The Curious Case of Li Peng

Twenty-one years after the central government slaughtered hundreds of students and protesters in Tiananmen Square, Li Peng, the supposed mastermind of the June 4 crackdown, had planned to publish a memoir, a collection of articles he had written about the events that happened that historic year. However, the book that was due to be published on June 22 was never released. It is rumored that the central government has halted publication because of the sensitive nature of the material, claiming copyright issues.

But now, a similarly titled book is out. “The Truth of Li Peng’s June 4 Diary” (in Chinese) is now on sale at some Hong Kong bookstores. In it, Li Peng reports that there were huge conflicts within the Politburo on how to deal with the massive student movement. He himself believed that the students wanted to overthrow the central government, while Zhao Ziyang (the then party secretary famously sympathetic to the students) wanted to deal with the situation in a more peaceful way. Li also writes that it was Deng Xiaoping who decided to send the PLA troops into the square, and that everyone in the Politburo—except Zhao—supported Deng. Zhao was put under house arrest until his death in 2005.

So is Li trying to absolve himself from responsibility over the Tiananmen Square crackdown? He also writes that he was prepared to sacrifice himself and his family’s lives in order to stop the protest from getting out of hand. He also believes he was unfairly portrayed as the “bad guy” in the event. Yeah, right.