedong thought, socialism, the people s democratic dictatorship,
and leadership by the Chinese Communist Party]
…
We cant handle chaos while we re busy with construction.
If today we have a big demonstration and tomorrow a great
airing of views and a bunch of wall posters, we wont have any
energy left to get anything done. That’s why we have to insist
on clearing the Square.
Yang Shangkun: Troops have moved into the Great Hall of
the People, Zhongshan Park, the People’s Cultural Palace, and
the Public Security Ministry compound. The thinking of all
officers and soldiers has been thoroughly prepared for a clearing
of Tiananmen Square. After nearly half a month of political
thought work, all officers and soldiers have deepened their un
derstanding of the severity and complexity of this struggle and
have comprehended the necessity and the legality of martial law.
Li Peng: I strongly urge that we move immediately to clear
Tiananmen Square and that we resolutely put an end to the
turmoil and the ever expanding trouble.
Qiao Shi: The facts show that we can’t expect the students on
the Square to withdraw voluntarily. Clearing the square is our
only option, and it’s quite necessary. I hope
our announcement
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January/February 2001
[33]
about clearing will meet with
approval and support from the
majority of citizens and stu
dents. Clearing the Square is
the beginning of a restoration
of normal order in the capital.
Deng Xiaoping: I agree
with all of you and suggest
the martial law troops begin
tonight to carry out the clear
ing plan and finish it within
two days. As we proceed with
the clearing, we must explain
it clearly to all the citizens and students, asking them to leave
and doing our very best to persuade them. But if they refuse to
leave, they will be responsible for the consequences….
The Order to Clear the Square
At 4 PM on June 3, Yang Shangkun, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin
held an emergency meeting with responsible military officials.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of the June 3
Politburo Standing Committee meeting”:
Yang Shangkun: I really did not want to call this meeting.
The situation has become extremely volatile?beyond what
anybody’s goodwill can handle. We have to settle on some res
olute measures for clearing the square. Let s begin with you,
Comrade Li Peng.
Li Peng: Late last night a counterrevolutionary riot broke
out in Beijing. A small handful of counterrevolutionaries
began spreading rumors and openly violating martial law.
They were brazen and lawless, and their behavior has aroused
extreme indignation among the masses. We must resolutely
adopt decisive measures to put down this counterrevolutionary
riot tonight.
… The pla martial law troops, the Peoples
Armed Police, and Public Security are authorized to use any
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LI PENG
The Tiananmen Papers
means necessary to deal with people who interfere with the
mission. Whatever happens will be the responsibility of those
who do not heed warnings and persist in testing the limits of
the law.
Yang Shangkun: You all get the picture now. I’ve also just
been in touch with Comrade Xiaoping, and he has asked me
to relay two points to everyone. The first is: Solve the problem
before dawn tomorrow. He means our martial law troops
should completely finish their task of clearing the Square before
sunup. The second is: Be reasonable with the students and
make sure they see the logic in what we’re doing; the troops
should resort to “all means necessary” only if everything else
fails. In other words, before we clear the Square, we should use
TV and radio to advise students and citizens to avoid the streets
at all costs, and we should ask the ones who are in the Square
to leave of their own accord. In short, we’ve got to do an excellent
job on propaganda work; it has to be clear to everyone that we
stand with the people, and we must do everything we possibly
can to avoid bloodshed. The Martial Law Command must
make it quite clear to all units that they are to open fire only as
a last resort. And let me repeat: No bloodshed within Tiananmen
Square?period. What if thousands of students refuse to
leave? Then the troops carry away thousands of students on
their backs! No one must die in the Square. This is not just my
personal view; it’s Comrade Xiaoping’s view, too. So long as
everybody agrees, then it will be unanimous.
