Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Ziyang (17 October 1919–17 January 2005) was a Chinese political leader who served as premier of the People’s Republic of China from 1980 to 1987 and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 1987 to 1989. His career extended from wartime party organization to provincial administration and national leadership during the reform era associated with Deng Xiaoping. His national responsibilities included economic policy and proposals for changes to party and government institutions. (en.wikipedia.org)

Zhao supported dialogue during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and opposed the imposition of martial law. Removed from the party leadership in June 1989, he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest in Beijing. His secretly recorded recollections, published posthumously in 2009 as Prisoner of the State, provide a first-person account of economic reform, leadership relations, and the decisions surrounding his removal. His biography connects the development of China’s reform policies with the political crisis that ended his public career. (pbs.org)

Early life and wartime party work, 1919–1949

Zhao Ziyang was born on 17 October 1919 in Hua County, Henan, into a prosperous landowning family. Originally named Zhao Xiuye, he adopted the name Ziyang while attending school in Wuhan. His education took him from primary schooling in his home county to secondary schools in Kaifeng, Henan’s provincial capital, and subsequently Wuhan. This schooling preceded his career as a rural party organizer; his early political experience developed principally through local work rather than university study. (en.wikipedia.org)

Zhao joined the Communist Youth League in March 1932, when he was twelve. This was distinct from membership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which he entered in February 1938, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The official biographical chronology also records his attendance at the party school of the Hebei–Shandong–Henan provincial committee after joining the CCP. His subsequent appointments began in his native county and expanded to regional responsibilities. (cppcc.gov.cn)

During the war, Zhao served as secretary of the Hua County working committee and then of the county party committee. He subsequently headed the organization and propaganda departments of the northern Henan prefectural committee. In June 1940, he became secretary of the Second Prefectural Committee of the Henan–Shandong–Hebei Border Region, subsequently redesignated the Sixth Prefectural Committee. In 1943, he moved to the propaganda department of the region’s Fourth Prefectural Committee. These were party-organizational and political posts rather than a succession of battlefield commands. (cppcc.gov.cn)

After Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Zhao held paired party and military-political appointments: first as deputy prefectural party secretary and deputy political commissar of the military subdistrict, and subsequently as prefectural secretary and political commissar. His work during the resistance war and the Chinese Civil War included rural administration and land reform. The combination of civilian party offices with commissar appointments placed his responsibilities across both territorial organization and the political supervision of Communist forces. (cppcc.gov.cn)

In autumn 1947, Zhao led local forces south with the Tenth Column of the Shanxi–Hebei–Shandong–Henan Field Army. He became deputy secretary of the Tongbai regional party committee and deputy political commissar of the Tongbai military subdistrict. In March 1949, he was appointed secretary of the Nanyang prefectural party committee and political commissar of the Nanyang military subdistrict. After October 1949, his assignments shifted to the CCP’s South China Sub-bureau, beginning the next phase of his administrative career. (cppcc.gov.cn)

Guangdong administration, political campaigns, and rehabilitation

After the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, Zhao moved from wartime regional administration into the Chinese Communist Party’s governing apparatus in southern China. He became a standing committee member of its South China Sub-bureau in 1950, secretary-general in 1952, director of its Rural Work Department in 1953, and third secretary in 1954. These appointments placed him in the administration responsible for consolidating Communist control and implementing land reform in Guangdong. His responsibilities subsequently expanded from specialized rural work to provincial leadership: he became a deputy secretary of the Guangdong party committee in 1955 and advanced through its senior secretariat posts during the early 1960s. (encyclopedia.com)

Agricultural administration connected Zhao’s provincial career to both collectivization and the subsequent retreat from some of its practices. During the recovery from Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, Guangdong was among the provinces that restored household cultivation of private plots, rural markets, and arrangements contracting agricultural output to households. Private plots allowed peasants to supplement the food and income obtained through collective production; contracting arrangements assigned particular production obligations to households rather than relying exclusively on collective work organization. These were specific adjustments to rural management, not the nationwide agricultural reforms introduced after 1978. Zhao’s documented association with these measures establishes his participation in the early-1960s recovery programme without requiring an assumption that he already possessed the reform agenda of his later premiership. (encyclopedia.com)

