|
Zhao Ziyang, former premier and CPC general secretary, is who you are refering to as a "martyr." Far from being a martyr, he was an opportunist who did not really care about the student movement on the late 1980s except insofar as he viewed it as a potential weapon in his political power struggle with Premier Li Peng and the "Shanghai faction" symbolized by former President Jiang Zemin.
There was no unified "student movement" in 1989. There were Maoist supporters of the "gang of four," Gorbachev-like "socialist reformers," and outright supporters of wholesale Westernization, and, mostly, and less ideological mass that had righteous grievances against official corruption and increasing class polarization under the "reform and opening" policies of the current era. What happened in early June 1989 involved the Chinese state on the one side, and the pro-Westernization forces on the other, who wanted China to follow Russia down the Gorbachev-Yeltsin path to ignimony. I have little doubt that if the Westernization forces had won out, China would be in truly dire straights today.
Deng Xiaoping's right-wing policies have created great miseries and exacerbated economic polarization, creating divisions among the people. But the Zhao Ziyang/Bao Tong CPC faction had no problem with these policies. This was a simple bureaucratic power struggle over what form marketization would occur--with or without a fig leaf of "democracy." Deng split with Zhao over this question. But to say Zhao was a "martyr" is quite a stretch.
As for me, I am much more interested in human rights violations here, in the world's sole superpower. For China, I wish the best in peace in development.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(684 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