June Fourth
Tiananmen Square lies at the geographic center of the capital city
and just southeast of Zhongnanhai, where the last dynasty s emperors
had their hunting park and where top Communist Party leaders now
work. Beginning with the May Fourth movement against imperialism
and for democracy in 1919, Tiananmen has also become a traditional
site for popular protests. These protests have often been led by univer
sity students, who are especially numerous here because Beijing is the
country’s preeminent center of higher education.
As soldiers entered the city in plainclothes and in uniform, instead
of meeting with popular understanding they encountered anger and
FOREIGN AFFAIRS January/February 2001
[35]
The Tiananmen Papers
some violence. The party leaders’ hopes of avoiding bloodshed
foundered on this resistance and the troops’ emotional reaction to it.
The government s internal reports claimed that Deng Xiaoping’s
goal of no deaths in Tiananmen Square was achieved. Most of the
deaths occurred as troops moved in from the western suburbs toward
Tiananmen along Fuxingmenwai Boulevard at a location called
Muxidi, where anxious soldiers reacted violently to popular anger.
Excerpt from Martial Law
Command, “Situation in the Muxidi
district,” Bulletin {Kuaibao), June 3:
Advance troops of the Thirty-Eighth Group Army, who
were responsible for the western approaches, massed in the
western suburbs atW anshou Road, Fengtai, and Liangxiang.
At 9:30 PM, these troops began advancing eastward toward the
Square and encountered their first obstacle at Gongzhufen,
where students and citizens had set up a blockade. An anti-riot
squad fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets into the crowd.
At first the people retreated, but then they stopped. The anti-riot
squad pressed forward, firing more tear gas and more rubber
bullets. Again the crowd retreated but soon stopped.
The troops kept firing warning shots into the air, but the
people displayed no signs of fear. The stretch from Gongzhufen
to the military museum, Beifengwo Street, and Muxidi is less
than two kilometers, but the troop advance was slow because
of citizens’ interference. The crowd threw rocks, soda bottles,
and other things, but the troops maintained strict discipline
and did not fire a single shot in return.
Believing the troops would not use live ammunition, the cit
izens grew increasingly bold. At 10:10 pm, tens of thousands
formed a human wall at Beifengwo Street to block the troops,
the two sides faced each other over a distance of twenty to
thirty meters. Some of the citizens continued throwing rocks
and other objects. Using an electric bullhorn, the commanding
officer exhorted the citizens and students to disperse and let
the troops pass. When the measure failed, he decided to use
force to assure his soldiers could reach their positions
on time.
Infantrymen led the way, firing into the air. The soldiers?
with the first two rows in a kneeling position and those in the
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The Tiananmen Papers
back standing?pointed their weapons at the crowd. Approx
imately 10:30 PM, under a
barrage of rocks, the troops opened
fire. Sparks flew from ricocheting bullets. When people in the
crowd realized that live ammunition was in use, they surged in
waves toward the Muxidi Bridge. Their retreat was hindered
by the roadblocks they had set up, and for this reason some in
the crowd were trampled and badly injured.
Excerpts from State Security Ministry,
“Situation at Muxidi on the evening
of the third,” Important intelligence
(Yaoqing), 2 am, June 4:
… At Muxidi Bridge the troops were stopped once again as
citizens and students threw the broken bricks they had pre
pared in advance. A few dozen baton-wielding members of the
troops’ anti-riot brigade stormed onto the bridge, where they
were met with a barrage of broken bricks as thick as rain. The
brigade was driven back. Then regular troops, row by row,
came rushing onto the bridge chanting, “If no one attacks me,
I attack no one; but if people attack me, I must attack them,”
and turning their weapons on the crowd. People began crumpling
to the ground. Each time shots rang out, the citizens hunkered
down; but with each lull in the fire they stood up again.
Slowly driven back by the troops, they stood their ground
from time to time shouting “Fascists!” “Hooligan government!”
and “Murderers!”
… Some soldiers who were hit by rocks lost their self-control
and began firing wildly at anyone who shouted “Fascists!” or
threw rocks or bricks. At least a hundred citizens and students
fell to the ground in pools of blood; most were rushed to
nearby Fuxing hospital by other students and citizens.
