Zhao appeals for reversal of verdict on massacre

Zhao appeals for reversal of verdict on massacre

Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin in the second article
of his series on Clinton's current visit to China reports on a
noteworthy development in Chinese politics, as former prime
minister and party leader Zhao Ziyang urges a change of heart in
regard to the Beijing Massacre in June 1989.

HONG KONG (JP): China's foremost non-person, the purged
secretary-general Zhao Ziyang has made an emotional appeal, in a
recent letter to the central committee of the Chinese Communist
Party, calling upon it to reverse the verdict on the use of force
against demonstrators in Beijing in June 1989.

This significant move, clearly linked to the visit of U.S.
President Bill Clinton, was both daring and desperate.

Zhao urged the CCP to end "China's June 4th problem" rather
than letting it remain as a "road-block to democratic politics".
But even in his continuing state of house arrest, Zhao, and
whatever associates he is allowed to meet, must know that the
road-block is firmly in place.

The relatively hardline factions controlling the CCP, led by
the coalition between President Jiang Zemin and National People's
Congress chairman Li Peng, have set their face against a reversal
of verdicts precisely because they have also rejected meaningful
moves towards political reform. To allow the one would inevitably
lead to the other.

So Zhao's letter, sent to the CCPCC earlier this month, could
well reflect a degree of desperation felt by liberal reformists
within and without the CCP as the Clinton Administration
implicitly accepts the position of the mainstream CCP Jiang-Li
factions, that it is time to forget the Beijing Massacre.

News of Zhao's second plea for a reversal -- he reportedly
also issued one at the time of the CCP Congress last year --
comes as a result of a scoop by Reuters news agency which
reported on June 24 that it had seen Zhao's letter, and then
quoted from it at length.

Zhao was last seen in public in Tiananmen Square a few days
before the June 4 crackdown, tearfully urging the students to
leave the square. Even before the massacre, Zhao was being purged
from the top party position. Jiang Zemin took his place at the
bidding of then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

The issue was basically simple. Deng, urged on by the
hardliners like Li, wanted a military crackdown on the 1989
demonstrations. Zhao opposed such a negative outcome. He has been
under varying degrees of house arrest ever since, sometimes
allowed to play an occasional round of golf, but never allowed to
appear in public.

President Clinton will be officially welcomed today by
President Jiang in a ceremony which, because it will be held on
the edge of Tiananmen Square, will be used, in the controlled
Chinese media, to convey the thought that the United States has
agreed to forget about the events of 1989, and is implicitly
endorsing the current ruling faction.

Had he been better advised, Clinton could have insisted on a
welcoming ceremony elsewhere, diplomatically conveying the hint
that, until such time as China itself saw the Beijing Massacre as
tragedy, no American president would agree to a welcome in or
near Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese authorities would have understood such a tough-
minded posture. Indeed, they probably expected the U.S. side to
adopt it. However, once they perceived that the Clinton
Administration was adopting a far weaker pose, they naturally did
not look the gift horse in the mouth. Jiang and Li and their
associates can be counted on to relish their unexpected
"victory", and to once again dismiss Zhao's views.

Sadly, then, judged by the quotes provided by Reuters, Zhao
still expects the U.S. government to stick to its guns as far as
the Beijing Massacre is concerned.

"President Clinton's visit to China marks a turn for the
better in Sino-American relations," he wrote in the letter," But
the U.S. and the whole of the West have again and again raised
the June 4 problem and the human rights problem of China". Zhao
presumably has not heard of weakened Western resolve over human
rights in the pursuit of trading opportunities.

Zhao then advances a powerful argument that it is in China's
own interest to admit where it was wrong. "It can be said that
China's June 4 problem is one of the biggest human rights
problems of this century. Rather than let it become an obstacle
to international relations, it would be better to resolve the
June 4 problem ourselves voluntarily".

Jiang and Li have decided that it is the West (including
Japan) which should give way by forgetting Tiananmen rather than
they giving way to a reversal of verdicts.

Theoretically, were it not for his alliance with Li Peng, and
others, Zhao's argument should appeal to President Jiang, since
he was in Shanghai when the crucial decisions to launch the
Beijing Massacre were made. A reversal of verdicts need not
necessarily reflect badly upon him. But clearly Jiang feels he
needs the continuing support of Li Peng.

Zhao appeals to both the past and the future as he urges the
leadership to reverse the Tiananmen verdict this century.

"In the past the CCP has rectified many historical mistakes.
Now we are facing the arrival of a new, open, democratic and
information-age era. What reason do we have to reject the will of
the people, cling to the June 4 problem, and block our road to
democratic politics?" Zhao asks.

Zhao maintains that, in the words of an old Chinese proverb, a
reversal of the CCP's current position (that June 4 marked the
defeat of a "counter-revolutionary rebellion") would "bring one
hundred benefits and no harm". The reversal of that verdict would
"eliminate factors restricting China economically, politically
and culturally".

The purged leader points out that June 4 lives in the memory
of the people, and recalls that this year "even in Hong Kong
40,000 people braved a violent storm on June 4 to hold
commemorative activities".

Reuters describes the letter as "an impassioned plea" and
Zhao's patriotic fervor certainly comes across, especially as he
closes by denying that the issue is a personal matter for any
single individual. China's well- being comes first.

"Do not drag June 4 into the next century to resolve," Zhao
pleads, "The time is ripe now to resolve the problem. We should
give it a fair appraisal. We should not carry a historical burden
into the next century".

But it remains doubtful whether either President Bill Clinton
or President Jiang Zemin are listening. Zhao Ziyang is offering
the prospect of political reform amid stability. Instead a
reversal of verdicts will probably now come, one day, amidst
instability and turmoil.