Zhao Ziyang Research Articles

Population Control Is a Major Problem That Impinges on the Development of the Economy and the Society as a Whole (October 25, 1987)

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from a report made by Comrade Zhao Ziyang at the Thirteenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The title here is made up by the editor, and added.

Some Questions That Need to Be Addressed in Implementing Coastal Development Strategy

The center and the State Council have already discussed and approved the development strategy for China's coastal areas as proposed by Comrade Zhao Ziyang. Below are my personal views concerning major issues that need to be addressed in implementing this strategy, which I put forth for public discussion.

The Control Over the Growth of the Population Is Something to Which the Entire Society Must Pay Great Attention (November 30, 1982)

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Comrade Zhao Ziyang's report to the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress. The title here is made up by the editor, and added.

Sirens of the Strongman: Neo-Authoritarianism in Recent Chinese Political Theory

China's year of upheaval, 1989, was full of incongruities. For example, students invoked the historic struggle of intellectuals to “revive China,” while at the same time erecting statues modelled after the symbol of a foreign power with a long history of objectionable conduct toward their country. One of the most interesting incongruities, however, emerged not in the streets, but in the pages of Chinese journals. Highly-placed intellectuals debated the theory of neo-authoritarianism, a doctrine new to the People's Republic, but one which reflects the policy prescriptions of pre-revolutionary Chinese leaders and contemporary Third World strongmen. Advocates of the doctrine were ideologically and, in some cases, organizationally, close to Zhao Ziyang, then the general secretary of the world's largest Communist Party, but their theory was classically conservative. The debate, moreover, was waged without reference to Marxism by either proponents or opponents.

Editors' Introduction

The theory of the "great international cycle" (guoji da xunhuan) was worked out by two young researchers in the Economic Planning Institute of the State Planning Commission, Wang Jian and Pei Xiaolin. Wang Jian participated in the drafting of background material for the strategic section of Zhao Ziyang's report to the Thirteenth Party Congress, which helped stimulate his thinking on the subject. The idea of the great international cycle was first circulated internally in a Xinhua publication in August 1987, and a proposal drafted by Wang landed on Zhao's desk while the party congress was in session. A few days later, Zhao endorsed the idea at a central work conference, saying, "I think it makes sense."1

The rhetoric ofHe Shang:From cultural criticism to social act

The television miniseries He shang (River elegy) was produced in 1988, when much of the Chinese public was growing restive with economic instability and unprecedented inflation. As further economic and political reforms appeared stalled in quarrels among national leaders, public perception focused on the official corruption and nepotism that was monopolizing the new avenues of opportunity that had supposedly been opened up to the society at large by the recent reforms. Censorship of public expression was increasingly relaxed across a broad range of social and aesthetic topics, yet prominent intellectuals within the party who criticized the political system too directly were still being stripped of their party memberships and appointments within party-state cultural institutions. There was a widely repeated notion of a nation potentially in crisis, with consequent opportunities for either bold innovative improvements or fateful miscalculations for the worse. He shang brought to the rapidly expanding medium of Chinese television a vision of this crisis, and it represents the work of China's new generation of academic cultural critics and writers of reportage literature (baogao wenxue). The production may have been rushed and the footage pieced together from other projects, and thoughtful viewers may not have found answers to all the questions raised by the script, yet the miniseries was a showpiece of what was new in television, in cultural criticism, and in the nonfiction writing of literary reportage. The offense He shang gave some leaders (such as Wang Zhen, who condemned it), and the comfort the program gave others (such as Zhao Ziyang, who praised it) helped mark every major participant in the He shang project for state retribution a year later, when the power of Zhao Ziyang's patronage collapsed and the collaborators in the He shang production demonstrated their support for the democratic movement.

