When he died yesterday in a Beijing hospital at age 85, Zhao Ziyang was a largely forgotten man, perhaps not in the broader world but certainly within his own country. Yet we suspect Zhao's legacy will someday be hailed within China as the light that pointed the way to its freer future.
Zhao was the affable former premier and party leader who was purged for sympathizing with the pro-democracy protesters of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Harder-line communists, led by Premier Li Peng, moved against both the demonstrators --- whom they massacred --- and Zhao, whom they ousted as party secretary general and put under house arrest for what we now know was a life sentence. In an act of alchemy only dictators can perform --- and communists excel at --- the man who had been the country's leader one day became a non-person overnight. He was erased both from history and day-to-day reality.
Even at his death, China's rulers were miserly this week in their appraisal of their erstwhile leader. "Comrade Zhao Ziyang died of illness in a Beijing hospital Monday. He was 85," said Xinhua yesterday in a laconic, 55-word report that was devoted mainly to Zhao's cardiovascular and other difficulties. No accolades, no flag at half-mast, not even a mention of his official titles for the man who led China in one capacity or another for nearly all of the 1980s.
The irony is that the prosperity that China enjoys today owes a great deal to the economic reforms that Zhao helped to promote 25 years ago. First in Sichuan Province through small privatizations, then on a national scale as prime minister in 1980-87 and party leader in 1987-89, Zhao implemented Deng Xiaoping's vision of a China emerging from Maoist autarky and into the global market economy.
His mistake, in the minds of the party leaders who purged him, was in believing that political reform must accompany economic freedom. Beijing's communists continue to believe that they can retain their monopoly on power as long as the economy grows and they control the military and police. So far they've been correct.
But Zhao will probably be proven right in the eyes of history. Political and economic freedom are ultimately indivisible, and even in the 15 years since Zhao was purged the tumultuous change brought by market forces has caused political tension and contradictions, if not yet another democratic uprising.
Beijing's leaders must allow the Internet to expand, as a locus of global supply and demand, yet that means they must also play cat-and-mouse games with citizens who use the Web to express dissent. A growing middle class is demanding less party and government corruption, and so a freer press has developed that is willing (and often allowed) to expose it. Political crackdowns occur periodically, yet new dissidents appear and an underground religious movement flourishes.
China's leaders know they are riding a tiger, which is why the memory of Zhao so clearly discomforts them this week. The man who is premier today, Wen Jiabao, was Zhao's aide de camp until Tiananmen. It will be fascinating to see how he honors his former mentor. If Zhao's legacy is swept into the memory hole, we will know the communists are more worried about democracy than they care to admit.
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