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How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give listeners a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts. When China's army moved in, killing hundreds of students and other demonstrators, Zhao was placed under house arrest at his home on a quiet alley in Beijing. China's most promising change agent had been disgraced, along with the policies he stood for. The premier spent the last sixteen years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion. An occasional detail about his life would slip out: reports of a golf excursion, a photo of his aging visage, a leaked letter to China's leaders. But China scholars often lamented that Zhao never had his final say. As it turns out, Zhao did produce a memoir in complete secrecy. He methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on what had happened behind the scenes during many of modern China's most critical moments. The tapes he produced were smuggled out of the country and form the basis for Prisoner of the State. In this audio journal, Zhao provides intimate details about the Tiananmen crackdown, describes the ploys and double-crosses China's top leaders use to gain advantage over one another, and talks about the necessity for China to adopt democracy in order to achieve long-term stability. The China that Zhao portrays is not some long-lost dynasty. It is today's China, where the nation's leaders accept economic freedom but continue to resist political change. If Zhao had survived-that is, if the hard-line hadn't prevailed during Tiananmen-he might have been able to steer China's political system toward more openness and tolerance. Zhao's call to begin lifting the party's control over China's life-to let a little freedom into the public square-is remarkable coming from a man who had once dominated that square. Although Zhao now speaks from the grave in this moving and riveting memoir, his voice has the moral power to make China sit up and listen.
- Sales Rank: #9619016 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Tantor Media
- Published on: 2009-07-13
- Formats: Audiobook, CD, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 11
- Dimensions: 6.40" h x .90" w x 6.70" l, .32 pounds
- Running time: 46800 seconds
- Binding: Audio CD
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"The up-close-and-personal tone of [this] book stands out." ---The Washington Post
About the Author
Renee Chiang is a publisher and the English editor of New Century Press in Hong Kong. As a teacher in Beijing in 1989, she was an eyewitness to the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Adi Ignatius, currently editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, is an American journalist who covered China for the Wall Street Journal during the Zhao Ziyang era.
Bao Pu is a publisher and editor of New Century Press in Hong Kong.
Norman Dietz is a writer, an actor, and a solo performer. He has also performed frequently on radio and television, and he has recorded over 150 audiobooks, many of which have earned him awards from AudioFile magazine, the ALA, and Publishers Weekly. Additionally, AudioFile named Norman one of the Best Voices of the Century.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
Adi Ignatius
It was an exhilarating moment for China and the world. In late 1987, at the end of a spirited Communist Party Congress that seemed to propel China on a more progressive course, a new team of leaders emerged, led by a preternaturally tranquil man named Zhao Ziyang.
Zhao wasn't an unknown: after an impressive career in the provinces guiding the first, baby steps of China's recovery from Mao Zedong's lethally unsuccessful economic experiments, Zhao had been summoned to Beijing in 1980 and was soon named Premier, responsible for the economy.
Yet now he was being elevated to the most senior position in China's leadership: General Secretary of the Party. Since he was only sixty-eight years old -- a mere child among China's leaders -- he had to deal with an older generation of Party veterans who lacked official titles but nonetheless wielded ultimate authority. But the supreme leader of those octogenarians, Deng Xiaoping, had given Zhao the keys to the republic. It was his time to shine.
Zhao was unlike any previous Chinese leader. When the new inner core, the Standing Committee of the Politburo, appeared at the end of that Congress in 1987 for an unprecedented face-to-face with the international press corps at the Great Hall of the People, Zhao beamed with a relaxed confidence. He seemed to signal that China was ready to join the world, that it had begun a process of transforming not just its economy but also its tightfisted politics.
For the first time in memory, the entire Standing Committee appeared in Western attire, their Mao suits stashed away for this photo op aimed at telling the developed West that China was comfortable on stage. When a reporter commented on Zhao's impressive double-breasted pinstripe suit, Zhao, with a big grin, playfully pulled open the jacket to show off a lapel that indicated: made in China. A new era seemed to be at hand.
Over the next two years, however, things would spin out of control, for China and for Zhao. Missteps on the economy led to a rampant inflation that unnerved China's citizens and opened the door for China's more cautious leaders to seize authority and reimpose central controls.
