https://www.scmp.com/rss/34502/feed Born in November 1915, Hu Yaobang joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 18 and became a close ally of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He became leader of the Communist Youth League in 1952 and Party chairman in 1981. He worked as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1982 to 1987, when he was forced to resign after clashes with Deng and other party elders over emergent student protests. His death on April 15, 1989, triggered the Tiananmen Square protests. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com William Zheng William Zheng Chinese President Xi Jinping has paid tribute to late reformist leader Hu Yaobang by urging today’s Communist Party cadres to follow in his footsteps to tackle the country’s tough issues. At the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday, Xi said that opening up and reform were the “magical instruments” of China’s modernisation but the party still had to “crack the hard nuts” to counter challenges and to improve governance. He issued the call at a symposium to mark the 110th anniversary of... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3333589/xi-jinping-taps-hu-yaobangs-legacy-rally-communist-party-crack-hard-nuts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3333589/xi-jinping-taps-hu-yaobangs-legacy-rally-communist-party-crack-hard-nuts?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Nov 2025 13:32:46 +0000 Hu Dehua, son of the former Chinese leader Hu Yaobang, has died at the age of 76. He died on Sunday in Beijing due to a heart attack, sources told the South China Morning Post. Hu was a liberal businessman who repeatedly spoke out for political reform and press freedom in China – rare among the descendants of the Communist Party’s early top officials, a group known as “princelings”. In 2016, he became vice-director of the outspoken magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu. But he was in the role for less than... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3304622/hu-dehua-son-former-liberal-chinese-leader-hu-yaobang-dies-76?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3304622/hu-dehua-son-former-liberal-chinese-leader-hu-yaobang-dies-76?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:27:01 +0000 A Chinese-American academic was convicted in the United States on Tuesday on charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist to gather information on dissidents and feed it to China’s government. A federal jury in New York delivered the verdict in the case of Wang Shujun, a naturalised US citizen who helped found a pro-democracy group in the city. Prosecutors said that at the behest of China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, Wang lived a double life for more... https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3273484/pro-democracy-activist-convicted-us-acting-covert-chinese-agent?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3273484/pro-democracy-activist-convicted-us-acting-covert-chinese-agent?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Aug 2024 21:45:40 +0000 Amid a cacophony of concerns that Beijing’s pursuit of a bigger state role could put China on a path toward a new planned-economy era, a normally quiet former politician has joined the chorus calling for private players and market forces to advance national development strategies. The most recent scrutiny came as authorities released policies to boost support for community-level “cooperatives” and state-run food kitchens, which were widely utilised in China four decades ago. The policies have... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3199717/chinas-rural-supply-cooperatives-should-involve-government-backed-private-firms-former-official-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3199717/chinas-rural-supply-cooperatives-should-involve-government-backed-private-firms-former-official-says?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:22 +0000 The year the Berlin Wall fell and the formerly communist Eastern bloc countries embraced democracy, a parallel liberal movement in China ended abruptly with a violent military crackdown against protesters calling for greater democracy and government transparency in Beijing. The shots fired in Beijing on June 4, 1989, would reverberate throughout the decades. More than 30 years later, discussion of the Tiananmen Square tragedy remains censored on China’s internet and Chinese activists fighting to... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3135075/tiananmen-square-crackdown-what-june-fourth-incident-1989-was?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3135075/tiananmen-square-crackdown-what-june-fourth-incident-1989-was?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 May 2021 21:00:14 +0000 This is the first in the South China Morning Post’s series of explainers about China’s Communist Party in the lead-up to the party’s centenary in July. In this piece, Jun Mai looks into the power of the party’s general secretary, and how the role has evolved. Xi Jinping is often referred to by his ceremonial role as guojia zhuxi, or “state chairman”, a title usually translated into English as “president”. But it is his position as the party’s general secretary that indicates his top status. The... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3132631/chinas-communist-party-how-general-secretary-became-countrys?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3132631/chinas-communist-party-how-general-secretary-became-countrys?