Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (33 page)

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t the 13th Party Congress [in 1987], we discussed not just economic reform but also political reform. It was raised in the context of how to improve socialist democracy. At that time the political environment was relaxed. Metaphysical and theoretical studies, culture and the arts—all were vibrant. At the same time, during the ten years of reform we were being influenced from abroad, by Western values, concepts, and political systems. Moreover, the Soviet Union’s policy toward political dissidents had changed through glasnost. All of these things encouraged China’s intellectuals, youths, and young workers to demand more democracy.

We should have taken advantage of the situation to carry out the political reform measures that had been approved by the 13th Party Congress: separating Party and state, installing a civil service system, informing people of important developments, consulting with people on key issues, experimenting with democratic procedures in organizations made up of intellectuals, satisfying intellectuals’ demands for political participation, and so forth. If we had been able to carry out what had already been decided, we could have won over the vast majority of people who had hoped for more democracy through these channels. We could have expanded democracy via the gradual approach approved by the 13th Party Congress, and strengthened the development of democratic politics. The demands of most people would have been satisfied, leaving only small, insignificant groups of extremists.

However, after the 13th Party Congress, it was difficult to do political reform. First of all, the Party elders, including Comrade Deng Xiaoping, had differing opinions on economic reform but shared one opinion on political reform: they were opposed to changing the basics of the existing system. They feared that any real political reform would lead to challenges to the Communist Party’s power, thereby weakening the Party or even causing it to lose its ruling position.

When drafting the 13th Party Congress Political Report, I was repeatedly warned by [Deng] Xiaoping not to be influenced by the Western concept of a tripartite separation of powers. He went so far as to say that not even a trace of this should be allowed to appear in the Political Report. What he intended by “reform of the political system” was in fact merely administrative reforms: simplification of organizations, streamlining of personnel, reduction of bureaucratic red tape, improved efficiency, etc. None of these touched upon the most essential problems in the political system.

I then thought about enriching and improving the system of “cooperation by and in consultation with other political parties under the leadership of the Communist Party.” Those other parties could be made truly useful if they were allowed real political participation, if the system were genuinely functional instead of just in name. We could make the other political parties active and truly useful, with their political participation acting as a check. It would allow those people in society who had a strong desire for political participation to fulfill their wishes through joining other political parties, which would not yield when opposing the Party; something that would be outside of any existing framework. Doing this would constitute a kind of distribution of power, so that the Communist Party would not monopolize it all. However, it absolutely would not challenge the Communist Party’s ruling position. For this purpose, I proposed changing “multiparty cooperation system under the Communist Party” to “multiparty cooperation system with the Communist Party’s leadership.” The change was not a major one, but “leadership” was a political matter, while “under” also included an organizational aspect.

I also suggested that skilled people from other political parties be promoted to positions of Vice Minister or even Minister levels in various branches of the State Council. This had been done in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. Also, on some issues, other political parties should no longer have to wait to be informed by the Communist Party only after it had made a final decision. We should be able to hear the opinions of other parties before making decisions. This would make it a “consultation” in reality, not just in name. The promotion of members of other political parties to leadership positions in ministries had won Deng Xiaoping’s approval, and he had said, “Do it as soon as possible.”

Also, there was the issue of how to develop the potential of other parties. As long as there were going to be political parties, they should be parties with real political participation. That meant that they ought to function as real political parties, not just as a single representative at the National People’s Congress.

These were ideas that I had in mind at the time, though without resolute certainty.

Some people wondered: If the Communist Party could establish leading groups during National People’s Congress sessions, would other political parties be allowed to establish their own leading groups? I don’t know how this matter was relayed to Deng, but [his daughter] Deng Maomao sent a message to me via my secretary Li Yong: “When Deng spoke of expanding participation by other political parties, he was just talking. How can this be taken seriously? We absolutely must not allow other political parties to establish their leading groups during NPC sessions.” Deng was opposed to this idea and had sent this message.

We could not even complete and bring substance to a system we already had in place, a system that had everyone’s approval. Imagine how difficult it would be to put through any other reforms.

On the question of the separation of Party and state powers, many Party members were worried about implementing the factory managers’ responsibility scheme—and their resistance was fierce. Many local Party committees were opposed. They were used to the Party committee managing everything, with a monopoly on all powers, over the Party and administration. The final decision maker was the Party secretary.

Implementing a separation of Party and state powers would strip the Party secretary of real power. Therefore, local-level officials refused to make the factory director a principal leader and the legal representative. The result would have been that the Party secretary no longer made all factory decisions, but would mainly be in charge of Party and political affairs.

Separation of Party and state powers and the factory managers’ responsibility system did in fact touch upon the issue of the distribution of powers, so those who already had power were unwilling to give it up. The reform was therefore extremely difficult to carry out.

I had said before that we needed to strengthen and reform our political and propaganda work, and that it was a major issue. Strengthening politics and propaganda while implementing reform was of course the right thing to do; the question was how to strengthen it.

