Zhao Erjun, son of Zhao Ziyang, poses with Wu Wei, an old subordinate of Bao Tong, during a tribute to Zhao Ziyang and his wife on Qingming Festival in 2021 (Photo by Gao Yu on Twitter)
April 4, Qingming Festival. It was the first Qingming Festival since the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan that Chinese people were free to visit their graves and pay respects to the spirits of the dead. However, people found the grave of the late reformist leader Zhao Ziyang heavily barricaded and forbidden to the public, while the grave of Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong and a key member of the Gang of Four, was completely open for people to pay their respects. The different treatment of the graves of these two important historical figures in contemporary China on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party has sparked a lot of public debate, with many overseas Chinese media and self-publishers following up on the story.
Strange events on Qingming Festival trigger online debate
Independent writer Gao Valin, who lives in the United States, tweeted, “Qingming today. Strange thing in Beijing: many people paying 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.”
Cai Xia, a retired professor at the CCP Central Party School in exile in the United States, sent a series of tweets on Qingming Day to commemorate the late reformist CCP leaders Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. She also retweeted a set of pictures saying, “Zhao Ziyang’s tomb does not allow people to pay respects, while Jiang Qing’s tomb is open to the public. It is clear who the Chinese Communist authorities fear and who they promote.”
It is reported that the authorities have surrounded Zhao Ziyang’s tomb with a large number of plants, installed surveillance cameras around the tombstones, and set up barriers to block the roads leading to the tomb, and deployed police, security guards and plainclothes officers around the tomb to intercept people from going to the tomb to pay their respects.
Meanwhile, at Beijing’s Futian Cemetery, the grave of Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, was unguarded and unhindered. Sources said there was a steady stream of mourners visiting the cemetery. Jiang Qing’s grave was opened a few years ago, and some Maoist followers have laid flowers at the tombstone of the leading member of the proletarian command during the Cultural Revolution, saying, “To the eternal memory of Mother Jiang Qing.
In response to the different situations faced by the two cemeteries, a user post retweeted by Cai Xia questioned: “Aren’t you always shouting about confidence? In reality, they are so afraid that they can’t even visit the graves of their deceased family members! Now the graves of counter-revolutionary group leader Jiang Qing are open to society, but Zhao’s tomb is blocked. What kind of society is this? What kind of day is this?”
A Twitter user with the screen name “Yu Xin Shi Shan” followed up with a comment saying: The words of old Mao are: Who is our enemy and who is our friend, this question is the primary question of the revolution. The words of the Cultural Revolution are called: pro or not, class division. Xi has learned very well, Jiang Qing and Mao left is his friend, Ziyang and political reform is his enemy.
This is what Zhao Ziyang’s family said
The above rumor that Zhao Ziyang’s tomb has been sealed was confirmed when Voice of America called Zhao Erjun, Zhao Ziyang’s son.
Reporter: Officially, the public is not allowed to pay tribute to Mr. Ziyang.
Zhao Erjun: It’s been going on for a long time. Not now. It started on the second or third day after the burial. Later, some facilities were added, and it was enclosed. You can’t see it, you can’t see it inside or outside.
Zhao Erjun said the authorities only allow relatives of the Zhao family, and relatives with the former Zhao Ziyang, as well as friends and relatives from his hometown of Sli County, Henan Province, to enter the cemetery to pay their respects.
Zhao Erjun: family members are there (to pay respects), yes. Family members you have to report the list in advance, a total of how many people, how many people from the old family. That day a total of about 20 people went. The old family went to two groups, 10 people. Our family siblings went to three or four. Other is the surrounding good friends went to three or four. That’s all.
Reporter: If the masses go, they are not allowed to go in?
Zhao Erjun: can not see. It is surrounded, surrounded by three layers, not.
On the day of the Qingming Festival this year, some of the Zhao family’s children, along with several of Zhao Ziyang’s former friends, went to the Tianshou Garden in Changping, Beijing, to pay their respects to the Zhao Ziyang couple buried there, including Zhao Erjun, Zhao Ziyang’s daughter Wang Yannan and son-in-law Wang Zhihua.