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 May 2021 23:00:08 +0000 US prosecutors on Friday charged a former China-based executive at Zoom Video Communications Inc with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown at the request of the Chinese government. Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his company’s systems to censor speech, the US Department of Justice said. In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said the software... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3114594/us-charges-china-based-zoom-executive-xinjiang-jin-disrupting-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3114594/us-charges-china-based-zoom-executive-xinjiang-jin-disrupting-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Dec 2020 17:14:30 +0000 Sometime around June 4, 1989, rumours circulated that Deng Xiaoping had said that 200 lives were a small price for China to pay for 20 years of stability. While China clearly did not gain 20 years of stability, the case can be made that, in retrospect, by allowing the purge of the entire liberal wing of the Communist Party, June 4 brought “great unity” to that leadership, which has facilitated China’s rise to great-power status. The decade of the 1980s was intellectually vibrant. China was... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012616/why-tiananmen-squares-real-legacy-may-be-communist-party-unity-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012616/why-tiananmen-squares-real-legacy-may-be-communist-party-unity-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 01:00:10 +0000 More than 300 people gathered in a city in eastern China on Monday to pay their respects to Hu Yaobang, the former Communist Party leader whose life, and death 30 years ago, transformed the nation. While there were no official commemorative events for the icon of political reform, whose death sparked the 1989 pro-democracy movement that ended in a military crackdown, the anniversary was marked in a memorial in Gongqingcheng, Jiangxi province. Well-known scholar Yang Tuan, one of Hu’s supporters... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006292/communist-party-reformer-hu-yaobang-remembered-low-key-ceremony?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006292/communist-party-reformer-hu-yaobang-remembered-low-key-ceremony?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2019 15:45:06 +0000 A statue of reformist Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang has been officially unveiled in his hometown in southern China, almost three decades after his death helped ignite protests in Tiananmen Square. Friends and family were at the unveiling in Liuyang, Hunan province, on Sunday, an event that was initially only covered by local news outlets but was soon picked up by online media, including liberal discussion groups. Hu, who held the party’s top office and steered the country through political... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174813/liberal-chinese-leader-hu-yaobang-rises-past-official-statue?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174813/liberal-chinese-leader-hu-yaobang-rises-past-official-statue?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Nov 2018 10:03:16 +0000 The granddaughter of late Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, whose death in 1989 sparked the Tiananmen pro-democracy protest, has become the latest victim in a spate of high-profile burglaries across Hong Kong. It was revealed yesterday that about HK$2.3 million in cash and valuables was stolen from her third-floor flat in Sea Cliff Mansions on Repulse Bay Road. The break-in came to light when Hu Zhizhi, 43, and her family, who had been out of town since Saturday, returned to the city on... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2047253/hk23-million-cash-and-valuables-stolen-home-late-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2047253/hk23-million-cash-and-valuables-stolen-home-late-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Nov 2016 07:15:45 +0000 China marked the centenary of the birth of late reformist leader Hu Yaobang  on Friday with an unusually high-profile official ceremony attended by the Communist Party’s seven most powerful men, including President Xi Jinping  and Premier Li Keqiang  . Hu, a liberal leader who steered China’s political and economic reform in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, was purged in 1987 for tolerating “bourgeois liberalisation”. The popular leader’s death in 1989 sparked the Tiananmen... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1880856/chinese-president-xi-jinping-pays-tribute-centenary?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1880856/chinese-president-xi-jinping-pays-tribute-centenary?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Nov 2015 08:45:45 +0000 The Chinese government on Tuesday took a more tolerant stance to online censorship on the anniversary of the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, whose death 25 years ago today helped spark the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. Messages of remembrance for the former Communist Party general secretary of the 1980s were widely circulated on China’s largest microblogging site, Weibo, a social media machine prone to blocking information deemed sensitive by the government. China’s... https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1482930/online-censorship-rolled-back-25-anniversary-death-reformist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1482930/online-censorship-rolled-back-25-anniversary-death-reformist?