The following translation is by Andrew Chubb. The Chinese text of this essay originally appeared in Hong Kong’s Cheng Ming magazine in 2004.
Previously by Andrew Chubb’s on Danwei: Xu Wenli: How Chinese dissidents and the Communist Party use the Western media, Guangzhou scenic park suffers gun, harpoon and machete attack and George Morrison’s An Australian in China.
Notes:
Hu Jiwei (胡绩伟) was assistant editor, editor and director of the People’s Daily between 1952 and 1983. According to fellow People’s Daily editor Wang Ruoshui (王若水), Hu was chief editor at the time described in this piece.
Hu Jiwei was an outspoken advocate of press freedom, and was active in the debates throughout the 1980s on press reform, ‘spiritual pollution’ and ‘bourgeois liberalisation’, which eventually resulted in his “reassignment” to another work unit. He also promoted a petition for the repeal of the declaration of martial law during the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. Now living in Hong Kong, Hu was among 23 former high-level Chinese Communist Party officials who published an open letter to Premier Wen Jiabao in October 2010 demanding the constitution be upheld.
Aside from recounting Hu Yaobang’s efforts to guide and urge the Democracy Wall Movement along, this piece reveals some of the workings of Chinese state media at that time. It details how political factions and the figures within them vied for influence over the People’s Daily and attempted to use it to reach the public. At the same time, it is clear that their control was never absolute, but was rather negotiated through relationships with the newspaper’s own leadership, who were themselves political players.
The article also shows that the work of the People’s Daily in relation to Democracy Wall was not producing newspaper articles but internal reports for the exclusive consumption of high-level leaders – a classic example of how Chinese media organisations are not merely the Party’s throat and tongue, they are also its eyes and ears.
The author’s own high position and involvement in the political debates over Democracy Wall and the ‘Four Big Freedoms’ also makes the article an authoritative first-hand account of some of the CCP’s most important political struggles of the time.
Hu Yaobang and the Xidan Democracy Wall
by Hu Jiwei / Chenming, 2004.4
April 15 this year will be the fifteenth anniversary of Comrade Hu Yaobang’s death. For the tenth anniversary in 1999 I wrote a piece called ‘Hu Yaobang and the People’s Daily‘. This year the image of Yaobang has constantly flashed through my mind, leading me to once again reflect deeply. I can say from the bottom of my heart that among the high-level Party leaders I came into contact with, few were as broad-minded, tolerant, receptive,1 and willing to act on behalf of the people and take responsibility for the consequences, as Hu Yaobang. We might say he was the most democratically-spirited top-level leader in the history of the CCP, the one who, more than any other, took the point of view of the people.
I have already written much about what I know of his deeds, mainly from when he began leading the rehabilitation of victims of false charges and unjustly or incorrectly handled cases. However, I have not brought up what he did before that, including during the time of the Xidan Democracy Wall. In accordance with the situation concerning Hu Yaobang since his death, there has not been much description of these matters. Hence, in this commemorative article, I will recount his circumstances and thinking during the Xidan Democracy Wall period in order to fill the historical gap.
To summarise Hu Yaobang’s conduct and actions during this time, he showed a close concern and enthusiastic support for the Xidan Democracy Wall, and made every effort to guide the movement.
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