… After infantrymen had cleared the street of roadblocks,
returning fire the whole time, armored cars and army trucks
drove onto the Muxidi Bridge. From then on there were no
more lulls in the shooting. Soldiers on the trucks fired into the
air continuously until people hurled rocks or verbal insults, and
then they fired into the crowd.
… Around 11 pm, armed foot soldiers, armored cars, and
army trucks headed toward Tiananmen. After the troops had
passed, citizens and students pushed electric buses back into
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- January/February 2001
The Tiananmen Papers
the street, placing them across it, and set them on fire to block
troops that were
following. It was then approximately 11:40 pm.
At midnight some citizens set up new roadblocks on the
eastern approach to Muxidi Bridge. To the east of the bridge,
near the subway station, lay twelve lumps of flesh, blood, and
debris. The bodies of dead and wounded were being delivered
continually to the door of Fuxing hospital. Some arrived on
three-wheeled flat-bed carts, others were carried on wooden
doors, and some came on the backs of motorcycles. One bloody
corpse whose face was unrecognizably mangled was carried
on a door. Virtually everyone at Fuxing hospital was cursing
“Fascists!,” “Animals!,” and “Bloody massacre!”
By 1:30 am, Fuxingmenwai Boulevard in the area of Muxidi
Bridge was deserted and shrouded in deathly silence.
Lights Out in the Square
By 1 am on June 4, all martial-law troops had entered Tiananmen
Square and for three hours pressed students to voluntarily leave before
the 4 am deadline for clearing the square.
Excerpt from State Security Ministry,
“Trends in Tiananmen Square,” fifth of six
overnight faxes to Party Central and State
Council duty offices, 6:08 am, June 4:
At four o’clock sharp all the lights in the square went out,
sending its occupiers into a panic. At the same time, the Martial
Law Command continued to broadcast its “Notice to Clear
the Square,” now adding: “We will now begin clearing the
square, and we
accept your appeal
to evacuate.”
The Beijing Government and the Martial Law Command
then broadcast a “Notice Concerning the Immediate Restoration
of Order in Tiananmen Square.” It listed four demands:
Anyone
on the Square who hears this announcement must
leave immediately.
Martial law troops will use any means necessary to deal
with those who resist this order or disobey by remaining on
the Square.
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The Tiananmen Papers
The Square will be under the strict control of martial law
troops after it is cleared.
All patriotic citizens and students who do not want to see
turmoil in the country should cooperate with the martial law
troops to clear the Square.
At this point students who were gathered on the steps of the
Monument to the People’s Heroes used blankets, sticks, canvas,
and other things to light a bonfire on the western side of the
monument. Then they began singing the “Internationale.”
[Hunger strikers] Hou Dejian and Zhou Duo returned to
the Square after meeting with martial law authorities. Over
the student public-address system they called for an immediate
evacuation. In the dark, people were saying school buses from
Peking University had come to take students back to campus,
but this news caused no notable reaction from the students.
The area was shrouded in darkness, except for the distant
flames and street lamps on Changan Boulevard.
Martial law troops advanced toward the monument from
north to south in two columns. Soldiers of the shock brigade
first smashed two afs loudspeakers then advanced through the
crowd on the western steps of the monument with their assault
rifles pointed alternately into the air and at the students to
frighten them off. About that time the students around the
monument, who were under the direction of the General
Headquarters for the Protection of Tiananmen Square, con
ducted a voice-vote. Those, including Hou Dejian’s group, who
shouted “Leave!” were louder than those who shouted “Stay!”
The leader of the command post then told the students in
the Square to “prepare to leave the Square in an orderly manner
under your school banners; students, citizens, workers, and
citizen monitors should evacuate toward Haidian District
and move toward Zhongguancun.”