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 15 Apr 2014 09:45:45 +0000 After the communist regime seized control of China in 1949, the government's various political campaigns purged tens of millions of people through executions, prison terms and so-called re-education efforts. The greatest achievement of Hu Yaobang - the country's liberal leader whose death sparked the massive Tiananmen protests of 1989 - was to clear millions of political victims of false charges, and to free the country from the strictures of Maoist dogma, say Hu's former staff members and party... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482583/man-who-questioned-mao-hu-yaobangs-colleagues-look-back?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482583/man-who-questioned-mao-hu-yaobangs-colleagues-look-back?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Apr 2014 21:15:15 +0000 China missed a golden opportunity for political reform in the 1980s and it is doubtful when the next one will come, says a son of Hu Yaobang, the widely respected late liberal leader, whose death helped trigger one of the largest democratic movements in modern China. Speaking to the South China Morning Post ahead of the 25th anniversary today of his father's death, Hu Dehua lamented the lack of progress in political reform and the continued lack of protection for press freedom over ths last... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482513/son-reformer-hu-yaobang-rues-lost-chance-change-25-years-after-his-death?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482513/son-reformer-hu-yaobang-rues-lost-chance-change-25-years-after-his-death?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Apr 2014 15:45:15 +0000 Twenty-five years after his death, Hu Yaobang is still remembered by many, even including some of his former foes, as one of the most popular Communist Party leaders for his pragmatic reform policies and humanistic, liberal-leaning approach. The low-key visit to Hu Yaobang’s old residence last week by former president Hu Jintao is perhaps most telling about the Communist Party’s attitude towards its former leader. Even after an official taboo over commemorating Hu was lifted in 2005, Party... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482247/twenty-five-years-after-his-death-hu-yaobang-still-remembered-pragmatic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1482247/twenty-five-years-after-his-death-hu-yaobang-still-remembered-pragmatic?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:15:03 +0000 Betsy Li Heng, the daughter of former Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, has dismissed rumours about her private life and her association with GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical conglomerate currently under criminal investigation in China for bribery, according to an online statement.  The allegations are the latest in a series of adverse reports circulating online on the offspring of the reformist party elder, whose death triggered the Tiananmen protests in 1989. In the statement, which... https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1293303/former-party-leader-hu-yaobangs-daughter-denies-allegations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1293303/former-party-leader-hu-yaobangs-daughter-denies-allegations?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 31 Jul 2013 04:09:42 +0000 Hu Yaobang The late reformist leader has been a sensitive figure on the mainland since he was purged in 1987. But state media this week broke with tradition, heaping praise on the former party general secretary on the 24th anniversary of his death. Could it be due to Hu's close relationship with Xi Zhongxun, father of President Xi Jinping?   Avery Ng Man-yuen The League of Social Democrats vice-chairman was cleared at Tsuen Wan Court of causing a public nuisance for dropping a T-shirt off a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1219410/good-week-april-21-2013?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1219410/good-week-april-21-2013?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The mainland mourned late reformist leader Hu Yaobang yesterday on the 24th anniversary of his death - the first time he has been commemorated under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, whose father was his ally. A party newspaper and state news websites published articles commemorating him, and ordinary citizens turned up at his former home to pay tribute. The former Communist Party chief, who was purged in 1987, remains a relatively sensitive figure as his sudden death in 1989 sparked... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1215578/state-media-offer-rare-praise-reformer-hu-yaobang?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1215578/state-media-offer-rare-praise-reformer-hu-yaobang?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 On the anniversary of Hu Yaobang's death, thousands of Chinese quietly remembered the party leader who many thought was pushing for further political reform in the 1980s before the Tiananmen crackdown.  The 24th commemoration on Monday is the first under President Xi Jinping, whose father worked under Hu Yaobang. Hu has been credited with spurring economic reforms after the Cultural Revolution, the rehabilitation of thousands persecuted during the tumultuous decade and a drive towards further... https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1215170/remembering-chinese-party-leader-hu-yaobang-still-no-easy-task?