Liberal theorist who supported June 4 students dies in Beijing, aged 91
Former propaganda department official Li Honglin spent 10 months in jail for sympathising with protesters
Li Honglin, a prominent liberal Communist Party theorist who was jailed for supporting the 1989 pro-democracy movement, died in Beijing on Wednesday at the age of 91.
A former associate of late reformist party leader Hu Yaobang, Li spent 10 months in jail after the Tiananmen Square crackdown for sympathising with student protesters.
In March 1989, he joined 42 prominent intellectuals in signing an open letter to the party leadership calling for the release of political prisoners and greater freedom in Chinese society. He was arrested in July of that year and released in May 1990 with 200-odd jailed intellectuals and political activists as Beijing sought to improve its international image.
A protégé of Hu, Li was promoted to head the party’s propaganda department’s theory bureau in the early 1980s to help promote Hu’s de-Maoist “thought liberalisation movement”.
Dai Qing, a journalist with the Guangming Daily newspaper who was jailed and released together with Li due to her role in pro-democracy movement, said Li had been a banner carrier for “thought liberalisation” and China’s “new age of enlightenment”.
“Li was one of those who refused to act as the [party’s] mouthpiece,” Dai wrote in a lengthy article in memory of Li.