old man in not so much of a hurry

I said in passing that there would be controversy over whether Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs were the real thing. That seems to be wrong - but not entirely - now that Du Daozheng the former state censor and the leader of the group of elderly former cadres responsible the reformist Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine has come forward and claimed responsibility for encouraging Zhao to tape his reminiscences.

Du Daozheng, reformist chief of the General Administration of Press and Publications in the late 1980s, said he was one of four retired officials who helped Zhao secretively record his memoirs before his death under house arrest in 2005.

Zhao's recollections, published abroad and sure to be banned in mainland China, challenge the ruling Communist Party's verdict that the student-led protests centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing were a counter-revolutionary plot, and he calls the armed crackdown that ended them on June 4 two decades ago a tragedy.

In a statement explaining his role in making the memoirs, Du said it was time to rehabilitate Zhao, ousted in 1989 by Party conservatives who accused him of siding with the protesters.

So far so good. But:

The Chinese elder statesman Du Daozheng who helped Zhao Ziyang to leave behind oral memoirs will be publishing a statement in the June edition of Ming Pao Monthly magazine. He pointed out that the foreword and the title of the English edition

of Zhao's memoirs are inaccurate and also twists the original intent of Zhao. He also pointed out that the old comrades who had the tapes only delivered the tapes to the Zhao family and no one else. He emphasized that he opposes the publication of the memoirs at this moment, and the Zhao family are "in clear agreement" with his view.

The English edition of the memoirs of Zhao Ziyang has been translated and published by Bao Pu, the son of Bao Tong who was the former secretary for Zhao Ziyang. Yesterday, Ming Pao called Bao Pu to ask questions. But as soon as our reporter mentioned Du Daozheng, Bao Pu hung up the phone.

In his statement, Du Daozheng said that Zhao Ziyang was objective, cool, serene and full of goodwill in making the recordings. Zhao's assessment of Deng Xiaoping was that Deng was always the leader of the reforms while Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were his right and left arms. Du heard friends summarize the English edition of the memoirs for him, and he thought that the foreword and title exaggerated the personal accomplishments of Zhao Ziyang. "This is not objective, and it will not withstand the scrutiny of history."

This last point contravenes a key theme in the English version of Zhao’s memoirs, namely that it was Zhao himself who drove the reforms forward with the eventual objective of achieving some form of political pluralism, though is overt embrace of democracy is only supposed to have happened after Tiananmen during his time under house arrest.

There are three ways of interpreting this:

i) Du is speaking the truth: Zhao’s memoirs have been slanted in translation to suit the pre-conceptions of Westerners and published opportunistically in time for the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen.

 ii) Du is recanting under direct pressure from the Communist Party.

iii) Reculer pour mieux sorter: Du knew more or less what was going on but is making a tactical disavowal, effectively sacrificing the credibility of Bao Tong and family in the wider interests of bringing Zhao and his ideas in from the cold.

I’m inclined to go with number three. His supposed disavowal of the memoirs restates Zhao’s role in the reforms of the eighties and by extension vindicates his attitude at Tiananmen, keeping the notion of a reversal of verdicts on the agenda. This is in direct contravention of CPC policy but triangulated in such a way that he seems to be distancing himself from overt opposition to the Party.

Du himself is a fascinating figure, and, at the age of 88, maybe the most effective reformist in China. Read an interview with him here.