THE TIANANMEN PAPERS: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT MIKE CHINOY SPEAKS TO ZHANG LIANG, COMPILER OF "THE TIANANMEN PAPERS."

Willy Lam: Analysis of the Tiananmen Papers

MIKE CHINOY: Let me begin by asking you a question about the authenticity of the documents. Except for the computer printouts you brought, no one outside China has seen the original documents. And you and your collaborators, for understandable reasons, have been unwilling to disclose very much about your background. Under these circumstances, why should anyone accept at face value that these papers are authentic?

ZHANG LIANG: Before I reply to your question, I'd like to express my sympathy for those who suffered in the events of June 4th. Twelve years ago, Beijing was shaken by the June 4th incident. Several thousand people were injured. Several hundred died.

Whether these were students, Beijing citizens, troops of the PLA, or troops of the Armed Police, all of them were innocent. And for twelve years, officialdom has never expressed any sympathy or apology for what happened to them. I hope that as soon as possible, something will be done to comfort their souls.

The book was a huge news event when it was published in English in January and when the Chinese edition was published in April. It woke the Chinese people and taught people all around the world who are concerned with Chinese democracy to understand more accurately the event that happened in 1989 and it exerted a tremendous shock at the high levels of power in Zhongnanhai in China. I can tell you frankly all these materials have a solid basis. They are all reliable.

The best answer to the question of authenticity is that time will tell. The people will decide and time will tell us whether these documents are authentic. Since the book came out in January, the reaction in Beijing has been to exert enormous effort to try to control the response to this book, that's the best evidence that the documents are authentic.

As Mao Zedong said long ago, you don't have to pay attention to a lie. If something is a lie, you can ignore it. To treat this publishing event as an enormous attack is the best truth, the best evidence that the material is true. Lies will never survive and will never influence people. Only the truth will.

MIKE CHINOY: When did you first become aware of these documents and when did the idea of pulling them together and getting them out of China crystallize?

ZHANG LIANG: On your first question I am terribly sorry, but it's so sensitive that I can't give you an answer. On the question why we decided to publish these in the United States; for a long period of time we sought within the party to resolve the issue of getting the truth of June 4th told.

We placed great hopes in the new generation of leaders and Jiang Zemin, that he would have the courage and the ability to take the initiative to reverse the verdict on June 4th.

Many people in the party made the demand in a variety of settings hoping for the new leadership to set the record straight but in every case the suggestions were not accepted and we were disappointed.

Finally when we were sure that there's no hope of getting the incident re-evaluated within China and that the conditions were not ripe within the country. We felt we had no other choice but to go outside the country to publish the material.

MIKE CHINOY: I want to ask you about the events of 1989 itself. What in these papers is fundamentally new that changes our understanding of history, rather than simply filling in some interesting details?

ZHANG LIANG: There are three main points. The first one is that the bloodshed was completely avoidable, it was not necessary to have killings.

The second point is that this movement was not limited to Beijing or Beijing college students. It was all over the country, it was all over the major cities in the country. It included all the campuses, college campuses in the entire country.

The third point is that the conclusion that the authorities drew on the tragedy that this was an intentional plot, a counter-revolutionary riot, is completely false. Indeed, had there been an intentional plot behind this, things would not have ended as they did.

MIKE CHINOY: I want to ask you about a couple of the enduring question marks from the Tiananmen period. One is the assumption that there was real resistance within the People's Liberation Army to the crackdown. What did these documents tell us about the extent of the split between the military and the civilian leaders or within the military over cracking down?

ZHANG LIANG: We can see from the materials in the book that very high military officials, for example Young Shangkun, Qin Jiwei were not originally in favor of using force to resolve the incident.

Deng Xiaoping in the beginning did not want to use force but as events got out of control, it was Deng who made the decision to end the incident with bloodshed. The PLA's attitude all the way through was moderate, but when the orders were given, of course they had to obey because in China the military…because of the tradition that the military listens to the orders of the party.

MIKE CHINOY: There are some indications that Communist Party Chief Zhao Ziyang sought to use these demonstrations, he and his associates, to bolster their own political position in the internal powers struggle that was going on at the time.

In these documents, is there any material that addresses that issue, and in particular whether Zhao Ziyang and the people around him may have led the students on and encouraged them to strengthen their positions in the power struggles?

ZHANG LIANG: I think this is a misunderstanding. The person we see in the material in the book that Zhao Ziyang we see in the book is an open type of politician and not a schemer. If he had wanted to use the student movement to build up his own power and to push Deng Xiaoping out of his power, he probably could have done it.

