Xu Jiatun (許家屯 ), a former senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, took many secrets to his grave, people who knew him say.
Since his death in June after 26 years of exile in the US, new details have emerged of Xu’s daring escape from China after the suppression of the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations in June 1989 and about the party’s presence in Hong Kong, where from 1983 to 1989 Xu headed the local office of Xinhua news agency. That made him China’s de facto representative in what was then a British colony.
This is of more than historical interest, with the forces of communism and democracy locked in a bitter contest in Hong Kong. The CCP has always maintained an omerta-like silence about its activities in the territory, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Martin Lee (李柱銘), one of the founders of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, met with Xu several times during Xu’s tenure at Xinhua, Lee said in an interview.
“One time he and I had lunch, and he told me not to worry too much. Beijing had already brought about 50,000 people into Hong Kong to work in all sectors of life — the civil service, the professions,” Lee said.
If Britain pulled out before the handover, he said, “these people would just take over.”
He intended this to be reassuring, Lee said.
“But now when you look at Hong Kong, I think that they are running this place. Our chief executive is one of them, a secret Communist Party cadre, obviously,” he said, referring to Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英).
Leung has denied that he is a party member.
Xu made many friends in Hong Kong, including democrats and tycoons, said Kam Kin-yat (金建一), whose father, Kam Yiu-yu (金堯如), was the editor-in-chief of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po and an old friend of Xu’s.
Xu was open-minded, but making friends was also part of his job, Kam Kin-yat said by telephone from Los Angeles.
Xu encouraged Lee, a lawyer, and Szeto Wah (司徒華), a union organizer, to set up political parties, Lee said.
In Xu’s discussions with Szeto, Lee said: “He added one thing that he didn’t tell me — that Szeto Wah didn’t have to worry about money. And now, of course, in Hong Kong the pro-Beijing political parties are paid by Beijing, indirectly through local tycoons.”
Szeto became an outspoken critic of the party after the Tiananmen protests.
As those protests rocked China, Kam Kin-yat said that then-CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) asked Xu to evaluate the government’s best response to the demonstrations from a Hong Kong point of view. Xu told Zhao that a “peaceful resolution” was necessary.
Zhao agreed, but he was dismissed for this stance and placed under lifelong house arrest by hard-liners, including former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
In 1989, Xu asked to retire, but was instead dismissed from his post. In January 1990, a conservative, Zhou Nan (周南), was appointed as his successor.
Xu moved to Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, apparently awaiting news of his fate from Beijing. However, he took his fate into his own hands.
About 8pm on April 30, Xu went for his usual evening stroll out of the Xinhua headquarters in Shenzhen, according to Kam Kin-yat, who said this was the first time he was publicly sharing details of an escape he helped plan.
“He went for a walk empty-handed,” Kam Kin-yat said. “He didn’t bring a single suitcase.”
Kam Kin-yat’s role was confirmed by Ho Pin (何頻), the publisher of Mirror Media Group, who is based in New York.
Accompanied by a family member, Xu crossed the border into Hong Kong at Lo Wu, wearing a golf cap for a disguise. He boarded a train, alighting at the Sheung Shui station, and walked about 30m along the tracks to where Kam Kin-yat was waiting in a car.
That same evening, an order from Beijing arrived at the Xinhua office in Shenzhen to confiscate Xu’s passport, Kam Kin-yat said.
In Hong Kong, Xu wrote a letter to Deng, in care of Xinhua in Hong Kong, promising he would not reveal any secrets.
He hoped his family in China would be treated leniently if he remained loyal to that promise, said Kam Kin-yat, who mailed the letter.
The US consulate issued Xu a visa and helped arrange a last-minute air ticket.
Xu kept his secrets, but the party never granted his wish to return home.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US