If we followed the old methods to implement this, we would end up with the opposite of what we had intended. Even though our politics and propaganda work had achieved positive things in the past, after 1957—for nearly twenty years—our politics and propaganda had been focused on class struggle. The politics and propaganda that had taken class struggle as its central focus viewed people as objects to be changed and controlled. Therefore, political and propaganda work had never used reasoning or tried to persuade, but had relied on coercion and labeling. The class struggle–based politics and propaganda had been seriously damaging and had created some of the worst habits. At the same time, there were problems with political affairs having become seriously bureaucratized. The organization was huge, with large numbers of nonproductive people.

Therefore, I proposed reforming political and propaganda work, which meant fundamentally changing how it had been done—continuing some of the good traditions formed in the war years, while searching for ways to reinvent political and propaganda working methods. Primarily, we needed to search anew and reinvent.

My raising of this issue caused great unrest. Many elder comrades were opposed, as were comrades of Party committees at various local levels. Those who were doing political and propaganda work in the factories, and the large number of people across the country who relied on political and propaganda work for a living, believed that they were about to be pushed aside.

I felt back then how difficult China’s economic reform had been at every step, and how little room there had been for taking risks. Any little problem that emerged provoked opposition.

In political reform, however, every step was even more difficult. Because political reform was in certain respects changing the way the Communist Party governed, the way it exercised power, and the way it dealt with things, in the end it had to change the way the Party itself viewed power and its own monopoly on power. Therefore, resistance was tremendous.

The resistance to political reform primarily came from the leadership, at all levels within the Party. If economic reform can be said to have easily gained the support of the “dukes,”
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political reform met with their reluctance and resistance. I felt very strongly that China’s top-down and gradual approach of reforming the economic system was workable, but for political reform, the situation was truly much more difficult.

However, I also felt that if the political system were not reformed, economic reform would run into difficulties as it continued to be deepened. For example, the standards for cadre promotions hadn’t changed. Even though China had already implemented ten years of reform, we had never attempted to resolve the imperative of putting people who supported reform in charge at various levels of leadership. Therefore, reform could not withstand any rocking of the boat.

Some local authorities had taken pragmatic attitudes in dealing with reform; they had done whatever was beneficial to them and resisted anything that might harm their interests. They would expand whatever worked to their benefit, and they would limit in scope whatever worked against their interests.

There was also the problem of corruption. In 1988, I spent the Spring Festival holiday in Guangdong. After I learned more about the situation there, I had a profound sense of how reforming the economy had revitalized it, but also that corruption had emerged. At the time, I proposed that “the economy must prosper, but the government must stay clean.” By “government” here I meant the cadres, those in power. Afterward, I became increasingly aware that “being clean” was a major challenge.

During the transition period from old to new economic systems, without checks, corruption was bound to grow, in the form of power-money exchanges, official profiteering, official monopoly of businesses, and bribery. To resolve these kinds of corruption issues, the key was transparency and democratic supervision, including scrutiny by the press and public opinion, and an independent judiciary.

In other words, this was the issue of political reform. Without an independent judiciary, the courts could not judge a case with a disinterested attitude, the procurator could not exercise power independently, and even laws that were in place could not be carried out. This touched upon the issue of the judiciary’s relationship with the Party. I deeply believed that the political system needed to be reformed accordingly; of course, not via a wholesale copying of the West, but rather, something appropriate to China’s situation: gradually adding democracy and checks and balances to the Communist Party’s way of ruling. Power absolutely could not be monopolized and it needed checks.

Almost no Party elders supported this kind of reform. The reality was that political reform was at a standstill. This created a problem. On the one hand, we had people making increasingly strong demands for democracy and an acceleration of political reform; on the other hand, no action had been taken on political reform since the 13th Party Congress. There was a wide gap between the people’s demands, especially the intellectuals’ demands, and the Party’s intentions.

Because the political environment was still relatively relaxed, people spoke out boldly—unlike after June Fourth, when the political environment became highly repressive. The contrast between reality and public demand only intensified the desire for democracy, to the point that extreme ideas were expressed and actions taken that aggravated the conflict. Suggestions were made that a Western parliamentary system be implemented. A student by the name of Chen Jun, who had been studying in the United States, came back to China to organize well-known intellectuals to demand the release of [prominent dissident] Wei Jingsheng. There was a signature petition campaign in the United States to issue an open letter to Deng Xiaoping demanding Wei’s release. Similar activities took place in Hong Kong. In 1989, during the National People’s Congress, a Hong Kong delegation demanded human rights and the release of Wei Jingsheng. There were many activities in the universities as well. There were various kinds of salons and forums in which extreme ideas were expressed. Some intellectuals who held extreme views went to universities and colleges to give speeches expressing their disaffection. [Dissident astrophysicist] Fang Lizhi, who was abroad, attacked Deng Xiaoping personally, by name.

All of this offered an excuse to those who opposed reform in the name of anti-liberalization. They used these occurrences to provoke the Party elders and make them and Deng even more anxious, and convince them that not even a shred of relaxation should be allowed in the political realm.