Around 4:30 am the lights in the Square came back on. Stu
dents found themselves facing a large number of armed soldiers,
who pressed the students closer and closer together. Tension
gripped the protesters, especially when they saw rows of tanks
and armored cars moving slowly through the Square from its
north edge. The Goddess of Democracy, in the northern part
of the Square, fell with a resounding thud. The tanks and armored
cars kept advancing, knocking down and crushing student
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January/February 2001
[39]
The Tiananmen Papers
tents along the way, until they flanked the students on the east
and west, as close as twenty or
thirty meters away. From the
northwest corner of the Square rows of soldiers wearing helmets
and carrying batons kept pressing toward the students at the
Square’s center. Anti-riot police in protective headgear mingled
with them.
About 5 am thousands of students, protected by the linked
arms of monitors, retreated toward the southeast corner of the
Square via the path between the grassy area and the monument.
At first they moved slowly, but they soon began to bunch up as
soldiers, some in fatigues, pressed toward them swinging
batons. With their path to the monument blocked by troops
and tanks, they threaded their way among tanks and armored
cars toward the southern entrance at the east of the Square.
They made an orderly retreat, carrying school flags and singing
the “Internationale.” Occasionally there were shouts of
“Repressive Bloodbath!” “Down with Fascism!” “Bandits!
Bandits!”?even “Fucking Animals!” and the like. Some spat
on the soldiers as they passed.
Dawn broke about 5:20. The bulk of the students had left
the Square, but about two hundred defiant students and citizens
remained and were now completely hemmed in by tanks,
which advanced on them slowly and patiently, gradually forcing
them back. When this last group had finally been pushed from
the Square and had rejoined its citizen supporters outside,
some of its members mustered the courage to shout, “Fascists!
Fascists!” and “Down with Fascism!” In reply, officers and
soldiers who were gathered at the Chairman Mao Memorial
Hall fired their weapons into the air and shouted in unison, “If
no one attacks me, I attack no one!” By 5:40 am, the Square
had been cleared.
Many investigations have established that in the entire
process of clearing the Square, martial law troops did not shoot
a single person to death and no person was run over by a tank.
Still, some killing of both citizens and soldiers continued during
the morning hours. The populace was outraged, and rumors spread
of casualties in the thousands.
In the following days the government confronted international and
domestic reactions so vociferous that they threatened to fulfill Deng
[40] FOREIGN AFFAIRS
- Volume80 No. 1
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
Afier the tanks: Bodies near Tiananmen Square, July 4,1989
Xiaoping’s worst fear: that a bloody denouement would make it
impossible to continue reform at home and the open-door policy abroad.
Nationwide Protests Continue
Between June 5 and 10, Zhongnanhai received nearly a hundred
reports from the provinces on local reactions and on emergency meetings
and police deployments undertaken in response. There were demon
strations in 181 cities, including all the provincial capitals, the major
cities, and special economic zones. Many forms of protest, some of
them violent, emerged. By June 8, the situation had begun to stabilize
in some cities.
On the afternoon of June 9, Deng Xiaoping gave a talk to high
ranking officials of the martial law troops, and the State Council
issued an “Announcement on Resolutely Preventing Disruption of
Economic Order and Ensuring That Industrial Production Proceeds
Normally.” All province-level governments adopted procedures from
the “Notice on Ensuring Urban Security and Stability” that the Party
General Office and the State Council had issued. The Public Security
Ministry s “Urgent Notice Demanding Close Surveillance and Control
FOREIGN AFFAIRS January/February 2001 [41]
The Tiananmen Papers
of Turmoil Elements” led municipal public security offices to launch
an all-out campaign to arrest student leaders and citizen activists.
By June 10, this campaign effectively throttled protest activities
everywhere, and an outward calm set over the country.
