Remains of Comrade Zhao Ziyang cremated in Beijing

Comrade Zhao Ziyang, who passed away on Jan. 17 at the age of 85, was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing Saturday morning.

On behalf of the leaders of the central authorities, Comrade Jia Qinglin and other senior officials including He Guoqiang, Wang Gang and Hua Jianmin, were at the cemetery to bid farewell to the remains of Comrade Zhao. They also expressed condolences to Zhao's families.

Zhao died of illness in a Beijing hospital after failing to respond to all emergency treatment.

Born in October 1919 in Huaxian County of central China's Henan Province, Comrade Zhao joined the Communist Youth League of China in March 1932 and started his revolutionary career in 1937. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in February 1938.

During the years of revolutionary wars and the period of socialist construction, Comrade Zhao successively served as the chief leader of the CPC committees at the county, prefectural and provincial levels. In the early years of China's reform and opening-up drive, he successively held important leading positions of the CPC Central Committee and the State, making contribution to the cause of the Party and the people. In the political turbulence which took place in the late spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.

When Comrade Zhao suffered from illness and when his physical condition was turning worse, the central authorities had instructed relevant departments make proper arrangements for his life and treatment. A special medical team was formed to treat his diseases and save his life by every means. In the last days of Comrade Zhao, Comrade Zeng Qinghong had gone to the hospital to visit him on behalf of the leaders of the central authorities.

The General Office and the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the General Office of the State Council, the General Office of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and other departments sent wreaths to the cemetery. Comrade Zhao's families, close-by workers, old friends, representatives from his hometown and the places he once worked in, and representatives from various Party and government departments, also went to the cemetery to bid farewell to his remains.

BEIJING, China -- China has held a tightly controlled memorial for former Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, who was ousted amid the upheaval surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Hundreds of mourners filed through a memorial hall and bowed before Zhao's body at Beijing's Babaoshan Cemetery, the main burial site for revolutionary heroes, on Saturday, The Associated Press reported.

The body lay on a bier without a coffin, dressed in a blue, high-collared Chinese jacket and covered in the Communist Party flag.

Anxious to avoid stirring up memories that could spark protests, China's leaders have said little about 85-year-old Zhao since he died on January 17, and did not disclose plans for the memorial service.

The nation's state television on Saturday broadcast the first official obituary for Zhao, recognizing his contribution to reforms, but saying he made "serious mistakes" during the 1989 protests, according to news agencies.

The broadcast is likely to be the first time many Chinese have heard of his death because Zhao's passing kept under wraps. Xinhua only released a two-sentence report of his passing at the time he died.

Just after he died, Beijing warned "anti-government forces" against taking advantage of his death to stir up trouble for the administration. (Full story)

In Washington, House Minority Leader Nany Pelosi, joined a gathering of about 100 people from the Chinese community and human rights groups Saturday to honor Zhao.(Full story)

A standard-bearer for reform, Zhao opposed the use of force against the Tiananmen Square demonstrators. He was removed from his post during the clampdown and was kept under house arrest inside his closely guarded Beijing compound until his death.

He was rarely allowed to step out, except to play occasional rounds of golf. Even out of power in his twilight years, he remained a threat to the leaders who followed him.

There were no eulogies, possibly due to a dispute between the family and government over how Zhao would be remembered, AP reported.

China's number four leader, Jia Qinglin, attended Saturday's memorial and expressed condolences on behalf of President Hu Jintao and other leaders, Xinhua reported.

Mourners on a government-approved guest list were allowed to attend the service, with security agents demanding identification. Hundreds of police and security agents patrolled nearby streets.

Most Chinese will remember Zhao as a well-meaning, honest official, CNN's Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime Florcruz Florcruz said, but as someone who was not good at political maneuvering.

"He was a very pragmatic leader, and he was very successful in provincial level market reforms in the early years," said Tang Wenfang, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

In the late 1980s, when Zhao rose to become China's premier and later party chief, he stood out by pushing political reforms, but he clashed with conservative leaders as students gathered to agitate for freedom and democracy.

He was last seen in public in May 1989, when he visited hunger strikers at the square.
"We have come too late," he tearfully told the students.

But Zhao may have been too early for his time, political analysts say.

"Hard-line conservative leaders were not ready for market reform, and so there was a lot of ideological resistance to his initiatives, policy initiatives," Tang said.