And then, in April 1989, the Tiananmen protests erupted. By the time they were suppressed, less than two months later, Zhao was out of power and under house arrest in his home on a quiet alley in Beijing. China's most promising change agent had been disgraced, along with the policies he stood for.
Zhao spent the last sixteen years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion. An occasional detail about his life would slip out: reports of a golf excursion, a photo of his aging visage, a leaked letter to China's leaders. But China scholars often lamented that Zhao never had his final say, that he didn't leave his take on what really happened behind the scenes during the tumultuous years that he was in Beijing and, in particular, in 1989 during the Tiananmen protests, when he stood up to China's conservative forces and lost.
The fact is, Zhao did produce such a memoir, in complete secrecy. This book is the first time it is being made public.
Zhao, it turns out, methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on some of modern China's most critical moments. He talked of the Tiananmen crackdown, of his clashes behind the scenes with his powerful rivals, of the often petty bickering that lay behind policy making, of how China had to evolve politically to achieve long-term stability.
Somehow, under the nose of his captors, Zhao found a way to record about thirty tapes, each about sixty minutes long. Judging from their contents, they were made around the year 2000. Members of his family say they knew nothing about the project. Zhao produced these audio journals mostly by recording over some low-quality cassette tapes that were lying around the house: kids' music and Peking Opera. He indicated their order by numbering them with faint pencil markings. There were no titles or other notes. The first few recordings, covering Tiananmen and other topics he was eager to address -- like allegations that Zhao had backstabbed his predecessor, Hu Yaobang, when Hu had been forced out of power in 1987 -- seem to have been made in discussion with friends. Their voices are heard on the tapes but have been edited out to protect them and their families' security.
When Zhao finished the recordings after about two years, he found a way to pass tapes to several trusted friends. Each was given only a portion of the total recordings, clearly an attempt to hedge the risk that the tapes might be lost or confiscated. When Zhao died in 2005, some of the people who knew of the recordings launched a complex, clandestine effort to gather the materials in one place and then transcribe them for publication. Later, another set of the tapes, perhaps the originals, was found, hidden in plain view among the grandchildren's toys in Zhao's study. The audio recordings themselves have been returned to Zhao's family, who will decide how they should be preserved. Clips of the recordings will be released to the public upon the release of this book.
Prisoner of the State is a nearly complete presentation of Zhao's recorded journal. The book does not follow Zhao's precise sequence. Some chunks were rearranged and others trimmed to eliminate repetition and for greater readability. For instance, we open with sections that deal with the Tiananmen protests and crackdown of 1989 and with Zhao's many years under house arrest. We begin each chapter with brief editors' notes, in italics, to help set the stage for readers who aren't familiar with what was happening in China at the time. We also have inserted material throughout the book in brackets and footnotes to provide added clarity. Wherever these appear, these are our words, not Zhao's.
Although Zhao gave no instructions as to how or when the materials might be published or otherwise used, he clearly wanted his story to survive. Here's what he says at the start of Part 1, which covers the events leading up to the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, 1989: "I jotted down some notes about the events surrounding the June Fourth incident because I was worried that I might start forgetting some of the specifics. I hoped that it might serve as a kind of historical record."
What is the significance of this journal? Above all, it is the first time that a leader of Zhao's stature in China has spoken frankly about life at the top. He provides an intimate look at one of the world's most opaque regimes. We learn about the triumphs and failures, the boasts and insecurities, of the man who tried to bring liberal change to China, and who made every effort to stop the Tiananmen Massacre. This is Zhao's version of history, and he perhaps was making his arguments for a future generation of leaders who may revisit his case and decide whether he should be rehabilitated in the memory of the Party, and of the nation.
The power structure that Zhao describes is chaotic, often bumbling. Competing factions rush to win over paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, whose nods of assent or rejection resonate through society as if handed down from an oracle. In this narrative, Deng is a conflicted figure who urges Zhao to move quickly with economic reforms but consistently fights back against anything that seems to challenge the Party's supremacy. He is at times portrayed not as the authority, but as a puppet, subject to manipulation by Zhao or his rivals, depending on who presents his case first. Zhao reflects on comments he made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that upset Deng. His assumption, based on years in the inner circle, is that Deng could not have had such a reaction simply on his own: "I have yet to learn who it was or how that person managed to provoke Deng."