Asked how he felt about the authorities opening Jiang Qing’s tomb for people to pay their respects, Zhao Erjun said “I can’t say”.
Reporter: Have you heard that Jiang Qing’s tomb is open for worship?
Zhao Erjun: (laughs) Okay, don’t ask again. The treatment is so much, how it wants to do, we do not care, right? Anyway, (laughs) I can’t say.
Reporter: Do you have anything to say to your family about the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party? Do you have any suggestions, ideas or hopes for the party?
Zhao Erjun: No, I have nothing to say. Ah, no problem, no problem. Suggestions, he listened to? He listens?
Bao Tong: To make the Chinese dream, we must forget Zhao Ziyang
On Qingming Day, Bao Tong, a former member of the CPC Central Committee who served as Zhao Ziyang’s political secretary before the June 4 incident, commissioned his former subordinate Wu Wei to accompany Zhao Erjun and others to the cemetery to lay a flower basket at the tomb of Zhao and his wife.
Bao told VOA that he understood that the ban on commemorating Zhao Ziyang and allowing Jiang Qing to be commemorated had to do with whether or not to make the Chinese Dream.
The authorities have banned the commemoration of Zhao Ziyang, which means that if you commemorate Zhao Ziyang, you can’t live the Chinese dream, and if you want to live the Chinese dream, you can’t commemorate Zhao Ziyang,” Bao said. That’s the only way I can understand it. But in order to make the Chinese dream, Jiang Qing must be commemorated. Therefore, there is an endless stream of people commemorating Jiang Qing. Therefore, those who commemorate Jiang Qing have full freedom and are guaranteed by the authorities.
In May 1989, prior to Beijing’s forceful crackdown on the student movement, Bao Tong was arrested and became the highest-ranking Chinese Communist official arrested at the time, spending seven years in Qincheng prison. After his release from prison, his personal freedom and communications remained under permanent surveillance. During sensitive periods such as the Qingming Festival and June 4, the state security forces imposed restrictions on his freedom of movement and banned him from giving interviews to foreign media.
Bao Tong said he did not understand the authorities’ intention to open Jiang Qing’s tomb, but could only make a judgment from the authorities’ behavior: “To make the Chinese dream, we must commemorate Jiang Qing, mourn Jiang Qing, admire Jiang Qing, and learn from Jiang Qing. To make the Chinese dream, we must forget Zhao Ziyang. I think this conclusion can only be made.”
Gao Yu: Banning Zhao is meant to cover up the June 4 crimes
Not long ago, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, in a lengthy speech on Party history education to commemorate the centennial of the founding of the Communist Party, criticized the practice of “deliberately linking Party history events with real-world issues and malicious speculation. Some analysts believe that Zhao Ziyang remains one of the sensitive historical figures that Beijing authorities are most wary of and deeply fear being used to contrast with real-world issues.
According to Gao Yu, a veteran media personality and columnist based in Beijing, Beijing authorities are particularly fearful of events honoring Zhao Ziyang as the Communist Party approaches its centennial. She told the Voice of America, “This shows that the June Fourth Incident, a crime committed by the Chinese Communist Party, is not allowed to be mentioned. You can’t talk about the mistakes of the party, you can only talk about the merits, the Wei Guangzheng.”
In late May 1989, Zhao Ziyang, then general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), was deposed after being purged by the party’s political seniors for opposing the sending of soldiers to suppress thousands of university students who had occupied Tiananmen Square demanding democracy, and he refused to accept charges of “supporting unrest” and “splitting the party” woven by conservative CPC figure Li Peng and others. After being deposed, he refused to accept the charges of “supporting unrest” and “splitting the party,” which were fabricated by conservative Communist Party figures such as Li Peng, and was kept under house arrest until his death on January 17, 2005. Zhao Ziyang’s ashes were kept at his home at No. 6 Fuqiang Hutong in Beijing before he was allowed to be buried in a private cemetery on the outskirts of Beijing after his 100th birthday in 2019. Sources said the authorities will take back Zhao Ziyang’s former residence and have told his surviving family to move out by a deadline.