Zhai Weimin, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests, said Zhao was "a daring and resolute reformer ... but he was not as good at political maneuvering as the other leaders were."

Very Discreetly, China Buries Zhao, Its Troublesome Ex-Leader

By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, Saturday, Jan. 29 - Some 2,000 mourners and at least that many police officers turned out Saturday for a heavily restricted funeral service for Zhao Ziyang, as authorities took steps to ensure that the final commemoration of Mr. Zhao, the former leader, would not touch off anti-government protests.

Buffeted by icy winds under a bright winter sky, well-wishers from a list approved by party officials were escorted under guard through Babaoshan cemetery in western Beijing. Groups of mourners, five at a time, were shuffled through a reception hall where they viewed Mr. Zhao's body, covered to the neck by the party's red hammer-and-sickle flag, and paid respects to his daughter, sons and other relatives.

There was no eulogy, reflecting a standoff between the family and the authorities over how to honor the former prime minister and party chief. Mr. Zhao helped initiate China's economic reforms in the 1980's, but was purged for opposing the violent crackdown on democracy protesters in 1989.

The service took place under an official veil of silence, with no advance word in state-run media. Only mainland Chinese who registered their names were allowed to enter the cemetery, where many party leaders are buried.

Uniformed and plainclothes police lined the streets and prevented foreigners, journalists, unregistered visitors and petitioners from approaching, sometimes shoving people off the sidewalks to make sure no crowd gathered. Several people were detained.

After the service, the official New China News Agency issued a dispatch noting that Jia Qinglin, a member of the Politburo standing committee, and three other party and government leaders attended the service on behalf of the current leadership "to express condolences to his family."

The news agency also released a traditional "life assessment" of Mr. Zhao, which summarized his career. It struck a more balanced tone than previous official statements, which merely restated Mr. Zhao's political crimes.

"He made beneficial contributions to the party and the people," the assessment said, before adding, "In the political turmoil of the spring and summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao Ziyang committed grave errors."

It did not mention that Mr. Zhao was considered an architect of China's market-oriented economic policies, nor that he was purged and placed under house arrest.

Mr. Zhao became a symbol of defiance when he opposed the decision by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to use the army to crush protests in central Beijing in 1989.

Party leaders, many of whom owe their positions to decisions made after Mr. Zhao lost power, have long worried that his death could bring back memories of the Tiananmen massacre among democracy campaigners. They are also on high alert because of a surge in popular protests over widespread corruption, land confiscations and the country's growing wealth gap.

But intense security made any organized dissent unlikely. Writer, lawyers, teachers, former officials and others suspected by authorities of sympathizing with Mr. Zhao were kept under watch and denied permission to attend the funeral.

"The main fear is that there would be marches and slogans - things they can't control - so they've locked up all the liveliest activists and anybody who might speak out," said Hu Jia, who promotes rights of farmers and AIDS victims. "Zhao's fate symbolizes China's over the past 15 years: the economy has become more diverse, but the political system remains inert and lifeless."

BEIJING, Jan. 29 - Deng Xiaoping, China's late paramount leader, famously declared after he consolidated power in the early 1980's that his predecessor, Mao Zedong, was 70 percent good and 30 percent bad. With that numerical coda, the Communist Party closed a historical debate that had threatened to tear it apart.

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party and China's top leader, assigned no precise ratio to assess his late predecessor, Zhao Ziyang. But Mr. Hu clearly struggled to find the right balance in managing the politically explosive death of Mr. Zhao, who was officially memorialized and cremated on Saturday.

The test of whether Mr. Hu succeeded may be less the event itself, conducted with martial discipline, than whether society and the Communist Party ultimately accept the verdict on Mr. Zhao, political analysts said.

Mr. Zhao, an architect of China's economic reforms in the 1980's, openly defied the party he once led when he opposed the use of force against democracy protesters in 1989. Although he was never charged with a crime, Mr. Zhao was purged and spent his remaining years under house arrest, becoming an unlikely hero for China's scattered opposition.

BEIJING, Jan. 20 - The Chinese authorities will hold a low-key funeral service for Zhao Ziyang, the purged Communist Party chief, and have given permission for his burial in a cemetery reserved for senior party officials, a government spokesman and members of his family said Thursday.

The decision signals a softening of the government's position on how to handle Mr. Zhao's death. Top officials previously banned nearly all news coverage and denied Mr. Zhao the usual honors accorded to senior leaders when they die.

