In a sign that Chinese Communist Party head Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are willing to inflame the Chinese people’s long-suppressed hopes for political reform, dozens of Chinese newspapers have recently run articles commemorating former Chinese leader Hu Yaobang, Wen’s mentor and the epitome of a reformist cadre.
Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15, 1989, and the commemoration of it, was the main fuse for the massive outpouring of protests that were violently suppressed in Beijing on June 4 that year. His name has always been associated with the Tiananmen Square massacre, and thus has been mostly ignored or suppressed in official media.