Gao Yu, a veteran journalist who was arrested and imprisoned for the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the Communist Party’s “7 No’s” document, believes that Zhao Ziyang was a rare positive asset of the Communist Party and should have been commemorated as a prominent leader of the party, but he became a negative figure in the eyes of the Communist Party because of his persistent opposition to the bloody June 4 crackdown.
Gao Yu said, “Zhao Ziyang was a leader who directly contradicted the CPC’s centennial, was deposed by Deng Xiaoping for opposing the June 4 shooting, and refused to admit his mistakes at the Fourth Plenum, sacrificing the future and fate of his entire family to resist the massacre. It became a banner for China’s path toward freedom and democracy.”
Deng Xiaoping’s anti-leftist admonition is said to have been reneged on
Many observers of Chinese issues believe that after the 19th Communist Party Congress, the CCP authorities, guided by Xi Jinping’s thinking in the new era, have departed from Deng Xiaoping’s line of reform and opening up and the foreign policy of “hiding behind the light”, abandoned Deng’s important political legacy, namely the tenure system of leaders, and severely suppressed criticism and dissent internally, with the prevalence of literal prison; and pursued external Since the outbreak of the new epidemic, the United States and some of its allies have made enemies one after another, and the situation in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait is tense, resulting in a very serious international and domestic political and economic situation in China. The terms “unprecedented changes in the past hundred years” and “general accelerator” have become popular terms frequently appearing on the Internet in recent years.
“China should be vigilant against the right, but mainly against the ‘left'”. Deng Xiaoping’s famous phrase is still featured on the Deng Xiaoping Memorial Web page hosted by the Communist Party’s party media, People’s Daily Online.
Gao Yu pointed out that the Xi administration’s approach runs counter to Deng’s instructions back then.
She said, “Deng Xiaoping also said that we should guard against the left as well as the right, mainly against the left, but now it’s the other way around (laughs). Whoever is on the right, some sensitive people in Beijing have been on duty and under control since a week or so before the Qingming Festival. Now it has not been lifted, until the 10th. So now the leftist 50 cents or whatever is like a fish out of water.
Cultural Revolution: Repeated official caliber
The year 2021 marks the 55th anniversary of the unprecedented Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Cultural Revolution) led by Mao Zedong, and the 45th anniversary of the “Huairintang” coup, which ended the Cultural Revolution by arresting Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four, by Hua Guofeng, Mao’s designated successor.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) has long been in agreement about the Cultural Revolution, a political movement that swept through Chinese society. The Sixth Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee (Resolution on Several Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China) characterized the Cultural Revolution as a “civil unrest that was wrongly initiated by the leader (Mao Zedong) and exploited by counter-revolutionary groups (Lin Biao’s group and Jiang Qing’s group), bringing serious disasters to the Party, the country and the people of all races.
It is well known that Xi Zhongxun, the patriarch of the Communist Party of China, was persecuted by Mao Zedong for using his novel against the Party, and was criticized and paraded by the rebel faction during the Cultural Revolution, and Xi Jinping himself was also implicated in the Cultural Revolution and once lost his freedom.
The Cultural Revolution has become an almost taboo subject in the Chinese media since Xi Jinping came to power. Bizarrely, on May 16, 2016, all Chinese media were silent on the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Cultural Revolution. It was only in the early hours of the next day that the official mouthpiece Xinhua published a short article reintroducing the Chinese Communist Party resolution that denied the Cultural Revolution.
Around 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Education finalized and published a secondary school textbook that changed the name of the Cultural Revolution to “arduous exploration” and removed the word “mistake,” causing a public outcry and accusations of falsifying history and attempting to rehabilitate the Cultural Revolution.
It was not until around the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party that Xinhua issued another article denying the Cultural Revolution and calling it a “ten-year civil unrest”. At the same time, Zhang Zhixin, an opponent of the Cultural Revolution who was executed by Mao Zedong’s nephew Mao Yuanxin after his throat was slit, was publicly honored by the authorities.
