Zhao Ziyang, former CCP General Secretary who had been under long-term house arrest, died at the age of 85 on the morning of January 17, 2005, Beijing time.

Yan Jiaqi, former director of the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of Zhao Ziyang’s advisors in political system reforms, spoke to The Epoch Times.

Yan has been the most influential political scholar since the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) economic reform. He was the author of “About Leaders” and “Ten Years History of China’s Cultural Revolution.” After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, he was accused of being a ringleader of the so-called “anti-revolutionary riot” and was wanted by the government. He went into exile in France and held the position of the first chairman of Alliance for a Democratic China. Now, he is living in New York.

Reporter: The media reported that Mr. Zhao Ziyang passed away. Have you heard this news?

Yan: Yes. I heard it.

Reporter: What kind of reaction do you think the CCP will have to Zhao Ziyang’s death? How will they handle the funeral affairs? What kind of evaluation will Zhao receive?

Yan: I think the first thing is that Beijing should give Zhao Ziyang an accurate evaluation. This is a big issue. Originally, before Zhao Ziyang passed away, I had hoped that Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao would visit him. But, apparently, they didn’t do that. Now, I think the most important thing is hoping that the Beijing authorities can accurately evaluate Zhao Ziyang.

The reason that Zhao Ziyang should get an accurate evaluation would be to affirm that Zhao Ziyang was the people’s good premier and he is a good premier of the Chinese people. This is a very simple evaluation. If you asked any ordinary Chinese person, you would get that kind of an answer without him or her thinking it over. On the other hand, compared with Zhou Enlai*, Zhao Ziyang did much better than Zhou Enlai. Really, he’s even surpassed Zhou Enlai, because Zhou Enlai acted very weakly when he learned Mao Zedong did some very bad things. Zhao Ziyang could publicly express objection against Deng Xiaoping’s enforcement of martial law. Therefore, I think Zhao Ziyang represented and protected the people’s interest and was a good premier. Moreover, he contributed a lot to China’s economic reform and the construction of China’s legal system.

I feel that the first thing that the Beijing authorities should do is to accurately evaluate Zhao Ziyang; affirm that he was a good premier to the people. Three key words: “The People’s Good Premier.” This is what I think the current biggest issue is.

Reporter: How do you think the CCP will handle this matter?
Yan: The first thing of how to evaluate Zhao Ziyang, it is a big question. Because Hu Jintao always says, that the CCP needs to strengthen its governing capability. If it can’t even answer this question, needs to discuss it for several rounds, needs to consider former premier Li Peng’s opinion, needs to think about former Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s view, needs to vote on this issue, then this will reveal a problem with its governing capability.

Yan: On an important question like this, for the president of a country, the premier, or the leader of the government, it should be easy to come to a basic conclusion. Zhao Ziyang was a good premier to the people. This kind of important question needs to be handled with prompt decision to prove the governing capability of China’s leaders. Because of the above reasons, I feel the passing away of Zhao Ziyang is a challenge to leaders in Beijing.

Reporter: According to sources, the former chairman of the National People’s Congress, Wan Li, expressed recently, that Zhao is still a Party member, still a comrade--he is not an enemy or a scary beast. Zhao Ziyang made a contribution to the reform; people won’t forget that. Some CCP members positively appraised Mr. Zhao; inside CCP some people also asked to restore Zhao’s reputation and readdress the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Do you think the death of Zhao will cause a split inside the CCP?

Yan: This is a challenge to the CCP leaders’ governing capability. Wan Li’s view, as well as things I have read that former Premier Minister Zhu Rongji said, “Sorry, sorry [to Zhao],” these kinds of words really moved me. What Wan Li said was absolutely true, it reflects the people’s view. Zhao Ziyang is not only a citizen, he was a good premier. He is not a normal person. He led China, had been the State Council Premier for as long as eight years, so he was not an ordinary good premier. I don’t care whether he is comrade or not, from the beginning, he was a good premier.”

Yan: I feel that the leaders in Beijing, facing Wan Li, Zhu Rongji and so many Party members, so many Chinese people, they cannot just simply erase Zhao Ziyang’s image that has been there for so many years. We all remember Zhao Ziyang, we all yearn for Zhao Ziyang. I feel this is a challenge to the CCP’s governing capability. Don’t we talk about governing capability? This is the challenge. This is an easy problem to solve.

Reporter: Do you think the different opinions inside the CCP will lead to an internal split of the CCP?

Yan: This is a big question and it is not difficult to resolve. In other words, if you are capable then you can handle it well; if you don’t have the capability, then you will not be able to solve it. This is what reveals true governing ability. It’s to see how competent you are.

[As an example] also, as a general manager of a company, as a CEO or the executive director, you would have to handle many problems. While handling these problems, you would have to resolve them appropriately. Of course, now that Zhao Ziyang has passed away, his evaluation becomes a very important question affecting the whole nation. You cannot give a wrong evaluation; cannot give a lower evaluation than he deserved. To put it simply, Zhao Ziyang was a good premier in the eyes of the people.

Reporter: The citizens highly respected Zhao Ziyang. How do you think the people will mourn him?

Yan: Of course people will mourn. When Hu Yaobang passed away, many people in Beijing mourned him. Now in New York, Hong Kong, Los Angeles or places in England; wherever there is a Chinese population, there will be people mourning Zhao Ziyang. There will be many people in Beijing missing and mourning Zhao Ziyang, too. I think we should let people express their feelings naturally and not trying to suppress them.

Reporter: Will the citizens advocate even more to readdress the Tiananmen Square Massacre and restore Zhao Ziyang’s reputation?”

Yan: This is definitely an issue people will think about. We have to do this gradually. The first thing is to restore Zhao Ziyang’s reputation.

Reporter: When Hu Yaobang passed away, it triggered the Tiananmen Square Student Movement in 1989, which created a crisis for the CCP. Currently, under the CCP’s high-pressure terrorist policies, many people are not happy with the way the government is run. Will Mr. Zhao Ziyang’s death trigger large-scale public movements and put the CCP in a crisis again?”

Yan: When Zhao Ziyang faced the crowd on the Tiananmen Square in 1989, millions of students gathered to protest. Zhao Ziyang faced this problem and he proposed to solve the problem with democratic legal regulations. The solution has always been there and China will have a future and hope if it follows Zhao’s proposal.

Yan: If China wanted to suppress the people with violence like Deng Xiaoping did with the Tiananmen Square Massacre, then China will have problems. Nowadays, there is corruption and embezzlement and there is no justice in society. These all resulted from Deng Xiaoping’s suppression of the Tiananmen Square Student Movement. If we want to solve the problems among the people, the only way is to follow what Zhao Ziyang did and solve the problem based on democratic legal regulations. The solution is there.

Reporter: What is going to happen if the CCP doesn’t follow Zhao’s proposal?

Yan: There is already a precedent. If the CCP doesn’t follow that path [of democratic reform], the country will not get better. If the country uses democratic legal regulations to solve problems and properly re-evaluates Zhao Ziyang, China will get a little better everyday. This is simple common sense.

Note:
Zhou Enlai was premier of China from 1949 to 1976 under Mao’s leadership.