Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (115 page)

After listening to others' opinions, Deng said that a solution to the nation's problems had to begin in Beijing because any turmoil in the capital would have an influence on the whole country. They needed to be firm. In Hungary, for example, national leaders had made concessions that had only led to further demands. If Chinese leaders were to yield again, China would be finished. In Shanghai, Deng added, Jiang Zemin had successfully restored order in 1986 by taking a tough, top-down approach, closing down the
World Economic Herald
for failing to follow directions (which had helped calm student demonstrations there). Deng believed that a similar steely resolve was needed now. But at present, Deng concluded, the police in Beijing were insufficient to restore order: troops were needed. These troops would have to be moved in quickly and decisively, and for the time being, plans for their deployment needed to remain secret.
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When some in the room expressed worries that foreigners would react negatively to any use of force, Deng replied that swift action was required and the “Westerners would forget.”
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Li Peng and Yao Yilin immediately supported Deng's views, and although Hu Qili raised some concerns, only Zhao Ziyang clearly disagreed. When Zhao spoke up, he was reminded that the minority must follow the lead of the majority. Zhao replied that as a party member he accepted this, but he still had some personal reservations.
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As general secretary, Zhao realized that he would be expected to announce the imposition of martial law and then to oversee its implementation. He feared that the decision to bring in the military, even if unarmed, would only inflame the conflict.

Immediately after the meeting with Deng, Zhao asked his assistant, Bao Tong, to prepare his letter of resignation. Zhao knew that he could not bring himself to implement martial law and that this decision would mean the end of his career, but he also was confident that his decision would place him on the right side of history. At the dinner table with his family, he told his wife,
Liang Boqi, and daughter, Wang Yannan, that he planned to resign and that his decision would be hard on all of them. The family then phoned Zhao's sons in Macao and Hainan with the same message. They all understood and accepted what he was about to do.
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That evening Zhao had the awkward responsibility of chairing a Politburo Standing Committee meeting, without Deng, to discuss how to implement Deng's decision to carry out martial law. At the meeting Zhao announced that he could not implement the decision to introduce martial law. Acknowledging that his career was over, he said his time was up.

The next morning Zhao Ziyang arrived in Tiananmen Square at about 5 a.m. to express his concern for the students. Accompanied by Li Peng, who was now monitoring his movements, Zhao, speaking into a handheld microphone, said, “We have come too late. . . . No matter how you have criticized us, I think you have the right to do so.” Zhao was shown on television around the world, trembling, with tears in his eyes. He explained that he too had once been young and had taken part in demonstrations without regard for the consequences. He then encouraged the students to give up their hunger strike and look after their health, so they could take an active part in the four modernizations.
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Some listeners interpreted Zhao's message as a warning that he could no longer help protect the students. This would be his last public appearance.

After forcing this split on May 17, Zhao was not kept informed of meetings to plan for martial law and he refused to make the public announcement on its imposition. On May 19 Zhao wrote a letter to Deng, trying once again to persuade him to soften the April 26 editorial, even though by then he knew it had virtually no chance of success. His letter was never answered.

When Yang Shangkun first learned about Zhao's letter of resignation, he asked Zhao to withdraw it so as not to reveal to the public an open split within the leadership—even though Deng, upset about Zhao's appearance in the square, felt that such a split may have already become apparent. Zhao refused to chair the meeting to announce the imposition of martial law, but he did agree to withdraw his letter; instead of resigning he requested a three-day leave due to physical exhaustion.
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During those three days, martial law was to be introduced.

On May 28 Zhao wrote a letter to Deng, attempting to explain his remarks to Gorbachev that had so angered Deng. On the same day, Zhao was put under house arrest. His assistant Bao Tong was arrested and later moved to Qincheng Prison for high-level inmates. Although Deng lived for eight more years, he never answered Zhao's letter and the two never again met.

From May 24 to May 26, the party center in Beijing hosted provincial first party secretaries, many governors, and leaders from Hong Kong and Macao to explain the reasons for introducing martial law and to seek their support.
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The procedures for making a formal case against Zhao, however, took place after June 4. Having observed the results of Hu Yaobang's confession in 1987, Zhao refused to confess, saying he had done nothing wrong. Under house arrest, he was given comfortable living conditions, but his visitors were strictly limited and his own visits outside were tightly controlled until his death in 2005.
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Plans for carrying out martial law moved quickly after Deng's meeting with the members of the Politburo Standing Committee on May 17. The CMC held an enlarged meeting the next morning, and Yang Shangkun announced the decision to introduce martial law. That afternoon, the CMC held a working meeting to finalize the details for implementation: Gorbachev was to leave Beijing on the morning of May 19 and that evening 50,000 troops would begin moving in quickly, arriving in Tiananmen Square the morning of Saturday, May 20.
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At 10 p.m. on May 19, Li Peng spoke to a large gathering of high-level party, government, and military officials to inform them of the movement of troops. The following morning, at 9:30 a.m., Li Peng announced that martial law would begin at 10:00 a.m.
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Yang Shangkun instructed the military commanders that their soldiers were not to fire, even if provoked. Most of the soldiers did not even carry weapons.