It remains unclear whether the party will present a eulogy at the funeral, as would be customary.

Mr. Zhao, who died Monday at the age of 85, lost power in 1989 after he opposed the use of force against democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and spent nearly 16 years under house arrest.

The authorities have scaled back the police presence at Mr. Zhao's house in central Beijing, allowing more mourners to visit the memorial shrine that his family set up there. At least two popular Web-based discussion sites began allowing people to post comments about him.

by Lee Siegel

"Is it a revolt?" asked the blithely detached Louis XVI when a servant informed him that the Bastille had been stormed by a mob in Paris. "No, your majesty," the man replied. "It is a revolution."

It sure was. As the History Channel's documentary, "The French Revolution" -- airing tonight -- vividly relates, the violent overthrow of Louis' top-heavy ancien regime was the mother, and the model, of all revolutions. No wonder President Bush and his Jacobins have such a bee in their bonnets about the French. The Bush administration tried to have a revolution in Iraq, but nobody came.

American troops swept into Iraq to instigate a "regime change" from dictatorship to democracy. That sounds like an attempt at revolution if ever there was one. The problem is that revolutions have to be homegrown to be effective. As the French example proves, a revolution is really a long social and political evolution that finally explodes.

Many of the American theoreticians behind "regime change" thought they could succeed because they remembered the constitutions and new forms of government imposed by the United States on Germany and Japan after World War II. But that was different. In that case, the United States served, in effect, as midwife to the liberal, democratic forces that Adolf Hitler and Japan's militarists had repressed. And a very financially generous midwife at that.

In fact, there never has been a successful revolution in modern times that was conducted in a country by a foreign power. Calling a revolution "regime change," as if such a radical transformation of politics and society were a simple technical matter — like upgrading your software — isn't going to set a precedent.

France's historical upheaval had deep roots in decades of conflict between the king and his nobles and between the upper classes and the seething poor. The radical notions of the French Enlightenment were part of it too, but those ideas themselves had been developed much earlier by French thinkers like Montesquieu and Descartes. In 1789, what all the antagonists shared was the common context of a very old national identity. As a schoolboy, Robespierre — the revolution's principal architect — composed an homage to France and to the king that he personally recited to Louis (whom Robespierre would later order beheaded, along with 35,000 other French citizens). Rightly or wrongly, each party in the revolution identified its goals with the glory of la patrie.

In contrast, when Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis, secularists and Kurds — buffeted by centuries of colonization, partition and exploitation — think about Iraq, they are mostly thinking about a shelter, or a base, for their particular aspirations.

So why does the Bush crowd keep insisting on making a revolution from the outside, without the complicity of the people on whose behalf it's being made, in a place that lacks the historical conditions for a successful transformation? It's simple. American conservatives have a bad case of revolution-envy.

Let's face it, our revolution was nice, but it wasn't awesome. George III, thousands of miles away, was hardly a tyrant. His ministers were constantly trying to reform rule in the Colonies. We weren't being tortured in dungeons, allowed to starve, sent off to war.

On the contrary. American Colonists flourished and grew rich. And when the Colonists tired of liberal financial policy — i.e., high taxes — and declared independence from big government in London, the horrors of war were minor, historically speaking. It really was not so much a revolution as a revolt. The real embarrassment is that the most romantic figure of the whole affair was Lafayette. A Frenchman.

No wonder conservatives anoint their slightest political triumph a "revolution." There was the Reagan revolution, and then there was the Gingrich revolution. Some people even like to talk about the Bush revolution. ("Is it a regime change?" "No, Mr. President. That was your alarm clock.")

Given their envy of the French, Bush and his own Robespierre wannabe, Karl Rove, might well tune in to tonight's two-hour special. If they do, they'll discover an American indebtedness to the French that is sure to trouble them in more ways than one. For it was Louis XVI who bankrolled the American Revolution, thus impoverishing his government and opening the door to the events of 1789. Louis, you see, wanted to avenge his father's defeat by the British in the Seven Years' War.

Lee Siegel is the television critic of the New Republic and book critic of the Nation. In 2002, he was the recipient of the National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.

Mr. Zhao's role at Tiananmen came to overshadow his other legacy as a principal architect of the sweeping economic changes that began in the 1980's under Deng Xiaoping, then China's paramount leader. Mr. Zhao pushed to develop coastal provinces with special economic zones that could lure foreign investment and create export hubs - the blueprint for what is the backbone of the current Chinese economy.

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