China has detained 23 people on suspicion of leaking documents last year that purportedly tell the inside story of the communist leadership's suppression of 1989 democracy protests, the editor of the documents said yesterday.
Zhang Liang (張良), who uses a pseudonym, said in a commentary on Washington-based Radio Free Asia that Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
He said that Chinese agents had made trips to the US, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan to collect intelligence on the affair.
Twenty-three people have been arrested or detained inside China, he said.
The claims could not be independently confirmed.
The Tiananmen Papers are a collection of documents allegedly showing the deliberations of China's top leaders before, during and after the Tiananmen crackdown on six weeks of pro-democracy protests in which hundreds lost their lives.
Zhang Liang is a Chinese civil servant and a Communist Party member who secretly compiled documents chronicling the decision by Chinese leaders to use force against protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
They were authenticated and published a year ago in English by US-based China experts Andrew Nathan and Perry Link.
Radio Free Asia is a congressionally-mandated service set up to provide independent broadcasts to countries -- including China -- that have no other access to news free of state control.
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