He shang and the plateau of ultrastability

A six-part television series entitled He shang (Yellow River elegy) caused an immediate national sensation when it was first broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV) beginning on 12 June 1988. A script of the documentary was published simultaneously and immediately became a best seller. In the following months the production inspired heated debates in China and in Chinese communities abroad. While local audience response was quite enthusiastic, some high-level leaders such as the veteran military commander and vice president Wang Zhen called the program “cultural nihilism” and accused it of advocating wholesale Westernization and of attacking the party and socialism. Reformers countered that He shang advocated official policies of “reform and opening up,” but in July the head of party ideology, Hu Qili, banned further broadcasts and began fostering criticism of the film. Nevertheless, with the blessing of a high-level party leader, most likely Zhao Ziyang himself, plus strong audience demand, He shang was rebroadcast nationwide on 15 August. Finally, at the September Party Central Committee Plenum it was once again banned from export and public broadcast.

The Political Economy of China's Coastal Development Strategy: A Preliminary Analysis

Since death of Mao Zedong and purge of Gang of Four in 1976, phrase kaifang zhengce (open policy) has appeared with increasing frequency in Chinese commentaries and policy pronouncements. The historical turning point marking beginning of open policy came in December 1978 at Third Plenary Session of 11th Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The communique of Third Plenum announced that China would actively expand economic cooperation with other countries and strive to adopt world's advanced technology and equipment. I On July 8, 1979, China formulated its new Law of People's Republic of China on Joint Venture Using Chinese and Foreign Investment, thereby taking a major step toward confirming and launching its open policy. The logic of open policy is different from logic of trade liberalization, which attempts to eliminate tariff and nontariff barriers for promotion of international free trade. In contrast, essence of ''open door is to attract and absorb foreign technology and capital to contribute to a self-reliant national construction. As Deng Xiaoping stated, the is being opened because Four Modernizations require it.2 A more accurate description of open policy is that it is outward-looking and stresses not only increased technological exchanges with other countries but also accelerated entry of Chinese products into world market. Zhao Ziyang argued that by linking our country with

Zhao Ziyang and the Politics of Inflation

Previous articleNext article No AccessZhao Ziyang and the Politics of InflationYou JiYou Ji Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 25Jan., 1991 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2158632 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs (1979-1995), which is continued by The China Journal (1995-present). Copyright Australian Journal of Chinese AffairsPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Chun Gan Chinese Media Delegations to Europe and the Reconstruction of Media Discourse on Europe in Post-Mao China (1978–1992), Europe-Asia Studies 74, no.88 (Aug 2022): 1459–1482.https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2022.2102149Rolf Aaberge, Kai Liu, Yu Zhu Political uncertainty and household savings, Journal of Comparative Economics 45, no.11 (Feb 2017): 154–170.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2015.12.011Rolf Aaberge, Liu Kai, Yu Zhu Political Uncertainty and Household Savings., SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2014).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2553807

Response to Zhao Ziyang

Abstract As the General Secretary of the party, Zhao Ziyang no doubt bears the major responsibility for the corruption and official speculation and profiteering within the party and the government. However, after his return from his Korean visit, Zhao's speech, entitled "Resolving Problems Within the Realm of Democracy and Law," which urged coolness, rationality, and control and order, demonstrated the correct attitude of a political leader toward the present movement. At the same time, it also delineated the possibility and conditions for the resolution of current problems through democratic and legal means. This speech, therefore, was well received by the public who now have a positive attitude toward him and hope that events can be resolved in accordance with the spirit of his speech.

An Open Letter to Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang

Comrades Xiaoping and Ziyang: We are a group of senior Chinese Communist Party members with thirty to forty years of membership in the party and as many years teaching the history of the Chinese Communist Party. As your comrades, we offer you comments and suggestions in a spirit of utmost urgency. We hope they will be of help to you in swiftly effecting a radical change in the current situation. This is the heartfelt hope of the people of the nation and all party comrades.

A Letter to Zhao Ziyang

To General Secretary Zhao Ziyang of the CCP Central Committee: With the sit-down hunger strike of Beijing college students still in progress on Tiananmen Square, the health and lives of the strikers are at grave risk. We are devastated by this critical situation. Out of concern for the students and in order to stabilize the situation, we urgently appeal to you as follows: 1. We feel that the current student movement is patriotic in nature and that the students' demands conform to the ideas of the State Council. We hope, therefore, that their reasonable requests can be resolved within the scope of democracy and law.