In late 2020, the Communist Party officially described the forced migration of young people to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution as a movement to promote social progress, causing a public backlash.
Lu Nannan, a U.S.-based commentator, told VOA that the handling of these matters shows that the highest authorities in Beijing are still wavering in their attitude toward the Cultural Revolution and have not developed a systematic theoretical system. Lu also argued that the touting of Mao’s proven failure of the policy of going to the countryside is a way to invoke the spirit of the Cultural Revolution, thus making it logical for Xi Jinping to revert to Mao’s line, concealing his incompetence and giving him legitimacy in power.
Bao Tong, a former member of the CPC Central Committee’s Leading Group on Propaganda and Theory and the Leading Group on Party Construction, believes that the Xi Jinping administration’s repetition on the characterization of the Cultural Revolution is the “bad idea” of some “imperial literati” who wag their tongues in front of the top leader. Bao Tong said, “I think that the “imperial literati” who shake their heads in front of the supreme leader had a bad idea.
Bao Tong said, “I think it’s some people who are playing with their pens and have nothing better to do with their food.”
Pu Zhiqiang: The official taboo has its logic
Some commentators believe that the ban on Zhao Ziyang’s tomb and Jiang Qing’s tomb in Beijing on the Qingming Festival highlights the good or bad and political winds of the Chinese Communist Party authorities.
Former June Fourth Movement leader and Beijing-based rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang told Voice of America that the ban on the public commemorating Zhao Ziyang shows that the Chinese Communist Party has been trying to erase Zhao Ziyang and the June Fourth Incident from the official version of history.
“Not allowing people to come to commemorate Zhao Ziyang on the occasion of Qingming Festival shows that the CCP has been secretive about the June 4 incident.” From my contacts with the outside world, he said, “Officially, I should say, there has been no relaxation about the June 4 incident. Not wanting to remind people of Zhao Ziyang and Liu Xiaobo, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that something like this had happened, is actually the official caliber all along. Therefore, it is conceivable that they are not allowed to mourn Zhao Ziyang or pay homage to his tomb, which is in line with their logic.”
Jiang Qing, formerly known as Li Yunhe, went to Shanghai in the early years of the film and theater industry and acted in movies under the stage name of Lan Ping, and became the fourth wife of Mao Zedong in Yan’an during the war against Japan. As the “banner bearer of the literary revolution,” she branded all literary and artistic works as “poisonous weeds” and blocked them, leaving only the “revolutionary model plays” that she decided to create, resulting in a situation where “eight model plays for eight hundred million people” in China.
Last month, the Communist Party propaganda authorities reintroduced the Red Classics to commemorate the centennial of the Party, including the modern ballet “The Red Army of the Maiden” and “The White Maiden,” which are “revolutionary model plays” directly linked to Jiang Qing’s Cultural Revolution legacy.
Beijing-based lawmaker Pu Zhiqiang was convicted of inciting ethnic hatred and provoking trouble and sentenced to three years in prison (suspended for three years), which attracted international and public attention at the time.
He said recently that the authorities are less squeamish about the Maoists and the Cultural Revolution, as evidenced by the expected return to the stage of such model plays as “The White Maiden” and “The Red Lantern Story.
“It has become more and more grand for people to go and glorify Chairman Mao, and even sing the praises of going to the mountains and going to the countryside.” Pu says, “Instead, wanting to explore the origins of the impact of the Cultural Revolution disaster, wanting to learn about such things, wanting to tell young people that China had a cultural revolution, became a particularly, particularly unacceptable thing for the authorities to see.”
The Gang of Four, the Gang of Five and the Gang of One
On October 6, 1976, less than a month after Mao Zedong’s death, his widow Jiang Qing was arrested in a palace coup plotted by Hua Guofeng, then First Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee and Premier, and was later sentenced to a suspended death sentence, later reduced to life imprisonment, as the first offender of the Gang of Four counter-revolutionary group. According to Wikipedia, Jiang Qing committed suicide on May 14, 1991, while on medical parole. There are reports that Jiang Qing defended her alleged crimes during the Cultural Revolution when she appeared in court in 1980, saying that she was a dog of Mao Zedong and would bite whoever she was told to bite.