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1215170/remembering-chinese-party-leader-hu-yaobang-still-no-easy-task?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:53:59 +0000 H7N9 Beijing Morning News* Beijing's most respected hospital denies online rumours over infections. Xinhua Xiandai Kuaibao* Customers scramble for Chinese herbal medicine, face masks in Nanjing. Wuhan Morning News* Shanghai's Health Centre deputy director tells the story of how the first case of H7N9 was discovered. Beijing News* Beijing Union Medical College expert says too much is still unknown about the disease. Southern Metropolis Daily* Guangdong deputy governor says the province... https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1207388/qingming-tributes-are-censored-and-beijing-invites-myanmars-opposition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1207388/qingming-tributes-are-censored-and-beijing-invites-myanmars-opposition?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:31:23 +0000 A statue of former Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang, a reformer whose death sparked the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, has been set up in a coastal city, state media reported on Monday. The bronze image, depicting Hu looking into the distance, was unveiled on Sunday on Dachen island at Taizhou in the central province of Zhejiang, according to a brief article in the China Youth Daily newspaper. Hu in 1956 had issued a call for the agricultural development of the island when he was... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1122092/statue-built-reformer-whose-death-sparked-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1122092/statue-built-reformer-whose-death-sparked-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:50:33 +0000 New editor-in-chief for People's Daily The central government named the former deputy minister in charge of the propaganda department the new editor-in-chief of Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao reports. The reshuffle within the Communist Party's propaganda machine comes ahead of the party's 18th congress in Beijing next week. The opening left by the appointment of Cai Mingzhao will be filled by 62-year-old Wu Hengquan, a former editor-in-chief of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1074445/briefs-november-2-2012?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1074445/briefs-november-2-2012?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Most Hongkongers believe Beijing should reverse its stance on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, a University of Hong Kong annual poll found ahead of the 23rd anniversary next week of the bloody incident. More than 60 per cent of Hongkongers believe Beijing's stance on the incident should be reversed, 3 percentage points up from last year, according to the poll which has been conducted annually for 20 years. The HKU public opinion programme poll, which interviewed 1,003 people last month, also... https://www.scmp.com/article/1002668/61pc-urge-change-stance-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1002668/61pc-urge-change-stance-tiananmen?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 31 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Communist Youth League, the Communist Party's youth recruitment and training apparatus, has become a key power base within the party since the 1980s, competing with the princeling faction representing the offspring of former party leaders. Founded in Shanghai and other cities in August 1920 as the Socialist Youth League to prepare for the formal establishment of the party a year later, it held its first national congress in Guangzhou on May 4, 1922. Despite the party coming to power in... https://www.scmp.com/article/1000103/faction-good-training-ground-future-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1000103/faction-good-training-ground-future-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 An official news agency yesterday ran a rare eulogy to late Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, ahead of the Ching Ming festival and the anniversary of his death later this month. A liberal in the Communist Party, Hu was forced to resign as general party secretary in 1987 and remains a sensitive figure in mainland politics. The outpouring of grief following his death in 1989 developed into the Tiananmen Square student movement in the ensuing months. In the run-up to the party's once-a-decade... https://www.scmp.com/article/997369/rare-eulogy-liberal-party-leader?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/997369/rare-eulogy-liberal-party-leader?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The founding publisher of the mainland's most outspoken political magazine yesterday accused authorities of trying to use a cultural-sector reform initiative to weaken the editorial independence of his publication. At a new year celebration with more than 150 of Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine's writers and supporters in Beijing, 88-year-old Du Daozheng delivered an emotional speech spelling out his worries over the fate of the publication he founded 21 years ago. Among the supporters were Hu Dehua,... https://www.scmp.com/article/992072/they-want-get-rid-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/992072/they-want-get-rid-us?