In 1965 Zhao succeeded Tao Zhu as Guangdong’s first party secretary, becoming the province’s highest-ranking party official. He also held a secretariat position in the party’s Central-South Bureau and political-commissar appointments in the regional military establishment. His advancement thus combined agricultural administration with broader party and military responsibilities. The authority he acquired before 1966 nevertheless depended on political relationships that became liabilities during the Cultural Revolution, when Tao Zhu and Liu Shaoqi were themselves attacked. (cppcc.gov.cn)

Zhao was removed from office in 1967. He was publicly denounced and paraded through the streets of Guangzhou wearing a dunce cap, while his connections with Tao and Liu formed part of the accusations against him. His persecution extended beyond dismissal: he spent periods under confinement and was required to perform factory labour. Premier Zhou Enlai intervened on his behalf, providing a measure of protection during the campaign, although Zhao remained excluded from normal official work until 1971. (chinaconnectu.com)

His return proceeded in stages rather than through immediate restoration to his former provincial position. In 1971 he became a party secretary in Inner Mongolia and vice-chairman of its Revolutionary Committee. He returned to Guangdong in 1972 as a provincial party secretary and Revolutionary Committee vice-chairman, and regained membership of the party’s Central Committee at the Tenth Party Congress in 1973. In April 1974 he was again appointed Guangdong first party secretary, concurrently becoming chairman of the provincial Revolutionary Committee. He remained in Guangdong until his transfer to Sichuan in 1975. (cppcc.gov.cn)

Sichuan leadership and agricultural experimentation, 1975–1980

In October 1975, Zhao became first secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Sichuan provincial committee, concurrently serving as first political commissar of the Chengdu Military Region. Sichuan presented an urgent agricultural problem as well as a major administrative responsibility. Despite its importance as a grain-producing province, rural production and food distribution remained strained. Zhao’s provincial administration initially concentrated on restoring production through adjustments to procurement, collective management, and incentives rather than dismantling collective agriculture. (cppcc.gov.cn)

An early priority was to leave more grain and income with producers. In a retrospective account published in 2010, provincial official Yang Rudai described measures introduced in 1977 that reduced procurement burdens and protected subsistence supplies. Production teams with annual per-capita grain rations below 180 kilograms were not required to retain reserve grain; teams below specified subsistence thresholds were exempted from state grain purchases. Following Deng Xiaoping’s visit to Sichuan in February 1978, the provincial leadership issued twelve rural economic policy provisions. These included reducing burdens on teams and their members, ensuring that promised distributions reached peasants, encouraging commune and brigade enterprises, and permitting small private plots and household sideline activities. Such measures enlarged the space for household production without transferring collective farmland wholesale to individual families. (omeka.minjian-danganguan.org)

Changes in collective labour organization provided another avenue of experimentation. In Guanghan County, party secretary Chang Guangnan supported arrangements under which production teams divided work among smaller groups and linked remuneration to output. Experiments at Jinyu commune became a provincial example in 1978. Rather than rewarding labour solely through assessments of time worked, these arrangements assigned production targets and work-point allocations to groups, with additional rewards for exceeding targets. Provincial endorsement gave local experiments political protection and a channel for wider adoption. On 21 March 1979, the provincial party committee issued a notice affirming Jinyu’s combination of group work, specified output and labour allocations, and above-target rewards. (paper.people.com.cn)

These experiments should be distinguished from the later nationwide household responsibility system. Sichuan’s early baochan dao zu, or contracting production to groups, generally retained the production team’s collective framework while making smaller work groups accountable for results. Household contracting instead made the family the principal unit responsible for cultivation and contractual obligations, while land remained collectively owned. The distinction matters both institutionally and chronologically: support for smaller-group incentives in 1977–1979 did not constitute the immediate introduction of a uniform household-farming system across Sichuan. Research on the province also identifies variation between localities and uncertainty about the precise starting dates of particular experiments. (cambridge.org)

