Beijing hits at west over memoirs
A rare commentary on the memoirs of ousted Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang appeared in several mainland-backed media yesterday, accusing western media of trying to pressure Beijing to overturn its verdict on the June 4 crackdown - a move it said may lead to 'global calamity'.
A commentary by the semi-official Hong Kong China News Agency appeared in three Beijing-friendly newspapers in Hong Kong. A full English translation also appeared in the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily, but not in its mainland edition.
The writer, using the pseudonym Qi Lin, said he was offering his views 'on the real intention of those foreign media ballyhooing the book, and the probable outcome of their actions'. 'If overturning the verdict on the 1989 political turbulence is the interim objective of the 'memoirs' editors and those foreign media promoting the book, then advocating the change of China's current political system into western parliamentary democracy is their ultimate goal,' the commentary said.
It was the first rebuttal of the memoir from official media after almost two weeks of silence from Beijing following the news that Zhao had outmanoeuvered his guards and secretly made 30 hours of tape recordings about the secretive infighting in the top tier of the party during the events leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
The commentary named foreign media outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters and Le Figaro of France and said overseas media intended to publicise the memoirs to push Beijing to overturn its verdict on the June 4 crackdown, and influence public opinion to force China to adopt western-style democracy.
Despite its strong tone of disapproval, the commentary did not directly dispute many thorny issues raised in the memoirs - such as the legitimacy of the crackdown, and the need for the nation to continue political reform. Instead, it focused on defending Deng Xiaoping's historical legacy as the chief architect of the country's economic reform. Quoting former western leaders, including George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the commentary said western media had wrongly 'jumped to the conclusion' after reading in the book that Zhao was the real architect of China's market reform.
The commentary also said the nation's rapid economic development in the past 20 years was strong evidence that the government had taken the right path, and argued that overturning the verdict on the June 4 crackdown would only incite 'social upheaval' that may eventually 'create global calamity'.
