Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently wrote an article ‘My Mother’, which was published in four consecutive issues of ‘Macau Herald’ from March 25 to April 15. Wen Jiabao is a rare former leader of the Chinese Communist Party who has stepped down without a word, revealing little of his personal feelings, let alone his official experience.
Wen Jiabao remembered his mother, Yang Zhiyun, who passed away last December at the age of nearly 100: “Mom is still alive, she will always live in our hearts, in the students she loved so much, in the villagers she loved so much.”
Wen Jiabao counted her mother’s hard experience, “born in a time and place of suffering”, “good, self-reliant, upwardly mobile”, “extremely compassionate”, studied in Tianjin nursing school, the Later, she attended a teacher training college, and in 1954, she “left home in pain and went to Gansu with a group of young people to teach”.
In his article, Wen Jiabao emphasized that “my mother lived a simple life and lived a clean life” and taught him to be a man of character, education and competence. During the Cultural Revolution, “my father was locked up in school and was often subjected to brutal ‘interrogations’ and beatings.”
What is striking about Wen Jiabao’s text is that he makes a point of mentioning his mother’s feelings when he became premier, “My mother was worried about me taking on a big responsibility,” and Wen Jiabao still has two letters that his mother sent after he entered Zhongnanhai.
The first letter reads: “You can be a minister today, such a high position, without any backers, not to mention the family, how hard it is to get”. She asked Wen Jiabao “to get through to the top, to the people and to remember that a lone tree cannot become a forest”. The second letter praised his son, “The achievements of the past five years are your hard-earned efforts.” I hope he and “everyone in the same boat, smoothly and steadily through the five years of difficulties.”
What is more striking is that Wen Jiabao’s letter specifically mentions his own “official” feelings: “I have retired from 28 years of work in Zhongnanhai, of which ten years as Premier. For a person of my background, ‘being an official’ is a matter of chance. I was ordered to be careful, like walking on thin ice, like facing the abyss, the beginning of the service, that is, often do return to the plan”.
This paragraph Wen Jiabao stressed his civilian origin, not the same as the second generation of red, second generation of officials. He was transferred to the Ministry of Geology and then to Zhongnanhai in May 1989, when he accompanied General Secretary Zhao Ziyang as director of the Central Office to dissuade students at Tiananmen Square. The scene of him accompanying General Secretary Zhao Ziyang in Tiananmen Square in May 1989 as director of the Central Office to dissuade students is unforgettable. But after Zhao Ziyang was placed under house arrest, he rose through the ranks and served two terms as premier. Wen Jiabao said he was “walking on thin ice” in Zhongnanhai and often thought of returning to his hometown, seeing the volatile and sinister officialdom and Zhao Ziyang’s turbulent life. Or is it because of what? He at least talked about it very emotionally.
Wen Jiabao ten years as Premier, known as the “Hu-Wen period”, Hu Jintao advocates “no compromise”, when the “nine dragons ruling the water”, nine Standing Committee each side, Wen Jiabao left a prominent impression of First, he often mentioned human rights, rule of law, democracy, constitutionalism and other concepts in his speeches, not avoiding universal values, and even occasionally showing expectations. This, of course, has to do with Xi’s single-minded hostility to universal values, and his inability to even pay lip service to them.
Secondly, whenever a major disaster occurs across China, floods, earthquakes, Wen Jiabao always appears on the front line, which Hu Jintao is no exception, Hu’s predecessor Jiang Zemin 98 years when the Yangtze River flooded, had braved the rain to board the boat, commanded in the rain. But Wen Jiabao seems to do more natural, emotional, leaving a pro-people image, of course, there are critics that he is acting, but associated with today’s Xi Jinping a class of officials, even if Wuhan occurred in a new crown virus so huge disaster, the civil society calls for leaders to go, but also not out, until the time of smooth, only to go booming “inspection “; last year, the Yangtze River and a rare flood, no sign of the leader, Xi Jinping did not move, the rest are afraid to move, style and predecessors have a world of difference.
Thirdly, on March 14, 2012, Wen Jiabao in the last press conference belonging to him after the closing of the National People’s Congress, in response to the Chongqing Municipal Committee incident, Wen Jiabao made an impassioned speech, saying that without political system reform, the historical tragedy of the Cultural Revolution could still happen again. He said he was well aware that to solve many of China’s problems, “it is necessary to carry out not only economic system reform, but also political system reform, especially the reform of the Party and state leadership system.”
Wen Jiabao’s hatred of the Cultural Revolution is feared to be related to his family’s father and his own experience of the Cultural Revolution, but Xi Jinping’s father, Xi Zhongxun, did not live well during the Cultural Revolution either, but Xi Jinping gives more of a sense of nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution, such as his being sent down to Liangjiahe in Shaanxi Province, which was originally a small episode in the hopeless history of a period of youth going to the countryside, but is now being whitewashed as a myth of how a great man studied Chinese and foreign classics in Liangjiahe and carried two hundred pounds on his shoulders. The myth of a great man reading Chinese and foreign classics in Liangjiahe, carrying two hundred pounds on his shoulders and making great achievements in the vast world.
Wen Jiabao’s occasional display of humanity and sensibility during his reign has left a deep impression because it is distinctly different from that of ordinary senior Communist Party officials. But Wen Jiabao, after all, is a high-ranking official among high-ranking Communist Party officials, and despite the fact that he “walks on thin ice and faces the abyss” in Zhongnanhai, he could not stand the “shoe-throwing” protests he encountered during his visit to Cambridge University in England. This kind of public protest against a leader’s visit is common in Western societies, but senior officials in authoritarian regimes find it offensive and take it too seriously. Wen Jiabao scornfully called the protest of a young man “a despicable trick that cannot destroy the friendship between the Chinese and British people”, which is far from the “democracy” he often talks about.
It is also doubtful that Wen Jiabao, who remembered his mother with affection and affection, did not mention in his article a lengthy investigative report published by the ‘New York Times’ on October 26, 2012, related to his family, which said that the family of China’s outgoing premier Wen Jiabao had accumulated at least $2.7 billion in assets over the past 20 years. The report said that China’s outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao’s family had accumulated at least $2.7 billion in assets over the past 20 years. This includes Wen’s mother, wife, children, brother and brother-in-law, who became very wealthy during Wen’s administration, especially after 1998. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the above statement was “a smear campaign against China with ulterior motives.” After the ‘New York Times’ article was published, the newspaper’s Chinese and English websites were blocked in mainland China.
Wen Jiabao’s article, which remembered his mother, also ended meaningfully, saying, “I sympathize with the poor and the weak, and oppose bullying and oppression. The China I have in mind should be a country full of fairness and justice, where there will always be respect for the human heart, humanity and the essence of man, and where there will always be the temperament of youth, freedom and struggle. I have cried out and fought for this. This is the truth that life has taught me and that my mother gave me.”
Wen Jiabao said here a “fair and just China”, a China “with respect for the human heart, humanity and the essence of man”, using words and phrases very different from the current style of leaders, and seemingly very different from the current reality. It should be seen as Wen Jiabao’s inner expectation.
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