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 'The worst mistake of the reform and opening-up is [that the Communist Party] has embarked on the capitalist path of development, but dare not tell people the truth.' Zhang Musheng, legal scholar 'Reform remains just empty talk as long as we have yet to figure out whether it should be controlled by the government or driven by market forces.' Gao Shangquan, economist and veteran government adviser 'Cult of personality, [especially Maoist idolatry] has been embedded in the political system and... https://www.scmp.com/article/977880/they-dare-not-tell-people-truth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/977880/they-dare-not-tell-people-truth?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Hu Jia has always felt a sense of solidarity with the underprivileged, the weak and the oppressed. But when he started fighting for their rights about a decade ago, he could not have known his public spirit would one day land him in the gravest trouble. Hu - one of the mainland's most high-profile activists - is scheduled to be released today after he was jailed for 31/2years on subversion charges. Hu, 37, started out as an environmental activist concerned about desertification and the... https://www.scmp.com/article/971785/no-release-oppression?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/971785/no-release-oppression?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:00:00 +0000 'Jiabao, I give you a task. Go into the villages outside the city and do investigation and research. Remember, you must stay away from the local government.' It could have been a news editor briefing a journalist covering a story in a village in China - but this was Hu Yaobang, then general secretary of the Communist Party, briefing one of his assistants - and now premier - Wen Jiabao, during a tour of the southwest province of Guizhou. Wen told the anecdote as part of a flood of memoirs of... https://www.scmp.com/article/741154/revolutionary-his-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/741154/revolutionary-his-time?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Doctors will decide whether veteran Democrat Szeto Wah, who is battling lung cancer, will need to start electrotherapy next month after he attends events marking the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Szeto, who heads the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said despite feeling better after completing chemotherapy, his body's cancer index was still slightly higher than a safe level. 'At present, I am feeling quite well and have put on... https://www.scmp.com/article/714726/szeto-wah-faces-more-cancer-treatment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/714726/szeto-wah-faces-more-cancer-treatment?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 May 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Is there life after death? In China, there certainly is. In traditional China, the bodies of top officials were sometimes dug up and publicly flogged, which gave rise to the expression bian shi, or whipping the corpse. I well recall that when premier Zhou Enlai was cremated in 1976, a highly respected China watcher commented sagely that the wily premier had seen to it that he could not be subjected to posthumous whipping. Others were posthumously promoted, including my ancestor Qin Guan who,... https://www.scmp.com/article/711969/hu-wen-and-why?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/711969/hu-wen-and-why?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:00:00 +0000 A group of Communist Party elders have urged leaders to take bold steps towards launching long-delayed political reform, ease censorship and allow organised opposition, saying that only democracy and transparency can help steer the country through the current economic crisis. In an open letter addressed to President Hu Jintao and other Politburo Standing Committee members and released yesterday, they said the incumbent leaders should learn from their predecessors, including former party chief Hu... https://www.scmp.com/article/670640/party-elders-urge-leaders-take-steps-towards-political-reform?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/670640/party-elders-urge-leaders-take-steps-towards-political-reform?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0000 As mainland leaders constantly exhort everyone to 'free their minds' these days, the irony cannot be lost on many overseas analysts that the leadership seems to be acting to the contrary by cracking down hard on dissent and tightening the muzzle on the media. The latest case is the jailing of prominent human rights activist Hu Jia in Beijing last week, a verdict that drew international condemnation. But it would be wrong to dismiss the sloganeering as merely a propaganda ploy. 'Emancipation of... https://www.scmp.com/article/632799/freeing-mind-must-start-leaders-and-soon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/632799/freeing-mind-must-start-leaders-and-soon?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Xi Jinping has moved closer to becoming China's top leader with his appointment as vice-president and his responsibility for overseeing the Olympics, which Beijing has made a national priority. Assuming that he manages the Summer Games with his typical aplomb, he appears nearly certain to take over from Communist Party General Secretary and President Hu Jintao when the latter steps down in five years. Mr Xi, a 'princeling' whose father was a communist revolutionary, is trusted by Mr Hu, even... https://www.scmp.com/article/630143/summer-games-success-may-clear-way-rising-star?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/630143/summer-games-success-may-clear-way-rising-star?