China Gives Zhao's Death Scant Notice (original) (raw)

World|China Gives Zhao's Death Scant Notice

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/world/asia/china-gives-zhaos-death-scant-notice.html

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Jan. 18, 2005

BEIJING, Jan. 17 - Chinese leaders on Monday imposed a ban on news reports about the death of Zhao Ziyang, a former Communist Party chief who opposed the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters, suggesting that his official obituary will treat him as a pariah.

The New China News Agency issued a terse dispatch announcing that Mr. Zhao, who was 85, had died early Monday morning. But the news agency identified Mr. Zhao simply as a "comrade," not as China's former top political leader, and the main evening news broadcast made no mention of his passing.

Editors said propaganda officials ordered television stations and newspapers not to report about Mr. Zhao, and popular Web sites were instructed to ban public discussion of the former leader.

The tight control suggested that President Hu Jintao might not permit even a modest posthumous rehabilitation of Mr. Zhao, who enjoyed popularity among some former colleagues, as well as many critics of the government at home and abroad. It remained unclear whether the state would allow Mr. Zhao a public funeral.

The former top leader became an unusual icon of dissent when he publicly argued against the use of force to crush democracy protesters in Beijing in May 1989. He lost an internal power struggle and was stripped of his titles shortly before the army killed hundreds of demonstrators, perhaps thousands, around the capital on June 4 of that year.

Political analysts said the initial handling of Mr. Zhao's death showed that Mr. Hu, who consolidated his hold on power last fall, wanted to foreclose any possibility of re-examining the Beijing killings.

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