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Beijing to `rehabilitate' former leader

Deng Xiaoping, left, chairman of the Chinese Military Commission, and then Chinese Communist Party general-secretary Hu Yaobang review a military parade in September 1981. Beijing plans to mark the 90th anniversary of Hu's birthday. PHOTO: AP

Despite strong internal opposition, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) later this week will officially restore the reputation of a liberal-leaning leader whose death helped inspire pro-democracy protests.

"In the middle of November, a commemoration to mark the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) will be held in Beijing," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told a briefing yesterday.

"The central leadership, the party, political and military and other leaders from the grassroots will be present at the meeting, and the central leadership will deliver a speech," he said.

The party has not publicly honored Hu Yaobang since his death in April 1989, which gave rise to student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Those protests, against corruption, inflation and political repression, persisted until the army violently suppressed them on June 4 of that year.

President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) decided early this year to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth. Party observers said the president aimed to soften his hard-line image and strengthen the 72-million-member Communist Youth League, his political base within the CCP.

The youth league was also considered to be the support network of the late Hu, who lost his position as CCP general secretary after a power struggle in 1987.

While restoring the stature of Hu Yaobang is unlikely to lead to a broad political opening soon, it does give a glimpse of the complex politicking within the ruling elite.

It also shows the enduring sensitivity of the people and events connected with the 1989 protests.

Observers say the June 4 killings will haunt the party until it can acknowledge having bloodily suppressed the mainly peaceful pro-democracy protests and pays respect to the hundreds of people killed, injured or purged in the crackdown.

Hu Jintao persisted in his decision about Hu Yaobang's birthday even though four of the nine members of the Politburo's Standing Committee expressed concern that the move could threaten stability, said people who had been told about the debate.

The four, one of whom was Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), were said to have different reasons for their opposition. But all were said to have argued that the move could risk giving people the idea that the circumstances surrounding the 1989 demonstrations, which the CCP has condemned as an anti-government plot, might be open for discussion.

Opposition to the commemoration was first reported earlier this month by Open, a political magazine based in Hong Kong, and was confirmed by people close to the late leader's family.

Hu Jintao is said to have overruled the objections and ordered the commemoration to proceed, arguing that while students may have invoked the late Hu's name when their protests began, the former leader had no responsibility for the demonstrations.

But possibly reflecting the sensitivity, President Hu has dropped plans to attend the memorial ceremony in person and rescheduled it to take place on Friday, when he will meet in South Korea with other Asian and Pacific leaders, instead of Sunday, the actual 90th anniversary of Hu Yaobang's birth.

The ceremony will amount to a posthumous rehabilitation for Hu, who is remembered as having favored a faster pace of political change than other officials considered prudent.

The fact that his death precipitated the Tiananmen Square protests left his legacy in limbo. The party did not publish the usual account of his life and achievements.

The commemoration will be held at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square and is to be attended by 300 people, including current and retired leaders and intellectuals, most of them invited by Hu's surviving relatives.

There will also be services in Hunan Province, where Hu was born, and Jiangxi Province, the historical base of the Communist Youth League.

People close to the family said at least three members of the Politburo Standing Committee would attend the Beijing event: Wu Guanzheng (吳官正), the CCP's internal inspection chief; Vice President Zeng Qinghong (曾慶紅) and Wen.

Wen was prevailed on to make an appearance despite having expressed concern that restoring Hu's stature could lead to calls to rehabilitate Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽),who died in January. Zhao, another former party chief, was purged for siding with the protesters during the 1989 unrest.
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