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Past and present students of Peking University are up in arms over the demolition of the university's famed Democracy Wall, a focal point of protests throughout the institution's history. Critics say the destruction of the site is an assault on the university's century-old tradition of free expression, but administrators insist the wall had long ceased to function as a marketplace for ideas. The Democracy Wall, also called the Triangle, was a jumble of bulletin boards erected around a triangle... https://www.scmp.com/article/614196/demolition-democracy-wall-criticised?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/614196/demolition-democracy-wall-criticised?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:00:00 +0000 The son of the late reformist party leader Hu Yaobang made a bold call for political liberalisation on the sidelines of the national congress, where most delegates simply toe the party line. Hu Deping , vice-chairman of the party's United Front Work Department, said he was a firm believer in democratising China. 'I'm completely for a democratic political system. Currently, our country is still under the leadership of the Communist Party,' said Mr Hu, 65. 'We still need a democratic political... https://www.scmp.com/article/612272/ex-party-chiefs-son-breaks-ranks-call-democratic-system?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/612272/ex-party-chiefs-son-breaks-ranks-call-democratic-system?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Chongqing's Communist Party chief has called on government officials to create a lenient investment environment for entrepreneurs and to encourage more innovative pioneering rather than simply setting restrictive rules, state media reported yesterday. Wang Yang said the economic vitality of private enterprises stemmed from their ability to create synergy through non-traditional financial avenues, social values and management, the First Financial Daily reported. 'Like all newly emerged things,... https://www.scmp.com/article/576074/chongqing-officials-urged-nurture-entrepreneurs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/576074/chongqing-officials-urged-nurture-entrepreneurs?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Two years ago, Beijing reneged on promises made to Hong Kong about the development of democracy in the city. At the time, then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa made public nine conditions imposed by the central government that had to be met before the city was ready for universal suffrage. Now, to mark the 16th anniversary of the Basic Law, its so-called 'guardians' in Beijing have again said that Hong Kong is not ready for full democracy. It is the height of arrogance for members of the... https://www.scmp.com/article/547147/talk-about-hypocrisy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/547147/talk-about-hypocrisy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 May 2006 16:00:00 +0000 The Chinese tradition of 'taking stock of the situation and alternating tension with relaxation' has been a guiding principle of the ruling class for centuries. President Hu Jintao's government appears to have taken this to heart, as exemplified by developments involving Taiwan, Hong Kong and domestic politics. In the past year or so, the overseas media and analysts have started voicing suspicions that the president has autocratic ambitions, barely three years after he came to power. They have... https://www.scmp.com/article/515876/beijing-relaxes-diplomatic-tension-show-its-softer-side?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/515876/beijing-relaxes-diplomatic-tension-show-its-softer-side?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 More than 40 million yuan will be spent by the central and provincial governments to commemorate the 90th birthday of Hu Yaobang in his hometown, in another sign by Beijing that it plans to rehabilitate the late reformist. The expansive activities in the remote village of Cangfeng in Hunan province will be held alongside an unusual ceremony at the Great Hall of the People on November 20, seen as a move by President Hu Jintao to burnish his dented reformist credentials. The money would go on... https://www.scmp.com/article/515204/40m-yuan-be-spent-reformists-birthday?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/515204/40m-yuan-be-spent-reformists-birthday?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Sep 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Tibet issue I refer to the article headlined 'Beijing helping Tibetans catch up with the west, says author' (January 28). It is ironic that Ma Lihua dismisses critics of China's rule in Tibet as unobjective when she herself heads the publishing unit of the Beijing-backed China Tibetology Research Centre and discounts human rights abuses in Tibet as exaggerated. Ms Ma attempts to frame Tibet as an issue of development, as does Beijing. She entirely ignores the key issue: Tibetan desire for... https://www.scmp.com/article/443760/letters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/443760/letters?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Cao Siyuan should know. His phone is bugged and his movements restricted The mainland's new leadership is sending mixed signals on political reform, one of China's most prominent intellectuals has said, leading social commentators to revise earlier estimates of the pace of change in light of current crackdowns. Cao Siyuan, a recognised proponent of political reform and privatisation in China, said that after six months of permissiveness, authorities were tightening the screws on public... https://www.scmp.com/article/427043/political-reform-will-come-slowly-academic-cautions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/427043/political-reform-will-come-slowly-academic-cautions?