The Leaders Take Stock
On June 6, two and a half days after what was now officially called
“putting down the counterrevolutionary riots,” the healthier elders
(Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, Bo Yibo,
and Wang Zhen) met with the currently serving members of the
Politburo Standing Committee (Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin),
plus National Peoples Congress head Wan Li and the incoming
Party general secretary, Jiang Zemin.
Excerpts from Party Central Office
Secretariat, “Minutes of the ccp Central
Politburo Standing Committee meeting,”
June 6, with a small number of supplements
added from a tape recording of the meeting:
Deng Xiaoping: If we hadn’t been firm with these counter
revolutionary 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! …
Li Xiannian: If we hadn’t put down those counterrevolu
tionary riots, could we be talking here now? The pla soldiers
really are the brothers of the Chinese people, as well as the
sturdy pillars of the Party and the state. …
Yang Shangkun: We’ve paid a high price for putting down
these counterrevolutionary riots. Restoring social order in Beijing
should be our top priority now, and that means we’ve got a lot
of political thought work to do.
Bo Yibo: I’ve got some material here?reports from all the
big Western news services and TV networks about the so-called
June 4 bloodbath at Tiananmen and the numbers of dead and
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-
Volume80No. i
The Tiananmen Papers
wounded. Let me read it. Associated Press: “At least five
hundred dead.” NBC: “Fourteen hundred dead, ten thousand
wounded.” ABC: “Two thousand dead.” American intelli
gence agencies: “Three thousand dead.” BBC: “Two thousand
dead, up to ten thousand injured.” Reuters: “More than one
thousand dead.” L’Agence France-Presse: “At least fourteen
hundred dead, ten thousand injured.” UPI: “More than
three hundred dead.” Kyodo News Agency: “Three thousand
dead, more than two thousand injured.” Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun:
“Three thousand dead.”
The impact is huge when numbers like these get spread all
over the world! We need to counterattack against these rumors
right
now.
Li Peng: Mr. Bo is right. Yuan Mu is holding a press con
ference this afternoon at Zhongnanhai to release the true facts.
The General Office of the State Council reports that as of
noon today the basic statistics?which have been double- and
triple-checked with Martial Law Headquarters and the Chinese
Red Cross?are these: Five thousand pla soldiers and officers
wounded, and more than two thousand local people (counting
students, city people, and rioters together) also wounded.
The figures on the dead are these: twenty-three from the
martial law troops, including ten from the pla and thirteen
from the People’s Armed Police. About two hundred soldiers
are also missing. The dead among city people, students, and
rioters number about two hundred, of whom thirty-six are
university students. No one was killed within Tiananmen
Square itself.
Deng Xiaoping:
… This incident has been a wake-up call
for all of us. We’ll never keep the lid on if we relax on the Four
Basic Principles.
… Our use of martial law to deal with the turmoil was
absolutely necessary. In the future, whenever it might be nec
essary, we will use severe measures to stamp out the first signs
of turmoil as soon as they appear. This will show that we won’t
put up with foreign interference and will protect our national
sovereignty.
Li Xiannian: The key to stabilizing things right now is to be
supertough in tracking down the counterrevolutionary rioters,
especially the plotters who were organizing things behind the
scenes. This conflict is a conflict with the enemy. …
FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February2001 [43]The Tiananmen Papers
Deng Xiaoping: We should mete out the necessary pun
ishments, in varying degrees, to the ambitious handful who
were trying to subvert the People’s Republic. … But we
should be forgiving toward the student demonstrators and
petition signers, whether from Beijing, from elsewhere in
China, or from overseas, and we shouldn’t try to track down
individual responsibility among them. We also need to watch
our methods as we take control of the situation.
We should be extra careful about laws, especially the laws and
regulations
on
assembly, association, marches, demonstrations,
journalism, and publishing. Activities that break the law must
be suppressed. We can’t just allow people to demonstrate when
ever they want to. If people demonstrate 365 days a year and
don’t want to do anything else, reform and opening will
get nowhere_
Rounding up Democracy Activists
The work of hunting down activists of the democracy movement
in Beijing was shared by the martial law troops, the People s Armed
Police, and the Municipal Public Security Bureau. Guidelines like
the following help explain why most of those detained suffered
physical abuse.