Zhao’s movement into national leadership overlapped with his Sichuan responsibilities. In February 1978, he became a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’s National Committee. He was appointed vice-premier in April 1980 and premier in September that year. His experience with agricultural incentives and enterprise autonomy in Sichuan formed an important part of the administrative record behind his promotion; as premier, his responsibilities shifted from provincial experimentation to the management of national economic reform. (cppcc.gov.cn)

The premiership and national economic reform, 1980–1987

As premier from September 1980, Zhao directed the State Council, coordinating ministries and overseeing economic plans, budgets, and administrative implementation. The Constitution adopted in December 1982 specified that the premier directed the council’s work and that the council prepared and implemented national economic plans and the state budget. These administrative responsibilities did not make Zhao the final political authority: Deng Xiaoping supplied crucial backing for reform and arbitrated disagreements among senior leaders. Zhao’s ability to change economic management therefore depended on both the government apparatus and support within the Chinese Communist Party leadership. (refworld.org)

Rural reform during his premiership extended experiments that had begun locally before his appointment. Under the household responsibility system, collectively owned land was assigned to households, which assumed production responsibilities and procurement obligations while retaining the returns from additional output. This connected household earnings more directly to effort and production decisions without privatizing land ownership. Central recognition widened in late 1981; by the end of 1983, approximately 98 percent of agricultural collectives had adopted the system. In 1984, the permitted duration of land contracts was extended to fifteen years, strengthening incentives for longer-term investment. Zhao’s May 1984 government report called for stabilizing household contracting while encouraging specialized producers, cooperative economic associations, and agricultural commodity production. (documents1.worldbank.org)

Industrial reform sought to change relations among the state, enterprises, and workers rather than immediately transfer state enterprises into private ownership. Greater managerial discretion, retained profits, and performance-related rewards were intended to make additional production financially worthwhile. Zhao’s 1984 report described the first stage of replacing profit remittances with taxation, introduced in 1983, and announced a second stage for the fourth quarter of 1984 under which enterprises would retain after-tax profits. The expanding dual-track price system preserved compulsory deliveries at administered prices while permitting above-plan output to be sold at negotiated prices. Planning and market allocation consequently coexisted: enterprises still fulfilled state obligations but gained opportunities to obtain inputs and sell additional production outside the mandatory plan. (zh.wikisource.org)

Economic opening combined foreign investment, technology acquisition, and changes in foreign-trade administration. Zhao’s 1984 report proposed giving trading companies greater operational independence and responsibility for profits and losses, while government departments concentrated on policy, coordination, licensing, and supervision. In May 1984, the party Central Committee and State Council jointly approved opening fourteen additional coastal cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, to overseas investment. Preferential treatment for foreign investors, expanded municipal discretion, and economic and technological development zones were central instruments. This was a collective national initiative implemented through local administrations, not a programme attributable to Zhao alone; contemporary reporting identified Hu Yaobang and Zhao as presiding over the leadership meeting at which the opening decision was announced, with Deng and Li Xiannian attending. (zh.wikisource.org)

Disagreements concerned investment levels, financial balance, and methods of reform as well as the proper scope of markets. Chen Yun pressed for economic readjustment and stronger control over capital construction; the retrenchment adopted for 1981 received support from Deng, Li Xiannian, and Zhao as well as Chen. Zhao’s own 1984 report demanded strict limits on total construction investment while protecting priority projects. Nor did supporters of reform agree consistently about speed. According to Zhao’s later recollections, examined by Joseph Fewsmith, his emphasis on efficiency in 1981 contrasted with Hu Yaobang’s stronger emphasis on production and rapid growth. Zhao also recalled resisting Hu’s attempt in early 1983 to extend rural contracting methods rapidly into urban industry, preferring trials followed by incremental expansion. These differences crossed any simple division between advocates and opponents of reform. (dangshi.people.com.cn)