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Sep 2003 16:00:00 +0000 With many former members of the Communist Youth League occupying high-ranking positions in the central government, speculation on a league faction within the administration has resurfaced. Analysts who believe the faction, or tuanpai, exists suggest many of those people surrounding President Hu Jintao - himself a former leader of the league - are there because of their background in the organisation. Many other high-ranking individuals, such as late party general secretary Hu Yaobang and... https://www.scmp.com/article/410772/political-stars-keep-spotlight-youth-league?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/410772/political-stars-keep-spotlight-youth-league?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Mar 2003 16:00:00 +0000 Al Gore yesterday urged Beijing students to 'challenge existing institutions', predicting the mainland's market reforms must inevitably lead to political freedom. Mr Gore, speaking to hundreds of students at Qinghua University, appealed to young Chinese to consider 'this is a moment when, to a unique degree, great things do hang in the balance'. 'Old ways of doing things, old ways of thinking and institutions built upon these old ways are being swept aside by great, powerful waves of... https://www.scmp.com/article/190040/challenge-status-quo-students-urged?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/190040/challenge-status-quo-students-urged?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Mar 1997 16:00:00 +0000 The city remained calm but Guangzhou officials were reluctant to allow residents to see Hong Kong television reports. Footage of a big-character poster written in 1979 by dissident Wei Jingsheng, warning that Deng would become a dictator, was censored from one report. Footage of student demonstrations in 1987, which resulted in the purge of general secretary Hu Yaobang, the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang also disappeared. Front pages or special pullouts were... https://www.scmp.com/article/185758/guangzhou-officials-censor-hk-television?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/185758/guangzhou-officials-censor-hk-television?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:00:00 +0000 The authorities have signalled a harsher line towards 'bourgeois-liberal' elements by cancelling a meeting to salute the achievements of famed economist Yu Guangyuan . Mainland sources said yesterday that friends of Mr Yu had intended to hold a conference on December 22 to mark the scholar's 60 years of contribution to Marxist research. More than a dozen academic units were involved in organising the meeting, which was set to take place at a restaurant and function centre under an official... https://www.scmp.com/article/182158/snub-economist-blow-liberals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/182158/snub-economist-blow-liberals?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jan 1997 16:00:00 +0000 POLITICAL reforms will be postponed until after the 16th Party Congress in 2002 at the earliest, a Beijing source said. An internal circular has been dispatched to different departments instructing officials to concentrate on economic matters instead of political reforms before the congress. 'The central authorities will not consider any political reforms before that,' said an informed Beijing source. 'Evaluation will be made before the 16th Party Congress to see if economic development... https://www.scmp.com/article/150542/officials-informed-reforms-postponed-until-least-2002?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/150542/officials-informed-reforms-postponed-until-least-2002?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Feb 1996 16:00:00 +0000 CHINA plans a low-key ceremony to mark the cremation of senior leader Chen Yun who died on Monday in Beijing at the age of 90. Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian said that in accordance with Chen's wishes and in terms of regulations, there would be no state funeral or major farewell ceremony. It is likely that Chen will be given the same send-off as other senior leaders such as veterans Li Xiannian and Wang Zhen, where on the day of his cremation flags will fly at half mast in Tiananmen... https://www.scmp.com/article/114194/low-key-farewell-planned-chen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/114194/low-key-farewell-planned-chen?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 13 Apr 1995 16:00:00 +0000 AS people in Hongkong last night commemorated the terrible events of June 4, 1989, many would have reflected on how much more readily they were able to express their anger and emotion than were people in Beijing. The tens of thousands of demonstratorswho marched on Tiananmen Square four years ago, after the death of former party chairman Hu Yaobang - and stayed until the tanks began to roll - are now nowhere to be seen. This year the tiny number of students who smashed a few bottles at Beijing... https://www.scmp.com/article/32246/lessons-june-4?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/32246/lessons-june-4?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jun 1993 16:00:00 +0000