Excerpt from Martial Law Headquarters,
“Unify thinking, distinguish right
from wrong, complete the martial law
task with practical actions,” June 10:
In order to dissipate the anger and antagonism that martial
law troops feel toward the residents of Beijing, to clarify the
muddled understanding that many people have, to isolate the
tiny minority of rioters from the vast majority of Beijing resi
dents, and to establish correct attitudes toward the people, we
need to ask all the officers and soldiers to concentrate their
hatred on the small handful of thugs and rioters, to smash
their evil nests, to punish the rioters, and to wrap up their
martial law duties through concrete actions.
[44] FOREIGN AFFAIRS
- Volume80No. 1
The Tiananmen Papers
Issues number 26,31, and yj of the Beijing Public Security Bureaus
Public Order Situation {Zhtan qingkuang) show that 468 “counter
revolutionary rioters and creators of turmoil” had been arrested by
June 10. On June 17, eight of these were sentenced to death for
“beating, smashing, robbing, burning, and other serious criminal
offenses during the counterrevolutionary riots in Beijing.” By June
20, the number of “counterrevolutionary rioters” and “turmoil ele
ments” who had been arrested was 831; by June 30, it was 1,103. Most
of the arrestees were held in temporary detention centers or
makeshift jails.
Once the situation in Beijing was under control and province
level authorities throughout the country had expressed their support,
Party Central unfolded a series of measures against activists
throughout the country.
Many Student Leaders Escape
Despite police efforts, people as well known as Yan Jiaqi, Chen
Yizi, Wan Runnan, SuXiaokang, Wuerkaixi, Chai Ling, Feng Congde,
and Li Lu made their way out of China without a single person
involved breaching confidence and collecting the rewards that such a
breach would have brought.
Chai Ling, the Peking University graduate student who was general
commander of the Tiananmen Square Command, evaded an arrest
warrant and escaped from the country.
Feng Congde, a Peking University graduate student and deputy
commander of the Tiananmen student headquarters, also evaded an
arrest warrant and fled the country.
Li Lu, a Nanjing University student and commander in chief of
the non-Beijing students at Tiananmen, fled to the United States.
Wang Dan, a Peking University freshman and leader of the
Autonomous Federation of Students, was arrested. In 1998, he was
released for a medical parole and went to the United States.
Wuerkaixi, a Beijing Normal University freshman and a leader of
the AFS, fled to the United States and eventually went to Taiwan.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- January/February 2001
The Tiananmen Papers
The Mood on Campus
A national survey conducted by the Xinhua News Agency at the
end of June found university students everywhere in a mood of terror
and resistance blanketed in silence.
Excerpt from Xinhua News Agency, “The
ideological condition of college students
nationwide,” Proofs on domestic situation
{Guonei dongtai qingyang), June 29:
Terror: A tense mood, under fear of punishment or arrest,
pervades the universities. Leaders of the student movement
have departed their campuses, and rumors are rampant about
who is being picked up and when. The students who were
most active in the movement are the most nervous. Some
provinces have stipulated that even students who sat in to
block traffic should be arrested, and many students have grown
so insecure they cannot sleep well at night. A number of young
lecturers aWt uhan University who had given speeches during
the movement now are so terrified they sent their wives and
children to their in-laws’ homes and waited alone to be arrested
at the university.
It is noteworthy that even students who only marched in
demonstrations and shouted some slogans are frightened as
well. One university administrator said students “thought of
the recent student movement as a
patriotic movement; many
took to the streets to protest against official profiteering and
then were
puzzled when the movement was labeled ‘turmoil.’
Now the common mood is worry; the students are all wondering,
Am I going to get punished?’
