Memoirs open subject, let's have the debate

In order to prepare for the South China Morning Post's exclusive coverage, I spent several intense hours on Thursday speed-reading the 279-page manuscript of diary entries purportedly penned by former premier Li Peng about his front-seat personal account of the watershed events surrounding Beijing's bloody crackdown on the student protests at Tiananmen Square.

Immediately after reading it, I wondered aloud why the mainland leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao reportedly blocked the publication of the book, completed in early 2004.

As many readers will soon find out (the book is scheduled to go on sale on June 22 in Hong Kong), it contains no major surprises.

It merely confirms what is widely known on the mainland and overseas about the events leading to the bloody crackdown on June 4, 1989. Li pushed for a crackdown on the student protests from the beginning and sparred repeatedly with Zhao Ziyang , then Communist Party general secretary, who advocated a softer approach and opposed using force.

Li has long been dubbed the 'Butcher of Tiananmen' for his hard-line position and, as the face of the mainland leadership 21 years ago, announcing the imposition of martial law and paving the way for bringing in the People's Liberation Army troops into Beijing.

But as made very clear in Li's diary, it was the late paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping , as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, who ordered the troops to prepare to 'shed some blood'.