Mon, Jul 13, 2009 page3

• INTERVIEW: Zhao Ziyang’s tapes tell his side of the story

  After a promising political career that saw him climb the ladder of power, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang was ousted in May 1989 for sympathizing with the student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Placed under house arrest, his name became taboo in China. Four years after his death, a book compiled from 30 hours of recordings he secretly taped during the final years of his life was published. Bao Pu, son of Zhao’s longtime aide Bao Tong and one of the main people behind ‘Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,’ sat down with ‘Taipei Times’ staff reporter Huang Tai-lin in Taipei on Friday to talk about the book and the Tiananmen Square Massacre

  • By Huang Tai-lin / STAFF REPORTER
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Taipei Times: How did you become aware of the existence of the tapes in the first place?
  
  

  

  Bao Pu, one of the editors of Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, shows the book during an interview in Hong Kong on May 15. His father, Bao Tong, was former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang’s top aide.

  PHOTO: AP

  Bao Pu (鮑樸):

  Shortly after Zhao Ziyang’s (趙紫陽) death in January 2005, in the

  mourning process, people were prone to talk about his legacy. To our

  surprise, we learned this set of tapes existed. The first person who

  actually came forward was Zhao’s close friend and one of the persons

  who initiated the recording process. His name was Xiao Hongda (蕭洪達),

  who was the deputy director of the central disciplinary commission. He

  and Yao Xihua (姚錫華), former chief of the Guang Ming Daily, and Du

  Daozheng (杜導正), former director of the General Administration of Press

  and Publications, basically had in their possession different portions

  of the tapes. We got involved in collecting the tapes. Of course, the

  cooperation had to remain secret and the process took as long as

  two-and-a-half years.
  
  

  TT: So there was no doubt that the tapes were genuine?
  
  

  Bao:

  There was no doubt. First of all, the source of the tapes. Two, we have

  access to all these people who worked closely with him, including my

  father [Bao Tong, 鮑彤]. They have never in their minds doubted this was

  not Zhao’s voice. Thirdly, Zhao was a public figure and his voice was

  already in the public domain, some of the recordings, particularly the

  one when he was speaking to the students in Tiananmen Square on May 19

  [1989], was widely distributed and that was [spoken] live. We also

  released auto clips [of the tapes] and so far no one has come forward

  to challenge their authenticity.
  
  

  TT: Did you have any difficulties while working on the publication?
  
  

  Bao:

  The only difficulty was that communication was slow. We were limited to

  a certain way of communication, you know. For example, we could not

  pick up the phone and call, could not e-mail. In today’s world, if you

  write off electronic communication, you really do not have much choice.
  
  

  TT: You mentioned before that you were followed.
  
  

  Bao:

  Right. Less than two weeks before the news broke [about the release of

  the English edition in May] … some of the English press [in the US]

  were given an advance copy that they handed to experts for advance

  review and they were planning a big news event. It was during that

  process, I think, that the [Chinese] authorities were alerted and they

  knew I was involved because my name was on the cover. I suspected it

  was the advance news planning that triggered the response from the

  authorities. They started following me. I must emphasize that, of

  course, I don’t have direct evidence and these people have never

  identified themselves. But from my past experience, because when I am

  in Beijing I am followed, I know. I don’t think that incident was

  particularly unusual … [but] I almost expected it. I anticipated there

  would be whole lot worse, so I am sort of surprised. It seems they

  didn’t react as quickly or as forcibly as I anticipated.
  
  I

  think these tapes have their own strength, their own rights and their

  own power. It is very, very close to established facts. Even if they

  [the authorities] have all the power in the world, they cannot refute

  what happened, this version of the truth, and I think that’s really why

  so far we haven’t seen any direct attack on this publication.
  
  

  TT:

  The Tiananmen Massacre is considered taboo in China. Will people in

  China have access to this book, or is it banned as in the case of the

  publication two years ago of Zong Fengming’s (宗鳳鳴) book “Zhao Ziyang:

  Captive Conversations” (趙紫陽軟禁中的談話)?
  
  

  Bao:

  I have to insist on the fact that my father said: “Zhao Ziyang has just

  as much right as Mao Zedong (毛澤東) to publish his memoirs.” I think

  there’s speculation, only speculation, that the book is banned in

  China, although some people have told me that, in some instances, the

  book was confiscated at the border, but the probability of it being

  confiscated is no greater than other books published overseas.
  
  

  There are basically two categories of books that are banned from being

  imported to China: if the book is on the anti-pornography list or an

  “overseas illegal publication.”
  
  

  I am trying to point out that this is a legal publication in the

  Special Administration Zone of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), so

  there shouldn’t be a reason they should ban it. Journey of the Reforms

  [the title in Hong Kong] it is not a direct challenge to their current

  political position, it is not a political statement. It is trying to be

  historical fact, one version of history.
  
  

  TT: Did Zhao describe in the tapes under what circumstances the recording was made?
  
  

  Bao:

  He said in the tapes: “I am recording this according to a written

  statement” that he had written in 1993 and we know he started recording

  in the year 2000. He was basically talking on the tapes based on a

  draft he’d done seven years previously, but we don’t know the precise

  circumstances of the recording, he didn’t mention it.
  
  

  TT: Did he mention in the tapes what he wished to do with them?
  
  

  Bao:

  He did not leave any kind of instructions on how these tapes were to be

  used, but it is our interpretation that he went through all this

  trouble to finish this set of recordings, and there’s no doubt in our

  minds that he wants his version of history, his version of the story,

  to survive.
  
  

  TT: What was Zhao’s family’s reaction to the publication?
  
  

  Bao:

  Before the publication, they don’t know the precise plan, but when we

  asked them directly, they practically supported it. After the

  publication, the family’s reaction was the recording is authentic and

  they said it is not that the book is published too early, but too late.
  
  

  TT: What’s the main message, if any, from the tapes?
  
  

  Bao:

  The main message, I think, was that he showed how China has gone

  through the path of reform. He sees in the process of economic reform

  that there’s a rising social injustice and he clearly sees that you

  have to deal with these social injustice issues on a political level.

  This is, I think, most important. That he was willing to take on the

  issue of social injustice on a political level, so he proposed

  political reform, that the communist party would have to change the way

  it governs.
  
  Of course he was not given time to implement the

  political reforms he proposed … the incident happened, so he was

  quickly running out of time. After he was under house arrest, he said

  his thinking had changed, but I don’t really believe that his

  fundamental thinking and his principles changed, it was only because he

  had a new revelation that political reform in the end should have a

  final destination and that is parliamentary democracy.
  
  

  
  
  

  Part two of the interview will be published tomorrow.
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