Succession to the party leadership and the 1987 reform programme

On 16 January 1987, an enlarged Politburo meeting accepted Hu Yaobang’s resignation as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and appointed Zhao acting general secretary. Hu’s departure followed the student demonstrations of December 1986 and leadership criticism of his handling of ideological liberalization; the official announcement attributed to him errors on major political principles. Zhao initially retained the premiership, holding both posts through most of 1987. After the Thirteenth Party Congress, held from 25 October to 1 November, the new Central Committee formally elected him general secretary on 2 November. On 24 November, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee accepted his resignation as premier and appointed Li Peng acting premier. Deng Xiaoping remained chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission, while Zhao became its first vice-chairman. (upi.com)

Zhao delivered the congress report, Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, on 25 October. Its central theoretical argument was that China was in the primary stage of socialism: socialist institutions had been established, but productive capacity and economic development remained insufficiently advanced. The report placed this stage between the socialist transformation of ownership in the 1950s and the basic achievement of modernization, a period requiring at least a century—not a new hundred-year period beginning in 1987. This distinction justified developing commodity production, allowing multiple forms of ownership under the predominance of public ownership, and accepting differences in earnings rather than demanding immediate economic uniformity. Economic development was made the central task, alongside reform and opening and adherence to the Four Cardinal Principles, which included party leadership and the socialist political system. (cpc.people.com.cn)

The political programme proposed separating party and government functions, rather than ending the party’s governing role. Party committees were to concentrate on political direction, major policy and important personnel recommendations, leaving government organs responsible for administration. The report envisaged withdrawing party committees’ departments that duplicated government work and progressively abolishing leading party members’ groups within government departments. It also sought clearer responsibilities among party organizations, people’s congresses, administrative bodies and enterprises. These were proposals for reorganizing authority within continued Communist Party leadership, not a programme for competitive multiparty government. The distinction mattered because administrative efficiency and economic reform, rather than an independent counterweight to party power, supplied the immediate rationale. (massline.org)

Administrative restructuring was tied to changing what government did, not simply reducing its size. The report advocated merging departments engaged in direct enterprise management, delegating authority and strengthening regulation, auditing and information services. It requested a State Council restructuring plan for consideration by the next National People’s Congress. Implementation followed in stages: the Politburo approved the broad institutional reform plans in December 1987, while the 1988 State Council reorganization reduced ministries and commissions from 45 to 41. This constituted an implemented administrative change, but did not establish that the wider separation of party and government functions had been completed. (massline.org)

Personnel reform likewise remained a programme requiring subsequent legislation and institutional development. Zhao’s report criticized treating officials, enterprise managers and other public employees as a single undifferentiated category of state cadres. It proposed differentiated management and a civil service organized through defined posts, recruitment examinations, assessment and regulated promotion. The intended distinction was between politically appointed leadership personnel and professional administrative staff, rather than the immediate removal of party influence over appointments. Congress endorsement therefore authorized a direction of reform; it did not itself create a fully functioning new personnel system. (massline.org)

Coastal development, price reform, and economic difficulties, 1988

In early 1988, Zhao promoted a coastal development strategy linking industrial expansion more closely to international trade. Rather than relying primarily on domestic demand and centrally allocated materials, coastal enterprises were encouraged to import raw materials, process them using China’s relatively inexpensive labour, and export the finished goods. Greater retention of export earnings would help finance imported inputs, while foreign investment would provide capital, technology, and managerial expertise. The strategy therefore involved changes in enterprise incentives and access to foreign exchange, not simply the construction of additional coastal factories. A contemporary World Bank assessment described the intended approach as manufactured-export-led growth resembling that of neighbouring East Asian economies. (documents1.worldbank.org)

