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.