Zhao Ziyang

Early Life and Cultural Revolution

Zhao Ziyang, born Zhao Xiuye, was born on 17 October 1919 in Zhaozhuang village, Sangcun township, Hua County, Henan, to a comparatively well-off farming family; he adopted the name 'Ziyang' himself while attending middle school in Wuhan. He joined the Communist Youth League in 1932 and became a full CCP member in February 1938. During the war with Japan he served as secretary of the Hua County Party Committee, undertaking Party and military work in the base areas; during the civil war he held posts including deputy political commissar of the Tongbai Military District and secretary of the Nanyang Prefectural Committee. According to some accounts, his father, Zhao Tingbin, died following a struggle session during land reform, though sources disagree on the precise circumstances and timing, and this episode is often cited — without direct documentation from Zhao himself — as a formative influence on his later reformist views. After 1949, he rose steadily through Guangdong provincial posts: standing committee member of the South China Sub-Bureau (1950), the sub-bureau's secretary-general (1952), head of its Rural Work Department (1953), its third secretary (1954), and Guangdong deputy Party secretary (1955), before becoming Guangdong's first Party secretary in April 1965 at age 46. During the Cultural Revolution he was stripped of all posts in 1967, denounced as a 'filial son of the landlord class,' and paraded through the streets; on 30 June 1970 he was sent with his wife and two teenage children to labour at the Xiangzhong Machinery Factory in Lianyuan County, Hunan, for roughly four years. In May 1971, under Zhou Enlai's protection, he was rehabilitated and posted to Inner Mongolia as Party secretary and Vice Chairman of its Revolutionary Committee overseeing agricultural and pastoral production, serving until March 1972; he was elected to the 10th Central Committee in August 1973, returned to Guangdong as first Party secretary in April 1974, and was transferred to Sichuan as first Party secretary and concurrently Political Commissar of the Chengdu Military Region in late 1975.

Economic Reformer

In Sichuan, he pioneered the household responsibility system that decollectivised agriculture and produced dramatic increases in food production — so dramatic that the phrase 'to eat, seek Zhao Ziyang' became a popular saying. This success caught Deng Xiaoping's attention. Zhao served as Premier from 10 September 1980 to 24 November 1987, overseeing much of the economic reform programme through the 1980s.

General Secretary and Political Reformer

After Hu Yaobang's forced resignation in January 1987, Zhao Ziyang became acting General Secretary, formally confirmed in the post at the 13th Party Congress on 1 November 1987. He was Deng Xiaoping's chosen successor for a second time — though the relationship between them was always complex, with Zhao pushing the boundaries of reform further than Deng was comfortable. Zhao supported political liberalisation alongside economic reform, arguing that the two were inseparable. He encouraged a more open press, allowed greater academic freedom, and was receptive to arguments that meaningful economic reform required corresponding political change.

Tiananmen and House Arrest

On 15 April 1989, Hu Yaobang died, triggering mass protests. When the protests broke out, Zhao Ziyang was on a state visit to North Korea; on 26 April, Li Peng convened a Politburo meeting in his absence, after which People's Daily published the '26 April editorial' branding the student movement 'turmoil.' On 4 May, Zhao delivered a notably more conciliatory speech at the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting. On 17 May Deng Xiaoping convened the Politburo Standing Committee, together with Yang Shangkun, at his home. According to Zhao's own account in his memoir (published in Chinese as Gaige licheng and in English as Prisoner of the State), Zhao proposed revising the verdict of the 26 April editorial, Hu Qili supported him, Li Peng and Yao Yilin opposed, and Qiao Shi took no clear position; Yang Shangkun, relaying a proposal by Liao Hansheng, asked whether martial law might be considered; Deng then decided "to bring troops into Beijing and impose martial law" and named Li Peng, Yang Shangkun and Qiao Shi to carry it out. Zhao said the Standing Committee members present were split "two against two, with one neutral" and that "there was no question of three to two". In the early hours of 19 May, he visited hunger-striking students in Tiananmen Square together with Li Peng and Wen Jiabao, delivering his last public words — 'we have come too late' — widely interpreted as an expression of sympathy for the students; it was his final public appearance. On 20 May, Li Peng formally declared martial law in Beijing. On 4 June, the military cleared the square. From 19 to 21 June, an enlarged Politburo meeting was convened to build the case against Zhao; on 23–24 June, the 4th Plenum of the 13th Central Committee formally stripped him of all his positions, branding him guilty of 'supporting turmoil and splitting the party,' and placed him under house arrest in Beijing. He remained confined to his residence at No. 6 Fuqiang Hutong for the last fifteen years of his life, forbidden to make public statements or receive foreign visitors, though he was never expelled from the Party nor formally tried.

Secret Memoir

During his house arrest, Zhao wrote to Party leaders on multiple occasions requesting a reassessment of the 4 June crackdown, including letters before the 15th Party Congress in 1997 and around the time of Bill Clinton's 1998 visit to China, but received no response. Zhao died on 17 January 2005 at a Beijing hospital, at the age of 85; he had been hospitalised with pneumonia since 5 December 2004 and had been comatose since 15 January. On 29 January, a farewell ceremony held at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery grounds was tightly restricted: roughly 2,000 vetted mourners were permitted to attend, no wreaths or condolence messages were allowed, and no eulogy was delivered because the authorities and his family could not agree on its content; several dissidents, including Bao Tong and Ding Zilin, were barred from attending. He was ultimately denied formal burial at Babaoshan, and his ashes remained at his family home for fourteen years before being interred at Tianshouyuan Cemetery north of Beijing in October 2019. In his final years, he secretly recorded his memoirs onto roughly thirty cassette tapes between 1999 and 2000, which were smuggled out of China with the help of associates including Bao Pu — the son of his aide Bao Tong, not Zhao's own son, as is sometimes mistakenly reported. Published in Hong Kong on 14 May 2009 as 'Prisoner of the State,' the memoir was edited by Bao Pu, Renee Chiang, and Time editor Adi Ignatius, with a foreword by historian Roderick MacFarquhar; it presented his account of the Tiananmen events and his view that China needed to move toward constitutional democracy. It remains banned in mainland China. Zhao Ziyang is remembered as the highest-ranking victim of Tiananmen — and as the last Chinese top leader who publicly argued for political liberalisation.