Domestic price reform addressed a different obstacle: the coexistence of administered and market prices. Under the dual-track price system, enterprises fulfilled planned obligations at state-set prices but could sell above-quota production at market-related prices. Some goods also had “guided” prices within officially prescribed limits. This arrangement introduced incentives to expand output without immediately dismantling planned supply relationships, but price differences also created opportunities to obtain controlled inputs cheaply and resell them at higher prices. Reform sought to make prices more informative about scarcity and production costs and to reduce these distortions. The economy was already substantially mixed: an IMF review calculated that, by 1988, market prices governed 53 percent of retail sales by value, fixed prices 28 percent, and guided prices the remainder. (imf.org)

The proposed acceleration of price reform in summer 1988 occurred amid existing inflation, rather than initiating price increases in an otherwise stable economy. Earlier administered-price increases had reinforced inflationary expectations in an overheated economy. In August, the leadership approved a preliminary price-and-wage reform programme, but approval did not amount to immediate, comprehensive price liberalization. Expectations of further increases nevertheless encouraged households to withdraw savings and purchase goods before their money lost additional purchasing power. Panic buying thus magnified the immediate disruption even though the broader reform programme was subsequently deferred. Economic studies distinguish this expectations-driven reaction from the underlying imbalances associated with rapid investment, credit expansion, and strong consumer demand. (washingtonpost.com)

Official annual statistics recorded an 18.5 percent increase in retail prices in 1988, with urban prices rising 21.3 percent and rural prices 17.1 percent. Food prices increased by 23 percent; within that category, meat, poultry, and eggs rose by 36.8 percent. These are retail-price measures, not interchangeable figures for every index of living costs. The statistical communiqué also explicitly associated unusually large increases in purchases with inflation and panic buying: sales volumes of televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, and other consumer durables rose by between 20 and 50 percent. By December, retail prices were 26.7 percent above their level a year earlier, demonstrating that the autumn policy reversal did not immediately arrest inflation. (stats.gov.cn)

In September, policy shifted toward economic retrenchment and the rectification of economic conditions. Investment projects were reviewed, credit and import controls tightened, and some price controls recentralized. The shift also weakened Zhao’s economic authority: Joseph Fewsmith’s study describes Premier Li Peng and Vice-Premier Yao Yilin concentrating economic decision-making in the State Council during the autumn. Coastal opening was not, however, formally abandoned. On 3 December, Zhao told coastal officials that export-oriented development should continue within the adjustment programme, advocating reductions in inefficient, energy- and material-intensive production while preserving resources for exports. Li Peng, speaking at the same meeting, emphasized contractual reliability, product quality, and coordination of foreign trade. (cambridge.org)

Zhao and the protest movement, April–May 1989

Hu Yaobang’s death on 15 April 1989 prompted student mourning that developed into demonstrations demanding action against corruption, greater official accountability, and expanded freedom of expression. Students gathered in Beijing before Hu’s official memorial service on 22 April, and demonstrations spread to other cities. Zhao left for a scheduled visit to North Korea on 23 April. During his absence, an editorial in the People’s Daily on 26 April characterized the movement as organized political turmoil directed against Communist Party leadership and the socialist system. Rather than ending the protests, it became a principal grievance of the demonstrators; a large march followed on 27 April. Zhao returned on 30 April. (en.wikipedia.org)

Zhao sought to reduce confrontation through dialogue and a less accusatory description of the students. In his later memoirs, he recalled advocating restraint before leaving Beijing, including avoiding coercive measures unless demonstrators committed violence. Those recollections concern internal discussions, rather than a publicly announced policy. Premier Li Peng and Beijing officials instead emphasized threats to political order, and Deng Xiaoping endorsed the characterization reflected in the April editorial. According to Zhao’s subsequent account, he and President Yang Shangkun initially hoped to defuse its effects without formally withdrawing it. (democracy.uci.edu) On 4 May, speaking to representatives attending the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting, Zhao publicly expressed confidence that there would be no major turmoil. He called for calm, restraint, and order, and for problems to be addressed through democracy and the rule of law. This conciliatory language differed markedly from the editorial’s treatment of the movement. (8964museum.com)

