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The New Tiananmen Papers

July/August 2019 81

The violence provoked widespread revulsion throughout Chinese so-

ciety and led to international condemnation, as the G-7 democracies

imposed economic sanctions on China. Zhao Ziyang, the general sec-

retary o” the Chinese Communist Party, had advocated a conciliatory

approach and had refused to accept the decision to use force. Deng

ousted him from his position, and Zhao was placed under house ar-

rest—an imprisonment that ended only when he died, in 2005.

A little over two weeks later, on June 19–21, the party’s top decision-

making body, the Politburo, convened what it termed an “enlarged”

meeting, one that included the regime’s most inÁuential retired el-

ders. The purpose o” the gathering was to unify the divided party elite

around Deng’s decisions to use force and to remove Zhao from o–ce.

The party’s response to the 1989 crisis has shaped the course o” Chi-

nese history for three decades, and the Politburo’s enlarged meeting

shaped that response. But what was said during the meeting has never

been revealed—until now.

On the 30th anniversary o” the violent June 4 crackdown, New Cen-

tury Press, a Hong Kong–based publisher, will publish Zuihou de mimi:

Zhonggong shisanjie sizhong quanhui “liusi” jielun wengao (The Last Se-

cret: The Final Documents From the June Fourth Crackdown), a

group o” speeches that top o–cials delivered at the gathering. New

Century obtained the transcripts (and two sets o” written remarks)

from a party o–cial who managed to make copies at the time. In 2001,

this magazine published excerpts from The Tiananmen Papers, a series

Last stand: protesting in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, June 1989

MANUEL VIMENET

/ AGENCE

VU
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