China on alert after Tiananmen party reformist dies

[Rose Siding]

Zhao Ziyang, the former Chinese Communist party leader who has been under house arrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 has died aged 85....

Reflecting government fears that the death of the democracy figurehead could spark a wave of demonstrations, security had already been tightened in Beijing's Tiananmen Square this week.

Dissidents were under surveillance and most of the domestic media had been for bidden from mentioning Mr Zhao's condition.
...
Mr Zhao was a popular pro-reform premier and party general secretary when he was last seen in public on May 19 1989. He went further than any other Chinese leader in sympathising with the student hunger strikers, tearfully begging them to leave the square.

"I have come too late," he apologised. A day later, the government declared martial law, the first step in a bloody crackdown that led, two weeks later, to the massacre of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of protesters in Beijing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1391991,00.html

[jdonaldball]

1. this deserves more attention

[UL_Approved]

2. This makes the world so much more unstable

This is NOT what we need right now. Instability or unrest in a superpower is a recipe for disaster with terrorist interests on the rise. I hope everything turns out all right.

[jdonaldball]

3. China needs more openness to become more stable

1. China is not a "superpower"
2. The lack of transparency and lack of any kind of free press, or any other means for the people to express their grievances peacefully, is what puts China most at risk for instability.