Zhao Ziyang’s Secret Memoirs

Book’s editors on lifting a veil from Chinese politics

By Katie Koch, BU Today, Dec 2, 2009

Bao Pu (left) and Adi Ignatius, editors of Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, say the former leader’s memoir is the first to emerge from the highest ranks of China’s Communist Party. Photos by Vernon Doucette

Secrecy has long been the calling card of China’s Communist Party. When important leaders retire, unlike their Western counterparts, they choose silence over the attention and danger of a tell-all memoir.

Until now. The first behind-the-scenes look at China’s political power struggles in the turbulent 1980s has emerged, the secret memoirs of Zhao Ziyang, the fallen party chief who spent the last 16 years of his life under house arrest.

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Tags: China, Tiananmen Square protests, Zhao Ziyang, Zhao’s memoirs