The China that Zhao portrays is not some long-lost dynasty. It is today's China, where the nation's leaders accept economic freedom but continue to intimidate and arrest anyone who tries to speak openly about political change. Although the central figures of Zhao's narrative have mostly passed from the scene, the system itself and its habits have not evolved. At the end of 2008, more than three hundred Chinese activists, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, jointly signed Charter 08, a document that called on the Party to reform its political system and allow freedom of expression and an independent judiciary. Beijing responded as it always has: by interrogating many of the signatories and arresting some, including prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo.
China is still a nation where the Party's obsession with self-perpetuation drives its public behavior, and where patriotic voices that don't narrowly conform are silenced. That has consequences far beyond the political sphere. In 2003, when the deadly SARs virus began to spread in China, officials initially resorted to form by trying to control the news and cover up the extent of the problem. That lack of candor may have exposed many thousands more to possible infection.
This journal isn't comprehensive. It doesn't deal with Zhao's long and productive career, only the tumultuous three years before he fell from power. Yet his impressive achievements and the reputation he developed are worth remembering.
Zhao's rise to power traces to his success running economic policy in the provinces. Though born in Henan Province, he built his career in Guangdong, where he became Party chief in 1965 at the remarkably tender age of forty-six. Like countless other officials, he was purged during the Cultural Revolution; he was assigned the relatively menial task of being a fitter at the Xiangzhong Mechanics Factory in Hunan Province. Zhao Wujun, the youngest of his four sons (there is also one daughter), worked with him. The family lived in a small apartment nearby with a suitcase in the middle of the living room that served as the dinner table.
Zhao's return from exile shows the high regard Beijing's leaders had for him. As Zhao once described it to friends, in April 1971 the Zhao family was suddenly r...
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great insights into modern China, but lacks mention of some key events
By Newton Ooi
The western press is occasionally highlighted with interviews and memoirs of dissidents, activists, and refugees from China. Most however were never anywhere near the locus of power. This book remedies all that. Taken from sources smuggled out of China, this journal represents the thoughts and analysis of one of 20th century China's most powerful leaders, Zhao Ziyang. Zhao rose through the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the bottom up as his life spans the entire history of modern China, including the Japanese occupation, Communist revolution, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and move towards capitalism. This book focuses on the past quarter century of the 1900's, essentially documenting the political struggles fought at or the near the top of China's government as Zhao and like-minded comrades moved the country towards economic and political liberalization. Zhao recounts numerous conversations and debates, both private and public, related to the inner workings of government. Zhao also recounts the rise and fall of various leaders in modern China.
Reading this book was the first time I have heard of Zhao Ziyang, and the first time I have read of modern China outside of the occasional news articles in Time, the Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. Therefore, I do not know how much of Zhao's journals are actually included in this book. I say this because for someone whose life and experience mirrors that of China, this work contains no mention of World War 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Sino-Indian relations, and other key episodes in modern China's history. In fact, outside of the occasional mention of Hong Kong's economy, and relations with Gorbachev, there is almost no discussion of foreign policy. There is also minimal mention of education policies, which is surprising given that the Chinese nation has emphasized educational excellence as key to national strength, economic growth, and social progress. Overall, after reading this book I came away with the feeling that Zhao's writings fell into the hands of the US State Department, or the CIA, and was then edited to remove any content critical of the West, American foreign policy, democracy, capitalism, etc... My recommendation, read this book with lots of salt.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
For China Wonks, A Treasure Trove
By Paul Frandano
With all the names, dates, places, meetings and detailed discussions of topics like the provenance of the tag-line phrases "initial stage of socialism" and "socialist spiritual civilization," Zhao Ziyang's posthumously published memoir - and it is surely Zhao who is speaking to us here - is indeed a true China wonk's book, filled with content that will be revelatory to anyone who knows the period and participants. It is above all the most important document by a senior leader operating in a closed political system since _Khrushchev Remembers_, primarily because, like the Tiananmen Papers, it lifts the veil on political life among the handful of decisionmakers in the People's Republic.
