Deal with protesters defused tensions in Shanghai

A series of conciliatory speeches by Zhu Rongji in June 1989 most likely defused a tense situation in Shanghai in the days following the military crackdown in Beijing, according to a newly published collection of speeches the former premier made while city mayor and party boss.

According to Zhu, student leaders in Shanghai offered to call off their protests, including blocking traffic, on two conditions - that the municipal government did not order the military to remove the protesters and that none of them would be prosecuted after the pro-democracy movement ended.

"After consulting comrade Yang Di (then a Shanghai party secretary), we responded straight away that we had no plan to bring in the military in the first place.

"Regarding their second condition, we told them that as long as they stepped back from the brink of the precipice, we will let bygones be bygones," Zhu told municipal cadres on June 7.

The book revealed three speeches by Zhu made to party officials between June 5 and 7.

Zhu also delivered public speeches on government-run television and radio stations in the days after the crisis in Beijing.

He made it clear on several occasions that the municipal government would not order in the military, would refrain from using police force and would rather use worker "volunteers" to maintain law and order in city, according to the book.