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| THE TIANANMEN PAPERS | |
 January 11, 2001  |
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Secret documents apparently smuggled out of China may reveal the internal politics behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The documents from such a critical period are remarkable, says the U.S. Ambassador to China at the time.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The student gatherings in Beijing began in April 1989 as a funeral tribute to a pro-reform Communist Party leader. As the demonstrations grew in size and vehemence, party officials discussed their options. A leading moderate was party secretary Zhao Ziyang, who urged patience and restraint. In an April 18 telephone conversation, according to the documents, he told China's president:
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But others considered the situation more urgent. In a top level meeting on May 10, Premier Li Peng, a leading hardliner, said:
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: By mid-May hundreds of students had begun a hunger strike and the number of demonstrators in cities throughout China grew to 100 million, according to the book. On May 15, Soviet President Gorbachev arrived in Beijing for a meeting which also drew hundreds of foreign journalists. By then, some party leaders' patience was wearing thin. At a May 17 meeting at his home, Deng Xiaoping, the party's most influential elder, spoke.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Zhao Ziyang, the leading moderate, dissented. Later that night he said:
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: After the resignation, party leaders chose Zeng
Zemin, then Shanghai Party Secretary to become the new Communist Party
Secretary, though the appointment wasn't made public till after the
crackdown. He is now China's president.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The ultimate leader, Deng Xiaoping, wasn't at that meeting, but he passed this message along through someone who was. DENG XIAOPING (as paraphrased by then-President Yang Shangkun): (through interpreter) The Martial Law Command must make it quite clear to all units that they are to open fire only as a last resort. And let me repeat: No bloodshed within Tiananmen Square - period. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That night, the troops moved into the center of Beijing. They did not fire in the square, but did shoot at people on surrounding streets. And China lives with the consequences still. |
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| An official denial | |||||||||||
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ANDREW NATHAN: The compiler who brought them out has taken a tremendous risk. So I'm afraid I can't tell you very much about it. But he approached me some time ago and said that he had an enormous number of documents -- he wanted to get the story out. And I told him that in order to do so needed to reduce that to a form that people could understand. So he put it together in a book form, a Chinese book, which will be published in March or April. And from that book my colleagues and I have produced the English book that you showed, which is only about one third as long as the Chinese book. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why do you think he came to you?
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ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: The images from June 1989 seem to stop time. The world watched
as China's army cleared out Tiananmen Square and the rest of Beijing,
where hundred of thousands of students and others had been demonstrating
for democratic reforms. An exact accounting of the dead hasn't been
available. The Chinese government says around 200 were killed but other
estimates are as high as several thousand. The decision to send in the
army was made in top-level Communist Party meetings in the park-like
compound known as Zhongnanhai, and in the final days before the crackdown
at meetings in party elder Deng Xiaoping's home. 
A
new book, The Tiananmen Papers, features what purports to be
minutes of the meetings where the key decisions were made. Those minutes
plus other documents were made available to American China scholar Andrew
Nathan by someone identified only by a pseudonym, Zhang Liang. He writes
in the preference to the book: "As a witness to the events as well
as a participant, I feel it is my duty to the Chinese people and to
history to publish a complete and faithful record of the decisions that
lay behind what happened." 
JAMES
LILLEY: I think we read it fairly accurately but we didn't have the
inside story and this tells you that. 
ZHAO
ZIYANG: (through interpreter) I've been on the phone with comrade Li
Ximing to ask that the city government keep a close watch on the students'
activities to ensure stability during the mourning period. On the whole,
I think we should affirm the students' patriotism.
LI
PENG: (through interpreter) Students have stopped obeying campus rules
and are thumbing their noses at local regulations about marches and
demonstrations…How is this different from the Cultural Revolution?
If we let it go, this could pull our whole country into a morass of
chaos.
DENG
XIAOPING: (through interpreter) We want to build a socialist democracy,
but we can't possibly do it in a hurry, and still less do we want that
Western-style stuff…if things continue like this, we could even
end up under house arrest. After thinking long and hard about this,
I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Liberation Army
and declare martial law in Beijing.
ZHAO
ZIYANG: (through interpreter) To impose martial law will not help calm
things down or solve problems. It will only make things more complicated
and more sharply confrontational…the Chinese people cannot take
any more huge policy blunders…My duties must end here today; I
cannot continue to serve.
LI
PENG: (through interpreter) Late last night a counter-revolutionary
riot broke out in Beijing…we have to be absolutely firm in putting
down this counterrevolutionary riot in the capital. We must be merciless
with the tiny minority of riot elements.
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: On Tuesday, China's foreign ministry denounced the papers.
A spokesman said: "Any attempt to play up the matter again and
disrupt China by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting
facts will be futile." With us now is Andrew Nathan, co-editor
of The Tiananmen Papers. He is a professor of political science
at Columbia University. Professor Nathan, tell us as much as you can
about how you got these papers. 
ANDREW