And some of this - but not very much - is in the Tiananmen Papers. For the most part, however, Zhao is laying in his own record of events that he personally participated in, leading with the Tiananmen incident of June 1989, but going back to the beginnings of reform and opening, for which Zhao's leadership in Sichuan province (and Wan Li's in Anhui) were seminal in the testing of agricultural reforms that were the foundation of China's present relative prosperity, and forward to an evaluation of China after Zhao's political demise and Zhao's evaluation of the leaders he worked with during nearly a decade at the center of the storm in Beijing.
Throughout, Zhao relies on what must have been a prodigious memory - assisted, almost certainly, by former assistant Bao Tong and other friends and colleagues. It's interesting, though, that Zhao gets some dates wrong (as pointed out by editorial notes by Bao Pu, son of Bao Tong), which suggests that, unlike most other memoirists, he had no documentation to work from and had to rely solely on his own notes and recall. From Zhao we get marvelous glimpses of how petty and preening life at the top was - and almost certainly remains, in a land where Politburo members are treated, except by themselves, as living gods. Moreover, following reports of a meeting between Deng and two other of the "Eight Immortal" senior party elders, Zhao gives a nod to their characterization of Deng's role as an authoritative "mother-in-law" to the Politburo Standing Committee, observing that this was an apt way of describing how the system worked. We also get detailed confirmation of how great a pack of old fools, opportunists, and ideologues were men like Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo, Li Peng, Yao Yilin, Hu Qiaomu, and Deng Liqun. Peng Zhen, the "grinning tiger," on the other hand, comes off rather well (as he does in the Tiananmen Papers, lobbying for the moderate reformer Wan Li to replace Zhao as party chief), as does Hu Qili, who was tossed overboard along with Zhao in May 1989.
Readers will want to know what Zhao, reflecting in his long political exile, ultimately thought of Deng Xiaoping, father of China's modern economy. Zhao provides a balanced appraisal of Deng, filled with gratitude at the opportunities Deng extended to him and at the same time pointing out problems of Deng's making, underscoring the fact that Deng was an economic liberal who wanted to unleash market forces in China but was NEVER a political reformer; instead, Deng was the driving force behind a host of "anti-liberal" campaigns that Chinese and Western analysts like had attributed primarily to Chen Yun, Hu Qiaomu, and Deng Liqun and that created problems and contradictions within the reform movement. Zhao also provides a balanced, sympathetic account of his predecessor as party general secretary, Hu Yaobang, whose great-hearted impetuousness sped him to an early political demise, primarily, in Zhao's estimation, because Hu failed to take Deng's political conservatism and absolutely deference to the Communist Party's political primacy more seriously and immediately.
Specialists will find this book thoroughly engrossing and the voice absolutely authentic. I'm astonished, however, that Simon and Schuster didn't see fit to help specialists and generalists out by including an index. The book does have a very useful 15 pp dramatis personae for which many, like readers of Russian novels, will be grateful. As Zhao's apology, this is a good one, and Zhao gives himself a good deal of credit for China's early advances in economic reform. He should: he was literally at the center of the storm during the seminal years of transformation and held the field against determined political foes. Many of his ideas, bloodied and battered, have been realized or remain in play, continuing to shape the debate particularly about political reform. One hopes that some day Chinese citizens will be able to freely acknowledge their debt to this their great countryman and mention him in the same breath as Deng Xiaoping, whose close colleague, idea man, sounding board, and implementing agent he was for the foundational decade.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Behind the Silk Curtain
By Tom Keoughan
Zhao Ziyang rose to become Premier and later General Secretary of the Communist Party. Although he now held the most senior position in China's Leadership, he had to deal with an older generation of party veterans who lacked official titles but wielded ultimate authority. Zhao was supreme leader Deng Xiaoping's man and Deng began the process of transforming China's economy.
During the Tiananmen Square protests Zhao felt that the situation was not initially as serious as it later became and advocated defusing tensions by holding a series of meetings with and speeches to the students. Hardliners disagreed and what happened next reads like something out of Shakespeare as elders circled with daggers in their sleeves.
Zhao was cast from power and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. He was unable to speak with journalists, foreigners or former colleagues. Through it all he kept a secret journal which was smuggled out of China after his death. In it he recounts the transformation and rapid growth of the Chinese economy, Tiananmen Square and his political downfall, and his prescription for the future China. This is a rare glimpse behind China's silk curtain of power.
I read Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang immediately after reading Beijing Coma: A Novel and would recommend that other interested readers do the same.
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