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Zhao Ziyang’s photo was removed from the front page of People’s Daily shown on CCTV on Saturday. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Down the memory hole: How China’s state broadcaster rewrites history to erase purged leader Zhao Ziyang

China’s state broadcaster sought to rewrite history on Saturday, doctoring the layout of a 1982 edition of the Communist Party’s mouthpiece to remove a picture of a purged leader.

In one episode of a five-part documentary commemorating the centenary of the birth of late party chief Hu Yaobang, CCTV removed a photograph of Zhao Ziyang from footage showing an edition of the newspaper published 33 years ago.

Hu was a respected reformist who was sidelined in 1987 for tolerating “bourgeois liberalisation” and whose death in 1989 sparked nationwide pro-democracy protests.

Analysts say the party is commemorating Hu in such a high-profile way so it can use the popular leader’s good image to bolster the present regime’s reform direction and crackdown on corruption.

The change cropped up in a section of the programme reflecting on Hu’s reappointment as party general secretary at the first plenum of the 12th Party Congress in 1982.

CCTV showed a front page from People’s Daily with the headline “Hu Yaobang appointed party general secretary” but the picture of Zhao, a member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, was replaced by one of Li Xiannian, who was ranked lower at the time than Zhao. Li’s photo was originally in the second row of photos below the fold.

The documentary also changed the subhead of the story, removing Zhao’s name from the sentence that originally carried the names of all six Standing Committee members.

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