| Chen Xitong, Beijing Mayor during Tiananmen protests, dies at 82 | | | HONG KONG: Chen Xitong, the mayor of Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, died on Sunday, two days before the 24th anniversary of the armed crackdown that he championed, according to a state media report on Wednesday. Few politicians in China are likely to pass as little mourned.
But he was ultimately disowned and reviled by the party as well. A career that started with literary yearnings ended with Mr. Chen jailed and accused of turning the Chinese capital into his brazenly corrupt fief.
Mr. Chen, who was to have turned 83 this month, died from the effects of cancer, Chinaﾒs state-run news agency, Xinhua, reported on Wednesday, confirming reports in Hong Kong media and overseas Chinese Web sites a day before. Those reports said he was cremated in Beijing, with none of the partyﾒs usual public praise and condolences. The Xinhua bulletin gave no such details.
ﾓHe was a tragic figure, he was a puppet used by more powerful people,ﾔ said Yao Jianfu, a former official and government researcher in Beijing, who last year published a book in Hong Kong based on his conversations with Mr. Chen. ﾓHe started as a Chinese literature student at Peking University, and could have become a poet or writer,ﾔ said Mr. Yao, in a telephone interview. ﾓBut he joined the revolution and became a politician, and heﾒll always be known for his role in the June 4 tragedy.ﾔ
Tuesday was the anniversary of that day in 1989, when soldiers and armored vehicles inundated central Beijing, shooting dead, by many estimates, hundreds of people. Party leaders had ordered them to end to protests on Tiananmen Square, where for two months tens of thousands of students and other citizens had demanded an end to corruption, expanded legal rights and steps toward democracy. Official confirmation of Mr. Chenﾒs death appears to have been delayed until after that sensitive day, when the government is on guard against any displays of defiance.
Party roles in China carry much more power than government ones, but Mr. Chen, as Beijingﾒs mayor, and several other hard-line officials won the ear of Deng Xiaoping, the party patriarch who embraced their assertions that the protesters were a dire threat to one-party rule. Their arguments prevailed against Zhao Ziyang, the relatively moderate party general secretary whom Mr. Deng shunted aside as he prepared a harsh response to the protesters.
In memoirs posthumously published in 2009, Mr. Zhao said Mr. Chen joined forces with the prime minister at the time, Li Peng, and the party secretary of Beijing, Li Ximing, to cement Mr. Dengﾒs belief that the protests were a plot that would imperil him and the party.By promoting a harsh response, Mr. Chen played a bigger role in the upheavals than he later cared to admit, said Zhou Duo, who was among a group of intellectuals who negotiated with soldiers on June 4, 1989, to avoid bloodshed on Tiananmen Square itself. ﾓHe was not the most important actor, but he egged on Deng Xiaoping to take a hard-line direction at a very critical moment,ﾔ said Mr. Zhou, who lives in Beijing.
ﾓHe, Li Peng and Li Ximing played a very important role in encouraging Deng to take a mistaken course.ﾔ
Mr. Chen was born in Sichuan Province in southwest China, and studied Chinese literature at Peking University, a prestigious school with a history of student activism. He joined the Communist Party in 1949, and climbed up the ladder of power in Beijing.
After 1989, Mr. Chen won more power, becoming the party secretary of Beijing and a member of the Politburo, a council of top party officials. He promoted Beijingﾒs failed bid for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, which went to Sydney. During the 1990s, Beijing residents joked about ﾓXitong hats,ﾔ the incongruous, pseudo-traditional roofs that Mr. Chen was said to have ordered on modern, new buildings.
But Mr. Chen also accumulated rivals, including Jiang Zemin, the party chief appointed in 1989 and president in 1993. Mr. Chen was dismissed from office in 1995 over a spreading scandal in Beijing; in 1998, he was tried and sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty. Mr. Chen and other officials argued that his real error was falling out with Mr. Jiang, said Mr. Yao, the retired official. Mr. Chen was released from prison on medical parole in 2006, but usually remained under guard, Mr. Yao said.
In the book that Mr. Yao published last year, Mr. Chen rejected the accusations against him, presenting himself as a nave underling manipulated by top party leaders. The corruption case against him was an ﾓabsurd miscarriage of justice,ﾔ he said.
Apart from the June 4 crackdown, Mr. Chenﾒs legacy may be as the sole senior official behind it who displayed some remorse about the bloodshed, Mr. Yao said. ﾓChen Xitong believed it was a tragedy that could, and should, have been avoided,ﾔ he said. ﾓHe didnﾒt say ﾑI apologizeﾒ or ﾑIﾒm guilty,ﾒ but he said he felt regret for the innocent victims,ﾔ said Mr. Yao. ﾓThat was too little, but after all, no other leader has said even that.ﾔ
The Xinhua report did not give details of Mr. Chenﾒs surviving family. Mr. Yao said he believed Mr. Chen is survived by his wife, Ye Zi, and son, Chen Xiaotong. |
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