Zhao Ziyang’s grave.
This year’s Qingming Festival saw a strange resemblance between the graves of two high-ranking officials in Beijing: the grave of Jiang Qing, the wife of former Communist Party leader Mao Zedong and a former vice president, was opened, while the grave of former Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was blocked.
On April 5, Cai Xia, a former professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, tweeted that the authorities had banned the private sector from paying tribute to Zhao Ziyang on the Qingming Festival this year, but opened Jiang Qing’s grave to the public, making it clear who the CCP authorities fear and who they promote.
Cai Xia also tweeted a screenshot of a text from a domestic friend visiting Zhao Ziyang’s tomb. The friend said that the road leading to Zhao Ziyang’s tomb was blocked, and when he tried to go up from the side, he was stopped from afar by police officers in uniform and plainclothes, saying that he was not allowed to enter the tomb because of the construction work in front of it.
When the domestic friend indicated that he wanted to lay flowers to Zhao’s tomb, the guards said in a brutal manner that no one was allowed to enter unless his family came or they called!
The friend mocked in anger, not always shouting confidence? In reality, they are so afraid that they can’t even visit the graves of the deceased! Now the graves of counter-revolutionary group leader Jiang Qing are open to the community, but Zhao’s tomb is blocked. What kind of society is this? What kind of day is this?
A friend from the mainland sent this to me and I am forwarding it here. Zhao Ziyang’s tomb is not allowed to be worshipped, but Jiang Qing’s tomb is open to the public. It’s clear who the CCP authorities fear and who they promote. pic.twitter.com/arEElqemJK
- Cai Xia (@realcaixia) April 5, 2021
The day before, Chinese writer Gao Valin also tweeted that at this moment, it is the morning of April 4 in China. Received a post – Qingming today. Strange things in the capital: many people pay tribute to Jiang Qing, but officials let them do so; when they go to Zhao Ziyang’s tomb, they set up heavy barriers and forbid anyone to approach.
Even Zhao Ziyang’s family members were monitored when they visited the tomb.
On the day of Qingming Festival, Zhao Ziyang’s son Zhao Erjun, daughter Wang Yannan and other family members and friends paid their respects at the “Tianshouyuan” cemetery. 20 family members and friends brought flowers and paid their respects under the surveillance of the Chinese Communist Party, and the family members stayed for more than 20 minutes before leaving. The cemetery was guarded and no one else was allowed to enter.
A netizen named “Yu Xin Shou Shan” said: …the words of the Cultural Revolution are: “The class division is the difference between family and relatives. Mr. Xi has learned it very well: Jiang Qing and Mao’s leftists are his friends, while Ziyang and the political reform are his enemies.
Zhao Ziyang was considered a reformist within the CCP, and during the June 4 Incident in 1989, Zhao disagreed with the extreme leftists’ use of force against the unarmed students, and personally visited the students in Tiananmen Square during their hunger strike. After the incident, Zhao was stripped of all positions inside and outside the Party and placed under house arrest for 16 years until his death on January 17, 2005, at the age of 85.
The ashes of Zhao Ziyang and his wife Liang Boqi, who died in 2013 after a long illness, have been laid to rest at their former residence in the quadrangle at No. 6 Fuqiang Hutong in Beijing.
For many years, human rights activists and former members of Zhao Ziyang’s family from around the world have paid respects at Zhao’s former residence on the anniversary of his death and at Qingming, but including members of the Tiananmen Mothers and individual prominent dissidents, they have not been allowed to pay respects at Zhao’s residence for many years.
In recent years in particular, every anniversary of Zhao Ziyang’s death, Beijing has been on alert, with Zhao’s former residence put on full alert in advance, with police standing at almost every three steps around Fuqiang Hutong, while Beijing has stepped up surveillance of dissidents.
It was not until October 18, 2019, the day after Zhao Ziyang’s 100th birthday, that the couple’s ashes were allowed to be buried in the Tianshou Garden, a private cemetery in Beijing’s Changping District. However, the authorities sent a large number of public security officers to guard the cemetery and added new gates and a registration system to prevent people from visiting the cemetery.
The authorities have opened Jiang Qing’s grave, a netizen named Hill said: “Because Xi wants to carry out the Cultural Revolution, so let the 50 cents go to commemorate Jiang Qing. Xi is determined to drive backwards, so he opposes such reformists as Zhao Ziyang, and is unlikely to let people commemorate Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang.
Jiang Qing was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and Mao was Jiang Qing’s third husband. During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party and was the head of the Gang of Four who faithfully carried out Mao’s wishes.
After Mao’s death on September 9, 1976, Jiang Qing was arrested along with Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan, and was tried in 1981. Jiang Qing was sentenced to a suspended death sentence, later reduced to life, and committed suicide on May 14, 1991 while on medical parole.
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