There is much to fascinate the reader in Prisoner of the State, the memoir of former Chinese party leader Zhao Ziyang. Secretly recorded before his death in 2005, the tapes were painstakingly gathered together by his friends and have now been published with great fanfare in both Chinese and English.
The book provides an authoritative account of what went on within the Communist Party and government 20 years ago as students mounted a massive protest in Tiananmen Square, which culminated in the bloody events of June 3 and June 4, 1989. It confirms that Deng Xiaoping made all key decisions, including the one to call in the tanks to crush the student protest.
Deng was a complicated character. On one hand, he saw the problems created by Mao Zedong, especially during the Cultural Revolution, when China was in chaos and Deng himself was denounced as a 'capitalist roader' and removed from office. He had years in which to think about China's plight and, after Mao's death, Deng decided that the country had to change course.
Now, Maoist China has been eclipsed by Dengist China. Both men are dead but, even though Mao's body still rests in his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, it is Deng's thoughts and values that guide China's leaders today.
While the outside world saw Deng as a reformer - and he was an economic reformer - within China, he had long been recognised as a hardliner. In fact, when I was based in Beijing in the early 1980s and asked someone in the military how Deng was viewed, the answer was simple: 'He is a rod.'
After the nightmare of the Mao years, Deng was seen by many as a saviour. He oversaw the political rehabilitation of many thousands of cadres, many posthumously, and created the conditions that allowed the deliverance of hundreds of millions from poverty. But, in some ways, Deng was similar to Mao. Both men understood and wielded power. And Deng, like Mao, ended up getting rid of one designated successor after another. The first to go was Hu Yaobang , who was too liberal for Deng's taste, followed by Zhao, who refused to crack down on the students.