“
A few nights ago about a hundred students were gathered at
the gate of Heilongjiang University when a police car passed
by. Someone yelled “Police!” and they all scattered like animals
scurrying for cover. Some students have been thinking in terms
of the arbitrary arrests during the Anti-Rightist Campaign
and the Cultural Revolution, so when the slightest sign of
something pops up, it has an exaggerated effect.
Resistance: Nationwide about one in five university students
remains defiant. These students scornfully resist government
decrees and oppose efforts to put down the riots. Some have
[46] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume80No. 1
The Tiananmen Papers
adopted a “four don’ts” policy toward the domestic media:
don’t listen, don’t read, don’t believe, don’t ask. Some students
make obscene comments while they watch television. Some
write on the walls of their dormitories and classrooms things
like “Shut up!” “Thunder from the silent zone!” “China is
dead!” “Where is justice?” “The government caused the turmoil!”
“The truth will out some day!” “Yet another Tiananmen in
cident!” and so on. The students at many schools?especially
the boys?sometimes seem crazed. When the lights go out at
night they vent their rage with wild yelps and cries.
Silence: About one in three students maintains a purposeful
silence. After June Fourth all the universities required students to
reflect on their roles in the student movement. Many students
kept going around in circles, willing to address only a limited
number of concrete questions. On the matter of how to turn
their own thinking around, they just kept silent. “I don’t know”
became the answer to every question, silence the shield against
every arrow. When political study sessions were scheduled,
some students just put up posters in their dorms and class
rooms that read “silence is golden.” The campuses had calmed
down but had also turned as silent as graveyards. When the
silence finally broke, students often avoided politics. They
ignored the national news and turned to things like romance,
mah-jongg, and other amusements.
The moods listed above affect not only students but quite a
few university officials and teachers as well. It is reported that
some Beijing officials and teachers, although they did not take
part in the turmoil and are now actively working on the political
thinking of students, cannot make their peace with phrases
like “Riots took place in Beijing.” They just cannot put their
hearts into uttering such language. Some feel that it is under
standable if the government makes some miscalculations and
if the whole economy is not set right in a day but that em
bezzlement and corruption
are
unacceptable. To share ups
and downs is fine, but for you to take the ups and leave me the
downs is not.
An official from Peking University reports that things are
tough for people from his university. When students check in
at hotels, many get pushed out the door as soon as it is known
where they are from. One Peking University student who was
on business in Yanqing county actually got beaten up. The job
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- January/February 2001
The Tiananmen Papers
assignments for seniors graduating in 1989 have been com
pleted, but some employers, including the Central Party
School, the Chinese Association of Handicapped People, and
the Beijing Committee of the Youth League, have rejected
certain students. This official is afraid that gifted students will
not apply to Peking University this year, which in turn could
lead to lower quality in the incoming class.
The report recommended that great care be taken in applying
current policy to the students and that, at all costs, the numbers of
those punished be strictly limited.
Chinese society fell into a deep anomie after June 4. Numbed, peo
ple everywhere turned away from politics. The sensitive intellectual
class, and especially the young students with their exuberant idealism,
entered the 1990s with nothing like the admirable social engagement
they had shown in the 1980s. The campuses were tranquil, and China
seemed shrouded in a dour mist that harbored a spiritual emptiness.
Money ruled everything, morals died, corruption burgeoned, bribes
were bartered, and when all this became known on the campuses it
turned students thoroughly off politics. They had lost the idealism of
the 1980s and now concentrated only on their own fates.?
[48] FOREIGN AFFAIRS – Volume 80 No. 1

Andrew J. Nathan

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China, officially the People’s Republic of China, is a country in East Asia. It is the world’s most populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Wikipedia

Capital: Beijing Population: 1,344,130,000 (2011) World Bank GDP: 7.318 trillion USD (2011) World Bank President: Hu Jintao Official language: Standard Mandarin Government: Single-party state, Presidential system, Communist state, Socialist state

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