Authorities Control Commemorations for Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang

March 2, 2006

Chinese authorities controlled private events during January 2006 that commemorated the death of former Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang on January 17, 2005, according to news media sources. Officials held no public commemorations of the anniversary, and restricted privately organized ceremonies.

Chinese authorities controlled private events during January 2006 that commemorated the death of former Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang on January 17, 2005, according to news media sources. Officials held no public commemorations of the anniversary, and restricted privately organized ceremonies. Authorities in Beijing detained Li Jinping, who planned to hold a private commemoration at home on January 8, 2006. Officials also placed dozens of people who planned to attend under house arrest, according to January 9 reports from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. Authorities allowed prominent rights activists Ding Zilin, Jiang Peikun, and Liu Xiaobo to pay respects at the Zhao family home in Beijing, according to January 19 articles in the Straits Times and Radio Free Asia (in Chinese).

The absence of public commemorations of Zhao Ziyang's death and official controls on private memorial events contrasts with the large official commemoration on the 90th anniversary of former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang's birth on November 18, 2005. About 300 current and retired officials and intellectuals attended the closed-door event, which was organized by the Party Central Committee, according to a November 15, 2005 New York Times article.

Many Chinese citizens continue to honor both Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, considering them to have been forward-looking leaders who intended to reform the Communist Party. Hu's death on April 15, 1989, became the catalyst for the “Beijing Spring” democracy movement led by students and workers that the Party leadership ordered the People’s Liberation Army to brutally suppress at Tiananmen Square on June 3 and 4, 1989. Zhao Ziyang served as Party General Secretary during the 1989 protests, but was purged for opposing the use of force against the students.