Reading the Tiananmen Papers

The publication of the "Tiananmen Papers," a set of documents purporting to be high-level Chinese government records concerning the June 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, caused major headlines around the globe. The papers were significant mainly because they reflected serious divisions within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the "June 4th" incident. As one of the participants during "June 4th," I believe that these documents once again prove beyond doubt that the real reason for the crackdown was to maintain the power held by the ruling elites, and not to "restore social order" as was afterwards claimed.

Such motivations are now reflected clearly in the historical record. The Tiananmen papers show the worries of Deng Xiaoping and others that they would be placed under house arrest, or even that a civil war would break out. Furthermore, these worries are more directly related to the political opposition within the party than to the students and the demonstrators. When the "Tiananmen Papers" are read carefully, we can restore history to its original color. As time passes, and as more and more people start to question what really happened during "June 4th," the publication of The "Tiananmen Papers" will help to shed light on many of these controversies.

For example, the official position on the protests in China is that the students had steadfastly refused to compromise. Their refusals, the position goes, exacerbated the tensions, forcing the reluctant government to use force as a last resort. The records in the "Tiananmen Papers," however, show in fact that what happened was the exact opposite.

What the "Tiananmen Papers" reveal is that the CCP refused to compromise at every step. During the Politburo meeting held on May 13th, 1989, then-Secretary of the CCP Zhao Zhiyang proposed the retraction of an April 26 editorial in the People's Daily that had defined the student movement as "anti-revolutionary turmoil." The April 26 editorial was one of the two reasons listed by the students for their hunger strike, and it is not difficult to imagine that, had a retraction indeed taken place, the two sides might have arrived at a basis for future compromises. At that meeting, however, Premier Li Peng adamantly opposed such a retraction, invoking Deng's words that the April 26 editorial "must never be changed."

Later, on May 17, Deng himself expressed during a Politburo meeting that "Compromises right now are surrenders to their [the students'] values, and to not compromise we must insist on the position of the April 26 editorial." The April 26 editorial was one of the focal points of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, for it demonstrated how the CCP had from the beginning perceived the students' protests as a "turmoil" that threatened its power.

The editorial was the main reason why the students extended the scope of their protests from commemorations of the late CCP secretary Hu Yaobang to also include a call for more fair evaluations of their movement. The "Tiananmen Papers" also show that the April 26 editorial was the result of much political maneuvering on the part of the conservatives within the CCP, led by Li Peng and Chen Xitong, then mayor of Beijing.

In Chen's early reports to Deng, for instance, the student petitions were exaggerated and distorted, and were described as "attacks" on key government offices. Later, Li would use the occasion of a visit by Zhao Ziyang's to North Korea as the chance to push Deng to define the student movement, whose words were then used as the blueprint for the April 26 editorial. It seems clear that these actions were all politically motivated, and the student movement was used by Li as a way to attack the reform faction in the CCP led by Zhao Ziyang. Once the protests were over, Zhao's faction was stripped of power. It does not seem difficult to understand, then, why Li Peng steadily refused to compromise on the April 26 editorial issue.

The "Tiananmen Papers" are minutes of meetings, and as such do not fully describe the political scene with all its hidden political transactions. I do believe, however, that as more and more participants come forward, all the facts of what happened during "June 4th" will soon be clearly revealed--in a way that the Chinese government cannot ignore.

Wang Dan was a leader of the Chinese student democracy movement in 1989 and was subsequently imprisoned for his participation. He is now a student at the Kennedy School of Government.