He was the first Vice Chairman of the Central Military commission and the Party General Secretary, but what he tried to do in the book is to solve the student movement along the track of democracy and the rule of law. And because he took that strategy, he ended up losing power and his career ended in a sad way.

MIKE CHINOY: You obviously have collaborators in China, I know you can't talk about them but can you give me some sense was the process of putting them together, did it take months, did it take years. What would have happened to you if the authority have discovered what you were doing before you finish and left the country?

ZHANG LIANG: I want to let you know that since the publication of the book, the power holders in Beijing have been carrying out a variety of vicious and inhumane attempts to find out who was involved with this event. They have tapped telephones, followed people, collected secret dossiers on people, they have carried out secret searches on people's homes.

Those who have been interrogated and mistreated because the authorities think they have some relationships to this project, in fact have no relationship to it at all. The leaders in power should be clear that they should not carry out this kind of illegal plot.

I alone, Jiang Liang, take full responsibility for this book. I would like people to think of Jiang Liang as a single person, especially given the current conditions in China. But I would like to tell people that behind Jiang Liang stands multitudes of people, justice, and morality.

And let me add that a few days after the publication of the Chinese edition of the book, material from Bao Tung was published…the confession made in jail in late 1989 by BaoTung was published in Hong Kong. This has created a big worry for the authorities.

They believe that the publications are somehow connected, and that they were a plot of a group of people. I want to be clear here that there is no connection between these two publications except the historical logic of June 4th coming out.

MIKE CHINOY: I want to ask you about the fallout inside China from the publication of these papers. Your stated goal has been to help those to promote political reform in China. And yet since the papers have come out, the government has taken very hard measures in response. Are you concerned that the publication of these papers has the opposite effect to what you intended?

ZHANG LIANG: The reaction that you mentioned, we expected it, precisely because the material is not false. Simply because it is true, the government has had to respond this strongly to try to suppress it.

Even though these materials are authentic, it's expected that the power holders would try to refute the thrust of the book and they have two main arguments.

One is that the verdict on June 4th cannot be overturned because it will lead to disorder. The other one is that the suppression they carried out in 1989 was correct and necessary because that created the condition for social stability and for China to advance. In fact, both these views are false.

First of all, after the suppression of June 4th, democracy in China retrogressed and political reform made no advance. Economic and social issues have accumulated and gotten worse. We have seen demonstrations, farmers, urban workers, gangs have been springing up, the government is unable to control it.

There isn't any real, what they call unity and stability. That's just superficial. Underneath, elements of instability have grown. This is all because of the mistake that was made in suppressing democracy in 1989.

The argument was that to reverse the verdict on June 4th would lead to a loss of power by the Chinese Communist party. This is completely false. Actually the Chinese communist party has since the founding of the PRC in 1949, the Chinese communist party has reversed the verdict on all of its greatest errors except this one.

The Chinese Communist Party has voluntarily corrected its errors or corrected its own mistakes with respect to the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution.

Deng Xiaoping in fact said that the basis for the reform and opening policies that were so successful was evaluating the errors that were made by his predecesor Mao Zedong. It's the same thing with June 4th. If the Chinese communist party had brave leaders who were able to do what Deng did, they could get credit for it and would do good for the Chinese Communist party.

What's regrettable is the current bunch of leaders, from Jiang Zemin on down, are all unwilling to do this, and since the book has been published, they have repeated over and over again the conclusion of June 4th cannot be changed.

The fact is that whether the conclusion of June 4th is going to be changed or not, this will be decided by the people. It will happen sooner or later and those who have tried to suppress the truth will pay the price before the bar of history.

Of course the publication of the book has scared Li Peng and others who were responsible for the blood shed in June, 1989. They know that if the incident is revisited and the verdict is reversed, they will have to be judged for what they did. So of course they were trying to suppress the news and to find those who were involved in this publication but no matter what they do.

The news of the publication and the truth about June 4th is getting into China and gradually everyone in China is having the opportunity to know about it. As this happens, the effort to suppress the truth will have less and less support, the social basis for reversing the verdict on June 4th is going to build up.

It will not take very long, I believe the truth is having a very powerful effect on China. So the facts you mentioned of tightening up are only short term, I am sure the long term effects are beneficial.

MIKE CHINOY: You talk about a group of people within the party that share your reformist ideas, and want to promote political reform. But they seem to be very silent now. Where are they and who are they?

ZHANG LIANG: Let me try to answer your question from a slightly different angle. If you were trying to go privately to the top one hundred officials in China and try to ask them whether the verdict on the June 4th incident should be reversed, I can guarantee you that more than eighty of them would say sooner or later it has to be done.

And if you were to ask them can the verdict be changed without damaging the future of the party, more than eighty of them would certainly say yes, it can be done. Why don't these people go public now? The answer frankly is that China's political freedom is very limited today.

