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.

Zhao was the party’s general secretary who was brought down in the aftermath of the demonstrations.

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.