The Failure of Martial Law, May 19–22

Deng and the military leaders were so confident that the troops would reach their destination quickly and without incident that the soldiers were not briefed on what to do if they encountered resistance. They were not even given maps of alternate routes in case their paths were blocked. Meanwhile, by the afternoon of the May 19 the students were beginning to learn that soldiers in tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles were entering the outskirts of the city. The mood among students in the square was tense and fearful as they anticipated that the troops would arrive before dawn. Some Beijing students returned to their universities, but the more radical students, as well as those students who had come to Beijing from some distance (the Ministry of Railways reported that some 56,000 students had arrived in Beijing by rail between 6 p.m. May 16 and 8 a.m. May 19), hunkered down and braced for the worst.
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Neither the students in the square nor the high officials anticipated what
happened next: the people of Beijing overwhelmed and completely stalled the 50,000 troops coming in from the north, east, south, and west, on six major and several minor routes. In his May 20 diary entry Li Peng simply noted: “We had not expected great resistance” and he then went on to record that troops everywhere had been stopped. Some troops had tried to enter Tiananmen Square by subway, but the subway entrances were blocked. Some had attempted to come in by suburban trains, but people lay on the tracks. In one instance, two thousand troops coming from some distance managed to arrive at the train station, but as soon as they got off the train, they were surrounded and unable to move.
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Cell phones were not yet available, but people used regular phones to call acquaintances, and those with walkie-talkies set themselves up at key crossings to warn of the arrival of troops so that people could swarm to attempt to stop them. People organized motorcycle corps to speed ahead and carry news of the troops' movements as they entered Beijing. Some officials blame Zhao Ziyang's assistant Bao Tong for leaking to the student protesters the plans for how and where the troops would arrive, but even if Bao Tong were a brilliant organizer, he could not have been able to alert or organize the vast throngs that took to the streets.

That night a full moon lit up the city. Foreign news people observed massive numbers of people coming from all directions, joining crowds totaling hundreds of thousands in the streets of Beijing. Correspondents reported that the entire city became involved in the demonstrations, beyond anything ever before witnessed in the city. There was not only widespread sympathy for the students, but also overwhelming opposition to martial law.
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Before dawn the next morning, at 4:30 a.m., student-controlled loudspeakers in Tiananmen Square triumphantly announced that the troops had been blocked in all directions and were unable to reach the square. Demonstrators in the square cheered.

The soldiers, mostly rural youth who were less educated and less sophisticated than the university students, were unprepared for what they encountered. Foreign correspondents reported that many of them appeared bewildered. They had been briefed not to respond to taunts and not to cause bloodshed, and they obeyed. Few soldiers carried weapons. Students quickly organized themselves to address the truckloads of stalled troops, trying to convince them of the justice of the student cause—their desire for more freedoms and an end to corruption. Bystanders with access to printing machines quickly printed and passed out leaflets opposing martial law. Some soldiers, with little knowledge and preparation, appeared sympathetic to the students' appeals.
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In his diary entry of May 22, Li Peng acknowledged that the troops were unable to move for fifty hours. He also reports that Deng was worried that the “soldiers' hearts may not be steady”
(junxin buwen).
For Deng, this became the crucial issue. Would the soldiers maintain order when so many young people opposed them? Might the soldiers be influenced by the students and lose their determination to impose discipline? Some soldiers appeared weary and hungry.
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At 7 a.m. on Monday, May 22, the troops were ordered to withdraw. As they began to leave, however, confusion reigned. Some residents thought the troops were merely maneuvering to find alternate routes to the center of the city and so they continued to block their movements. In any case, by May 24 the troops had disappeared and withdrawn to the outskirts of the city, where they remained. Martial law had not officially ended, but as the troops departed, the demonstrators began to celebrate their victory.
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Never since 1949—not even during the Cultural Revolution—had so many people in Beijing spontaneously demonstrated against the party leadership. Deng now confronted a mass movement that Mao would have been proud of, if only it had not been directed at his very own Communist Party.

Deng Prepares for Armed Force, May 22–June 3

Immediately after May 20, while allowing the troops to retreat temporarily, Deng directed Yang Shangkun to prepare tanks, armored vehicles, trucks, and armed men in sufficient numbers to overcome all resistance. By this point, the top leaders in Beijing had become acutely worried about the steadiness of the troops and high officials in the face of civilian opposition. On May 20, eight retired generals who had not been consulted about the imposition of martial law sent Deng a statement opposing the use of force. Deng and Yang Shangkun dispatched two top military leaders to visit each of these generals individually to explain the reasons for the imposition of martial law.
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Over the next few days, Li Peng led an effort to garner the support of high officials throughout the country. Li Peng's diary for days after May 20 is filled with reports of phone conversations to local leaders across the country in which he relayed what had happened, asked for their approval, and recorded their declarations of support for the decisions of the Beijing leadership. By May 21, Li Peng had reported that leaders of twenty-two provincial-level units had expressed their support for martial law.
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For his part, Deng remained busy consulting with other senior Chinese leaders to ensure their support. In
the crisis, Chen Yun supported Deng, saying it was important to remain firm and not back down.
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Deng met also with Li Xiannian, Qiao Shi, Peng Zhen, and other elders to make sure there were no splits in the top leadership.

In mid-May Wan Li was traveling in North America. Fearing that he might support Zhao, central party leaders notified him not to return directly to Beijing but to return first to Shanghai. On May 26 at 3 a.m., Wan Li arrived at the Shanghai airport, where he was met by Jiang Zemin and Ding Guan'gen, an alternate member of the Politburo, who briefed him on the situation. On the next day, Ding Guan'gen gave Wan Li a more complete briefing based on orders from Beijing, and Jiang Zemin gave Wan a package of documents prepared in Beijing that explained why Zhao was being pushed aside.
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Although Wan had spoken favorably of democracy while in North America, after he returned to Shanghai, Wan, ever the loyal party member, expressed support for Deng's policies.
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Only then was he given permission to return to Beijing.