Mourning the Death of 赵紫阳 (Oct 1919 - Jan 2005)

I only received the news of 赵紫阳 passing away from seow when i returned home from camp today!!!

One minute of silence please.



For those who dunno who he is, 赵紫阳 held the post of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party(中共总书记) from 1987 to 1989. He was once viewed as the natural successor to Mr 邓小平. However, during the 天安门 riots on 4th June 1989, he showed his sympathy towards the pro-democracy students/demonstrators and opposed the use of armed forces on them, thus being accused of splitting the CCP(搞内讧) and subsequently been removed from his post and remained under house arrest (软禁) until today.

His main contribution is playing a major role in opening up China to the outside world and reforming its economy during the 1980s. It would be unfair to credit Deng Xiaoping for all these achievements and ignore the hardwork of Zhao Ziyang totally. He also held talks with British to facilitate the smooth handover of Hong Kong during his reign.

Despite his removal from power, Zhao was always seen as a threat by Jiang Zemin. That's the reason why he was put under house arrest for nearly 16 years. He was rarely allowed to step out of his house and so on. This is the truth no matter how much Jiang Zemin tries to deny!!! Anyway Jiang only came to power after Zhao's fall from grace.

Zhao was an honest official, a pragmatic leader and a resolute reformer. I believed he will always be loved and remembered fondly not only by those who were presence during the Tiananmen Incident, but by the majority of the people in China as well.

赵紫阳，your contribution to Modern China will be rated as highly as 周恩来，邓小平 and 朱镕基.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Who knows, if Zhao was borned decades later, he might not have suffered what he had and he will be able to contribute even more to the People's Republic of China.