The most senior Chinese official jailed over the 1989 Tiananmen protests warned the Chinese government yesterday that its sustained crackdown on dissent would only bring more instability.
In an interview, Bao Tong (鮑彤), 79, the most trusted aide to purged former Chinese premier and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) and now an outspoken critic of the government, said he believed China’s leaders were filled with insecurity about social order.
The CCP has muzzled dissent since February, secretly detaining dozens of lawyers and activists, worried that uprisings across the Arab world could inspire challenges to its one-party rule ahead of a leadership succession late next year.
Photo: Reuters
“A government that snatches away the legitimate rights of the ordinary people, I think this kind of government will never be stable,” Bao said.
He was jailed for seven years for his opposition to the government decision to send in troops to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations, and remains under close watch by security officers around his home in the west of Beijing.
“I think the measures they have taken are wrong. It will backfire on what they want to achieve,” he added.
The transition is due to start late next year, when Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) is likely to take over from Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Bao was once a political high-flyer, and as secretary to the CCP’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee held a rank equivalent to that of a Cabinet minister.
Bao said it was imperative that Hu and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) “create the conditions” for future leaders, which means “not creating problems.”
“What they are doing now is only increasing the obstacles,” he said. “On the approach that they are taking now, on what kind of consequences it will mean for the future, I think it will cause more trouble for the new leaders. If they start implementing democracy and the rule of law, it’ll be much easier for the incoming leaders. There will be less risks and fewer resistant forces.”
Bao was critical of Hu, whose government he says has reneged on its promises of democratic reform, and for its treatment of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who was jailed in 2009 for 11 years for subversion.
“He’s telling the world that China’s laws don’t count. Only I, Hu Jintao, matter. That’s why I say I’m thoroughly disappointed in Hu Jintao,” Bao said, sitting in front of a picture of his former boss Zhao.
Zhao died in 2005 after more than 15 years under house arrest.
Bao was more sympathetic to Wen and applauded the premier’s recent calls for democracy and human rights, most recently last month in London.
“One thing I haven’t figured out is what the motive of his comments are,” Bao said. “Is it just for the sake of a speech or is he really prepared to take action on what he has said?”
“I hope he is prepared to do what he says, but he does not have much time left; if he doesn’t act quickly, people will say in the future that he worked for 10 years and all he achieved was empty talk for a decade, with nothing to show for it,” he said. “That would be a pity.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS