I’ve always wondered “what if” Zhao had taken power in '89…things might have been very, very different.
[quote] Deposed Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang "stable’ in hospital: official
Deposed Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang has undergone medical treatment and is “stable” in hospital, the foreign ministry said, but denied reports he was dead.
“Zhao Ziyang is an old man in his eighties. He recently became ill. After undergoing medical treatment, at present his illness is stable,” spokesman Kong Quan said at a regular briefing.
The Chinese government almost never comments on Zhao, 85, even though he was the country’s second most powerful man after late patriarch Deng Xiaoping during the first decade of China’s reform in the 1980s.[/quote]
BEIJING (Reuters) - Zhao Ziyang, toppled as China’s Communist Party chief in 1989 for opposing an army crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, died in hospital on Monday, two sources close to the family said. He was 85. [/quote]
I’m quite curious about what will happen now that Zhao has died. I think the government is scared shitless of how the public will react once the news gets out. They remember the public’s reaction to the deaths of Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. My thinking is that the best way for the government to handle Zhao’s death will be to just announce it without delay and then refrain from any moralizing about how Zhao would have led the country into chaos. If they try to editorialize his death, I think there will be a strong reaction. Beyong announcing Zhao’s death and perhaps a few higherups attending his funeral, the government and its mouthpieces should just keep quiet.
Of course, I’d love to read a bunch of anti-Zhao rants in the papers. That will really piss people off. I’m sure the headlines in the Taiwanese and HK newspapers would read something like “Insecure CCP fuckwits can’t help themselves from flogging a dead horse” or “Control freaks enjoy kicking man who’s not just down, but dead.”
After all, coming out with it when the Beida university students are out for their winter break and dispersed all over the country in a few weeks would make a great deal more sense.