The student hunger strike beginning on 13 May renewed the movement’s momentum and attracted wider public support. It also coincided with the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose summit with Chinese leaders was intended to normalize relations with the Soviet Union. Crowds occupying Tiananmen Square disrupted the planned diplomatic ceremonies and brought the protests before the international press assembled for the summit. (en.wikipedia.org) When Zhao met Gorbachev on 16 May, he publicly stated that the first plenum of the Thirteenth Central Committee had decided that important questions should still be referred to Deng, notwithstanding Deng’s retirement from the Politburo in 1987. The televised remarks made Deng’s continuing decision-making authority explicit. Zhao later maintained that he was explaining established leadership arrangements, not attempting to assign Deng responsibility for the crisis. (democracy.uci.edu)

By 19 May, the hunger strike had entered its seventh day, while the leadership was moving toward martial law. Before dawn, Zhao went to Tiananmen Square, accompanied by Wen Jiabao, then director of the party’s General Office. Addressing students through a megaphone, Zhao acknowledged the leadership’s delayed response with the words, “Students, we came too late.” Contemporary reporting and recorded footage document his appeal; its content does not depend solely on later recollections of leadership deliberations. (8964museum.com)

Zhao’s immediate request was that the students end their fast rather than wait until every demand had received a satisfactory answer. He warned that continuing could permanently damage their health, recognized their desire to improve the country, and said that resolving political problems required time. He assured them that ending the hunger strike would not close the channel for dialogue. Contrasting their youth and future with the older leadership, he urged them to preserve their lives. The visit was his last public appearance; the separate deliberations over martial law and his subsequent removal followed from the leadership conflict already under way. (chinadigitaltimes.net)

Opposition to martial law and removal from office

The decisive confrontation over martial law occurred on 17 May 1989 at Deng Xiaoping’s residence. In Zhao’s later account, he had sought a meeting to persuade Deng to revise the leadership’s condemnation of the protest movement, but found the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee present. Deng instead decided that troops should enter Beijing and that martial law should be imposed. Zhao opposed military intervention, maintaining that it would intensify confrontation rather than resolve the crisis. These details of the closed deliberations derive from retrospective accounts, including Zhao’s memoirs, rather than a complete, publicly available contemporaneous transcript; Zhao specifically disputed the suggestion that the decision resulted from a formal Standing Committee vote. (chinafile.com)

At the subsequent Standing Committee discussion, Zhao stated that he could not implement the decision. According to his recollections, he prepared a resignation letter, but President Yang Shangkun persuaded him not to circulate it. His refusal therefore did not immediately become a formal resignation from the general secretaryship. Zhao did not attend the meeting at which Li Peng announced the military measures on the evening of 19 May; martial law took effect on 20 May. His final public appearance, among the hunger-striking students early on 19 May, took place after he had lost the argument over military intervention, not after the formal withdrawal of his party offices. (8964museum.com)

Zhao’s effective exclusion from decision-making thus preceded his official dismissal by more than a month. His continued possession of the title of general secretary did not give him control over the implementation of martial law. The army’s initial entry into Beijing was blocked by civilian crowds; the subsequent military suppression of the demonstrations occurred on 3–4 June. Only afterward did the Central Committee complete the procedures removing him from the leadership. This chronology distinguishes his political defeat in May from the institutional decisions adopted in late June. (icaps.nsysu.edu.tw)

The Fourth Plenum of the Thirteenth Central Committee met on 23–24 June 1989. It approved a report presented by Li Peng accusing Zhao of errors during what the leadership described as “turmoil.” The plenum’s official judgment charged him with supporting the turmoil and splitting the party; these were the leadership’s accusations, not neutral descriptions of his conduct. It removed him as general secretary, Politburo Standing Committee member, Politburo member, Central Committee member, and first vice-chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission, while ordering continued examination of his case. The same plenum elected Jiang Zemin, previously Shanghai’s party secretary, as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. (cpc.people.com.cn)

