WP,pg1: Zhao's Death Puts China in Quandary: Party Fears Debate

[DeepModem Mom]

Zhao's Death Puts China in Quandary
Party Fears Debate On Leader Purged After Tiananmen

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page A01


BEIJING, Jan. 17 -- China's Communist leadership convened a series of emergency meetings Monday to manage the consequences of the death of a disgraced party leader and confront the legacy of an event it has tried to put behind it, the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

According to journalists and other Communist Party sources, the government was wrestling with the question of how to pay its respects to Zhao Ziyang, the party general secretary purged in 1989 for refusing to endorse the military assault on the student protesters, but to do so without triggering an emotional debate about the Tiananmen massacre.

As the party tried to limit public discussion of Zhao's death, news of it was spreading, and there were quiet signs of unofficial mourning across Beijing. Vans carried flowers all day to the traditional house with a courtyard where Zhao had been held under house arrest for the past 15 years. A man lay down in Tiananmen Square and was whisked away by police.

On the Internet, especially on college bulletin boards, users posted hundreds, if not thousands, of notes of sorrow, only to watch as censors deleted most of them quickly. "Can't we grieve when someone has died?" asked one message that remained on the Web site of the party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16546-2005Jan17.html