Open Letter to Citizens of the Republic, Compatriots, Students on the Hunger Strike, CCP Members, and Officers and Men of the PLA

Abstract With great sadness and anger, we want to announce to you an absolutely true piece of news over which we are extremely indignant: General Secretary Zhao Ziyang has been deprived of his right to manage the work of the Politburo. He has been replaced by Li Peng. Moreover, the decision has been made to take repressive measures tonight against the hunger strikers.

Public Political Consciousness in China: An Empirical Profile

Historically, the Chinese people have had a tradition of political apathy and ignorance, which James Townsend characterized as a popular isolation from politics.l However, the communist government made tremendous efforts to mobilize people's class consciousness during the 1950s to 1970s, and some outside observers have been amazed by the explosion (Townsend's term) among the Chinese population, especially the widespread participation in the Cultural Revolution. After entering the post-Mao era, however, the Chinese seemed to regress to the apolitical tradition. The current status of Chinese political mentality has drawn a great deal of attention among Chinese scholars and decision makers. Basically, the literature encompasses two competing perspectives: a theory maintaining that Chinese are still apathetic, apolitical, or politically immature, and a theory arguing that people's indifference to politics is the first step of departure from the unconscious mood. The sharp contrast between the two perspectives was manifested at a recent debate in Beijing over socalled neo-authoritarianism, a theory advocated by some political science advisers to former party leader Zhao Ziyang. Relying on the mass theory assumption, this school proposed a more authoritarian government to ensure the course of modernization in China. Many others, backed by the public theory arguments, strongly opposed this approach, holding that the success of modernization depends on more freedom and democ-

Aspects of Beijing's Crisis Management: The Tiananmen Square Demonstration

The Chinese student protest in April-June 1989 at Tiananmen Square in Beijing and elsewhere in China constituted a domestic crisis situation.1 The immediate effects and the Chinese leaders' perception of the protest clearly meet four essential elements of a crisis: a change in the domestic political environment, a threat to important national goals as defined by political leaders, the probability of violence being significantly increased, and leaders' perceived short time for response.2 The demonstration in April-June 1989 thus affords a good opportunity to study Chinese leaders' crisis management. Though minutes of highlevel meetings in Beijing during the crisis are not available, major phases of leaders' reactions to the demonstration are known. For example, we have reliable reports on the initial uncertainty of leaders as to the nature of the demonstration, the crucial role of the Beijing Communist Party Committee and government in starting the crisis decision-making process at the party center, first definition by leaders on the demonstration, the controversy over this definition, and the different stands of various leaders, especially that of Zhao Ziyang, toward the demonstration. These are sufficient for us to present a preliminary analysis of Beijing's crisis management.

The Political Fortunes of Shanghai's `World Economic Herald'

The World Economic Herald (Shijie jingji daobao) earned its reputation as China's most liberal and forthright newspaper soon after its foundation in 1980. For the first two years of publication it confined itself to issues of international economics, but then began addressing questions about China's economy. In the past two years or so the paper had adopted as its working premise the idea that without political reform China's economic reforms will falter. The weekly newspaper is by far the most famous of the handful of 'unofficial' publications that have emerged in China since the introduction of economic reforms. While it is not formally endorsed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is sponsored by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the China World Economic Society. This 'unofficial' status has meant that in ordinary times it has had to pay higher prices for newsprint and for distribution through the post office. It has always been printed on the presses of the official Liberation Daily (Jiefang nrbao) and, until the events of April-May 1989, was not required to submit its proofs to official scrutiny before going to press. In times of political uncertainty for example during the 'Spiritual Pollution Campaign' of 1983 and the 'Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign' of early 1987 it has survived because its staff, principally long-serving Party member and editor-in-chief, Qin Benli, was adept at gauging the political climate, lying low when necessary and resurfacing at the appropriate moment. The newspaper acquired some powerful allies, notably Zhao Ziyang and, as the Western media usually label them, his 'think tanks' the Research Centres for Restructuring the Economic System and for Reform of the Political Structure. Intellectuals from these centres and many other academic institutions throughout

