Deng 'backed' Tiananmen crackdown
HONG KONG, China -- It was China's late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping who "resolutely backed" the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, according to former premier Li Peng, the South China Morning Post reports.
The Post quoted Li from an article he wrote in the Communist Party journal Seeking Truth about the three most controversial decisions he made during his premiership from 1987 to 1998.
Li said Deng also insisted on building the controversial Daya Bay nuclear plant in southern Guangdong province and the massive Three Gorges Dam.
Li's article was among several from former leaders published in the journal to mark the centenary of Deng's birth, the Post reported.
But it was the only one to refer directly to the 1989 military crackdown.
"In the spring and summer of 1989, a serious political disturbance took place in China," Li wrote.
"Comrade Deng Xiaoping -- along with other party elders -- gave the party leadership their firm and full support to put down the political disturbance using forceful measures."
Li has rarely referred directly to the Tiananmen crackdown.
China's leaders still defend the crackdown and reject pleas to alter the verdict that the protests were a "counterrevolutionary riot."
During the 1989 protests, tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded central Beijing and occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks.
But on June 4 the protest movement was brutally suppressed by the military, using tanks and troops.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protesters were killed. The government maintains that around 300 people died, most of them soldiers.
Li also revealed some of his feelings when he was appointed premier in 1988, describing himself as a timid apprentice who needed encouragement from Deng, the Post reported.
 | Li Peng relinquished his role as premier in 1998 as part of continued economic pragmatism. |
"Comrade Xiaoping said, 'What I am worried is that you are not bold enough to carry out your work. You have to learn hard and train yourself in work in order to make yourself more mature,'" Li wrote.
Li also wrote that it was Deng who ignored opposition in Hong Kong -- which neighbors Guangdong -- and pushed for the building of the Daya Bay nuclear plant.
Additionally, Li described Deng as the "main decision maker" behind the Three Gorges Dam project.
Construction of the dam -- which will be the world's biggest and could cost $24 billion to build -- began in 1994 and will be finally completed in 2009.
China says the purpose of the dam is to control flooding on the Yangtze river and produce 18,200 megawatts of electricity for China's rapidly expanding industrial base.
But critics say the dam is a waste of money and could worsen pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste.
Deng, who was born in 1904, was one of the first generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders.
He held prominent positions in the 1950s and 1960s but was stripped of his roles during China's Cultural Revolution.
Deng was reinstated as Vice-Premier of the State Council in 1973. His power grew after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976, and he became China's paramount leader in 1978.
Though Deng resigned from his last official post in 1989 he remained China's most influential political figure until his death in February 1997.
Li relinquished his role as premier in 1998 to Zhu Rongji.