It is generally believed that the CCP, which continued to carry Mao’s banner for its own ruling legitimacy and political need to continue in power, had no choice but to blame the Gang of Four and Lin Biao’s group for the blame and disastrous consequences of the Cultural Revolution.
Song Yongyi, a scholar of Chinese Communist Party history and the history of the Cultural Revolution at the University of California, Los Angeles, has published an article pointing out that the so-called Gang of Four was actually the Gang of Five, with Mao Zedong as the gang leader.
Bao Tong, a former member of the CPC Central Committee, pointed out that the Gang of Four was, in short, Mao’s one-man gang and a few henchmen. Bao Tong said he thought Jiang Qing, who was instigated by Mao, was wrongly described as the head of the Gang of Four, and that some people hated Jiang Qing but loved Mao, a kind of schizophrenia. He said, “A complete denial of the Cultural Revolution requires a complete denial of Mao Zedong.”
Bao Tong: The Chinese Communist Party repents and apologizes, the party celebration has meaning
Xi Jinping, who has been in charge of the party, government and military for nearly nine years, emphasized in that speech on the study of party history campaign that “we should adhere to the two resolutions of our party on historical issues and the relevant spirit of the Party Central Committee as the basis, accurately grasp the theme of the main line of the historical development of the party, the mainstream essence, correct understanding and scientific evaluation of the major events, important meetings, important people in the history of the party. “
Xi also said that “some major issues in Party history should be viewed realistically, and neither mistakes and twists should be avoided because of achievements, nor achievements denied because of mistakes and twists in exploration.”
The general secretary began his tenure several years ago with a statement that some independent commentators questioned as “two cannot be denied,” meaning that the second three decades of reform and opening up and the first three decades cannot be denied to each other.
Some observers have pointed out that Xi Jinping, the current leader of the CCP, has made no mention of the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Famine, the June Fourth Incident or other major catastrophic historical events in his speeches, and that his preaching of “an accurate grasp of history” is inconsistent with, and even contradicts, the CCP’s current attitude toward some important historical figures, especially in its treatment of issues such as the commemoration of Zhao Ziyang and the June Fourth Incident. In particular, it has adopted a historical nihilistic approach to issues such as the commemoration of Zhao Ziyang and the June Fourth Incident.
Bao Tong, former political secretary of Zhao Ziyang, said he looks forward to reading and studying the CCP leader’s yet-to-be-published articles commemorating the centennial of the CCP to see how he evaluates Zhao Ziyang, the June Fourth Incident, the Cultural Revolution and the Great Famine.
“I think the first thing that should be said in the centennial of the founding of the Party is to apologize to the people who were killed, starved, fought and screwed by the Chinese Communist Party. In this way, the centenary of the founding of the Party will be commemorative.” Bao Tong went on to say, “If I banged a gong and drums and said how many people I had killed and achieved a great victory, then I think Comrade Xi Zhongxun would probably not be happy and would not approve of it.”
Bao Tong, who is nearly 90 years old, also said that Xi Zhongxun, who was imprisoned and criticized during the Cultural Revolution, was vindicated during a period when Chinese politics tended to be relatively clear and relaxed after the reform and opening up, and that Hu Yaobang, Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying played a key role in the process of vindicating a large number of unjust and false cases during successive political campaigns of the Communist Party.
Bao Tong recalled that Xi Zhongxun was a kindly old man who had a cordial relationship with Zhao Ziyang and from time to time sought him out to bring messages to the then General Secretary. He said that when Xi Zhongxun was reinstated to a key party and government position, he had proposed legislation to protect dissenting views.
Bao Tong pointed out that if this legislative proposal of Xi Zhongxun had been put into practice and people’s different opinions had been protected by law, the major problems and contradictions plaguing Chinese society today would have been solved.
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