Mao had absolute power, one man can decide and represent the party center. In the Deng Xiaoping period, Deng didn't have absolute power but his power was relatively greater than anybody else's and he with his colleagues among the elders could overturn decisions of the Party Central Politburo.

Today Jiang Zemin and Li Peng are still the number one and number two people in the Politburo, and they have enough power for the time being to prevent the opening up of this issue of June 4th. But things have changed in twenty years of reform and opening.

People nowadays, although they do think of their own interest, their personal future and their families, and they try to stay out of trouble, they are doing many good things quietly.

They are doing their good works among people silently but they don't feel ready yet to take the risk of speaking out but I can tell you that if eighty among the top one hundred people believe that the June 4th incident should be re-evaluated, that's a very good start.

MIKE CHINOY: Are there any senior leaders you would be willing to name that you think privately would want to see an acceleration of political reform?

ZHANG LIANG: Let me suggest that Zhu Rongji and Li Ruihuan are among those who are obviously pro-reform. You can see this in speeches that they make overseas. You can see it in talks they give in conferences in China. There are others as well but I am afraid I can't give you other names.

MIKE CHINOY: There is talk now about the so called "fourth generation" of leaders such as Hu Jintao, who is widely expected to succeed Jiang Zemin.

Do you see in that generation people who are interested in reform or people who are just interested in self-preservation and therefore would be reluctant to get involve in something as controversial and dangerous as in pushing the reversal of the June 4th verdict?

ZHANG LIANG: The fourth generation of leaders will be able to reverse their verdict on June 4th just provided that there is a social basis for them to do so. That will give them a tremendous opportunity to do something that would greatly increase their popularity with the people.

Jiang Zemin and Li Peng have shown that they are unable to reverse the verdict but the fourth generation have no such direct tie with the event of June 4th. This is a generation of leaders who are in general good at accepting new information, new ideas and getting in tune with the flow of the events on the world stage.

So as long as they have enough of a social basis to do it, they would certainly be able to. I sincerely hope that the fourth generation of leaders will have the guts and courage to free themselves from this burden, this inherited burden of June 4th.

MIKE CHINOY: Are there documents you were aware of that you were not able to bring out that shed further light on areas of the 1989 event, that is some additional way add to our understanding?

ZHANG LIANG: That question puts me in a tight spot,. I really can't get into that. But let me address another question.

Ever since the book was published, the strongest point of attack that Jiang Zemin and Li Peng have put up against it is to say that this book is a joint project of domestic and foreign anti-China and anti-Communist Party forces, That it's connected with anti-China forces in the United States, that it's part of some plot by American forces to undermine the Chinese Communist Party or to promote "peaceful evolution "in China.

This is the best card that Jiang Zemin and Li Peng have. If they succeed in making this point to the Chinese people, that would greatly damage the value of the book. And we who were involved in the book knew this would be their line in advance so we made great efforts to be sure that nothing we did would provide any support for this notion.

We selected American scholars to work with, who have no links with the American government, who have not served in the American government, who were known as independent scholars.

We have kept away ourselves from any connection with the democracy movement people overseas. This project is completely a project of reformist people within the Chinese Communist party.

MIKE CHINOY: I want to ask you a personal question. How scared were you doing this? How scared were you leaving the country with this package of information that would have led to terrible consequence for you if you were caught?

ZHANG LIANG: As a perfectly ordinary person, I certainly wouldn't want to bear a responsibility like this if I could avoid it but as one who went through this event and as one who saw these events unfold before my very eyes, I felt pressed by historical responsibility to do what I did.

China has many people of conscience, sometimes facing history a person of conscience has to choose to make a sacrifice. If the society hasn't got people who seek for the truth, it's not going to advance.

Sometimes you have to make a personal sacrifice. Of course it's true that had I not done this thing, I could have passed an extremely comfortable life in China. I had a certain status there but what I did, I did for the history and for the people.

MIKE CHINOY: Tell me what it's like to be in exile, to have to be careful of your movements, to have to appear on television in disguise. How concerned are you for your own safety here? Do you feel like there are Chinese security agents watching you? What's it like, this kind of life you've ended up living?

ZHANG LIANG: This question of course arouses emotions that are hard to express but in the end my heart is in China. Whatever is valuable for Chinese democracy and for the cause of justice is worth doing, and the personal price is not important.

Before the nation and before the party, I am proud of what I did. I am certainly sorry for what this may have brought to some of my friends and to some of my family but I sincerely hope they would understand me.

Mike Chinoy is CNN's senior Asia correspondent

Willy Lam: Analysis of the Tiananmen Papers

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