Removal from the parallel state Central Military Commission required a separate decision by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. The published resolution dates that decision to 30 June 1989, rather than July, although the legislative session continued until 6 July and a later official biography places the removal in July. Acting on Deng’s written proposal of 27 June, the Standing Committee revoked Zhao’s position as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China. The resolution therefore completed a distinct state procedure after the withdrawal of his party military office at the Fourth Plenum. (upload.wikimedia.org)

House arrest, family life, and death, 1989–2005

Following his removal in 1989, Zhao remained under house arrest until his death, living at No. 6 Fuqiang Hutong, a courtyard residence in central Beijing. Guards monitored the compound, and his movements and access to visitors were restricted. Confinement did not, however, mean uninterrupted isolation inside the house. During periods of looser control, he received permission to travel within China and to play golf; such privileges could be curtailed when his appearances attracted outside attention. Joseph Fewsmith’s account emphasizes this uneven pattern: guards were present, but some conversations with approved visitors apparently took place in private. These exceptions provided limited personal contact without restoring Zhao’s freedom of movement or participation in public life. (scmp.com)

His wife, Liang Boqi, shared his years of confinement, while their children became important intermediaries between the household and the outside world. Their daughter, Wang Yannan, communicated news of his final illness and death to friends; she and her brother Zhao Dajun were among the family members receiving mourners at his farewell ceremony. The family also issued memorial cards containing Zhao’s photograph and signature, a photograph of the Fuqiang Hutong courtyard, and thanks from Liang and the other relatives. These private acts of remembrance accompanied a public mourning process whose arrangements remained subject to official control. (en.wikipedia.org)

Despite restrictions, Zhao maintained some contact with former associates and people who recorded his recollections. Yang Jisheng, a senior Xinhua correspondent, conducted three interviews with him. Zong Fengming, an old friend and practitioner of qigong, also visited and held a series of conversations. Such encounters were exceptions within a monitored household rather than evidence of unrestricted access. They nevertheless allowed Zhao to discuss his experiences with interlocutors beyond his immediate family; the resulting accounts form a separate part of the documentary record of his career. (democracy.uci.edu)

Zhao died in a Beijing hospital on 17 January 2005, aged 85, after a prolonged illness. The official Xinhua announcement referred to longstanding respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and repeated hospitalization, but omitted his former leadership positions and the circumstances of his dismissal. News coverage and public mourning were restricted. His funeral and cremation took place at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery on 29 January. Attendance was by invitation, with police checking identity documents at the entrance; Jia Qinglin, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, attended. The obituary issued around the ceremony retained the official accusation that Zhao had made “serious mistakes” during the 1989 political crisis. (abc.net.au)

Cremation did not lead to immediate burial. Zhao’s ashes remained at the family home while relatives and the authorities disputed arrangements for a permanent resting place. On 18 October 2019, the day after the centenary of his birth, his ashes and those of Liang Boqi were interred together at the privately operated Tianshou Garden cemetery in Beijing’s Changping district. According to their son Zhao Erjun, the small family ceremony followed protracted negotiations with the party leadership over the burial site. (rfa.org)

Recorded memoirs and the documentary record

Around 2000, while under house arrest, Zhao secretly recorded approximately thirty hour-long cassettes recounting his political career, economic reform, and the leadership crisis surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He reused ordinary tapes, including recordings of Peking opera and children’s music. According to the English edition’s preface, trusted friends received separate portions of the recordings, reducing the risk that confiscation or loss would destroy the entire account. After his death in 2005, the materials were gathered and transcribed; another set, possibly the originals, was found among his grandchildren’s toys in his study. The Chinese Gaige licheng (The Course of Reform) and English Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang appeared in 2009, shortly before the twentieth anniversary of the June crackdown. (content.time.com)

The English edition credits Bao Pu, Renée Chiang, and Adi Ignatius as both editors and translators, with a foreword by historian Roderick MacFarquhar. Despite its subtitle, the book is a retrospective spoken memoir rather than a contemporaneous diary. The editors rearranged material, placed the 1989 crisis and confinement at the beginning, and shortened repetitions. Their italicized chapter introductions, bracketed explanations, and footnotes are distinct from Zhao’s testimony. This distinction also applies to interpretation: MacFarquhar’s characterization of Zhao’s importance relative to Deng Xiaoping belongs to the foreword, not to Zhao’s recorded account. (simonandschuster.com)