Signing the Purity Oath

domestic Vietnam waged against the Latin American South and against the South within, America's black and Latino inner cities. Events in Eastern Europe arouse optimism. Collective actions, nurtured through a long struggle, staged publicly at the right time, can effect changes. In these velvet revolutions, there is a special role for art and artists-especially in the theatre where living people gather to witness each other. The State operates indirectly, largely through media: informational, military, and ideological. The State appears on television, is heard on the radio, is read about in the newspapers. It is impossible to come face-to-face live with the state's ultimate authority or even with its photoopportunity-grabbing frontmen. When in 1989 the Chinese students and workers in Tiananmen Square demanded such a live encounter, the Chinese leadership hesitated, then allowed Zhao Ziyang to meet the students, but finally withdrew their own selves and sent in the tanks. But in China today, as in Eastern Europe through the decades of the Cold War, the democracy movement lives on nurtured by secret artistic and intellectual activities.

Rural Education Should Principally Serve Local Development

Comrade Zhao Ziyang pointed out in his report to the Thirteenth Party Congress that science, technology, and education should be in the forefront in this second period of the strategic development of the economy. Their strengthening, along with an improvement in management effectiveness, would provide the foundation of the future. He also stated that if economic development is based on a low level of technology and management, resources would be drained and the economy could not expand and progress. His speech is extremely important. Stalin also emphasized the importance of the speed of economic development, because slow economic development would threaten socialism. Chairman Mao made the same argument. Our own experience shows that appropriate speed is necessary. However, we need to be aware that efficiency and progress in science and technology are even more basic.

The "New Type" of Sino-Soviet Relations

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's four-day visit to China in May 1989 signaled the end of two decades of Sino-Soviet hostility. It was the first visit by the top Soviet leader since September 1959 when Nikita Khrushchev went to China and the two sides bitterly debated policy toward India. Gorbachev's visit cleared the air of the residue of the previous summit and, according to the rhetoric used by both sides, ushered in a new type of normal, long-term, stable, good-neighborly, friendly, cooperative Sino-Soviet relations. The talks between Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping proclaimed the beginning of state-to-state relations, while the meeting later the same day between General Secretaries Zhao Ziyang and Gorbachev was hailed as the natural of party-to-party relations. The day after Gorbachev's departure from China, a Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) editorial foresaw a steady and normal development of party-to-party ties. Chinese leaders (though not Chinese press reports) referred to Gorbachev as comrade, and President Yang Shangkun lauded the restoration of the traditional friendship between the Chinese and Soviet peoples. No agreements or breakthroughs on major issues emerged from the meetings. To a considerable degree, however, this probably reflected Beijing's desire to minimize the international impact of the summit, also seen in such moves as cutting the size of Gorbachev's entourage from 1,000 to 300 and insisting, inter alia, that officials of the two sides greet one another with handshakes rather than by embracing. Moscow, on the other hand, stressed the significance of the summit, although without going so far as to risk antagonizing Beijing, Washington, or Tokyo. Within weeks, however, the two sides reversed their positions regarding such atmospherics. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, Beijing tried to stress its options

Reform, Modernization, and the Changing Constitution of Science in China

Prior to the suppression of student demonstrations in June 1989, most observers of contemporary China saw the nation's reform programs as having entered a new and unquestionably more complex stage. The easy reforms had been made, and the relationships between political and economic reforms had become more prominent. Hopes for elite consensus seemed to be fading as the stresses of this new stage became more acute. With the crackdown on the demonstrators and the purge of Zhao Ziyang and those reformers close to him, the future has become even more uncertain. This article explores the dynamics of reform in a critical area of modernization-the development of science and technology-with an eye toward understanding the systemic forces that, along with elite politics, are likely to shape the reform agenda in the nearto medium-term future. Recognizing that nothing biases analysis more than postulating disembodied collective goals without regard to the individual political interests of the powerful, I would nevertheless like to propose that key actors in China continue to share with large segments of the population a common interest in modernization. What this term means in the Chinese context, of course, has been far from obvious. Nevertheless, to the extent we can explicate we can have a better sense of what China's reform objectives are likely to be. Rather than attempting the kinds of denotative definitions of that have helped give modernization studies a bad name, let us simply stipulate that modernity is the set of conditions that allows the