Zhao presented economic reform as an evolving response to practical problems, not the execution of a fully formed blueprint. He connected his understanding of foreign trade to experience in Guangdong, and his approach to agricultural incentives to his provincial work in Sichuan. His recollections emphasized economic efficiency and experimentation, while describing the disagreements and personal relationships through which national policy was negotiated. Joseph Fewsmith’s analysis treats these passages as evidence of how experience shaped Zhao’s thinking, but also notes Zhao’s acknowledgment that his access to information about high-level political maneuvering remained limited. His explanations therefore document his retrospective understanding of reform as well as the events themselves. (democracy.uci.edu)

His later endorsement of parliamentary democracy must be distinguished from the programme he advanced while in office. In 1987, political reform proposals remained constrained by the leadership’s rejection of Western parliamentary arrangements and multiparty competition. After 1989, Zhao came to describe parliamentary democracy as the political system appropriate to a modern market economy. Nevertheless, his recorded reflections envisaged a gradual transition in which the Chinese Communist Party could initially retain its governing position while changing its methods of rule. These passages establish the direction of his later thinking, rather than demonstrating that he had advocated the same institutional outcome throughout the 1980s. (columbia.edu)

The recordings can be compared with Yang Jisheng’s interviews, Zong Fengming’s records of conversations, other leaders’ memoirs, official accounts, and contemporary reporting. Agreement among Zhao’s several retrospective accounts establishes consistency, but is not independent corroboration. Official records establish appointments and formal decisions while also expressing the institution’s stated judgments; contemporary reporting preserves public statements and observable events without necessarily revealing private deliberations. Fewsmith identifies Zhao’s account of Hu Yaobang’s removal in 1987 as one issue requiring comparison with other testimony. Publicly released audio excerpts help establish the provenance of Zhao’s voice, but do not by themselves verify every remembered exchange, attributed motive, or chronology. (democracy.uci.edu)

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34. Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China, Part 14jec.senate.gov
35. Zhao Ziyang's Speech at the Asian Development Bank8964museum.com
36. Zhao Ziyang Visits Hunger-Striking Students8964museum.com
37. The Prisoner of Conscience: Zhao Ziyang, 1919-2005content.time.com
38. The Memory Of Tiananmen | The Tank Man | FRONTLINE | PBSpbs.org
39. Zhao Ziyang's Last Standing Committee｜六四記憶‧人權博物館8964museum.com
40. Li Peng Declares Martial Law; Zhao Ziyang Absent from Meeting｜六四記憶‧人權博物館8964museum.com
41. The Tiananmen Military Coup d’État of 1989icaps.nsysu.edu.tw
42. Tiananmen Papers | PBS Newspbs.org
43. 中国共产党大事记·1989年--资料中心--中国共产党新闻网cpc.people.com.cn
44. 全国人民代表大会常务委员会公报1989年第3号upload.wikimedia.org
45. Purged Chinese Leader Zhao Ziyang Dies at 85washingtonpost.com
46. Former Chinese Communist Party head diesabc.net.au
47. Dissertation PDF to print double sidedora.ox.ac.uk
48. Zhao Ziyang cremated in tightly controlled funeralthedailystar.net
49. China Holds Funeral For Ousted Leader Zhaorferl.org
50. Family of Late, Ousted Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang Visit Graverfa.org
51. Former Top Communist Party Aide Visits Grave of Late Ousted Chinese Premierrfa.org
52. Tiananmen Ghosts: The Secret Memoir of a Fallen Chinese Leadercontent.time.com
53. Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyangeverand.com
54. Power, Policy and Elite Politics under Zhao Ziyangcambridge.org
55. Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs — Andrew J. Nathancolumbia.edu