Larry Siems reads from The Tiananmen Papers by Zhang Liang, Andrew Nathan, and Perry Link at the 2009 Human Rights Book Fair.

The Tiananmen Papers is a collection of hundreds of internal papers and Communist Party documents that document the internal debates and decisions made by the Party “elders” relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown. The texts were made available by individuals in China and compiled by Zhang Liang (pseudonym) who worked extensively with China scholars Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link. The Tiananmen Papers was published on January 8, 2001, and the Chinese volume June Fourth: The True Story was published in Hong Kong in April 2001. Both the English and Chinese editions provide a detailed account of the power struggle amongst CPC leaders before the military crackdown on June Fourth.
 

From The Tiananmen Papers

At 8 p.m. the meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee resumed at Zhongnanhai. Committee members Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, Qiao Shi, Hu Qili, and Yao Yilin attended. Yang Shangkun and Bo Yibo participated in their role as Party Elders.

Excerpts from Party Central Office Secretariat, “Minutes of the May 17 Politburo Standing Committee meeting”

Zhao Ziyang: “The question for this evening's meeting is martial law. First we need to consider whether the situation has reached a point where martial law is our only option. Will martial law help solve the problem or only enlarge it? Is it in fact necessary to impose martial law? I hope we can discuss these questions calmly.”

Li Peng: “The decision on martial law, Comrade Ziyang, was made by Comrade Xiaoping at this morning’s meeting. I support Comrade Xiaoping’s views on martial law. I believe that the topic for the present meeting is not whether martial law should or should not be imposed but, rather, what steps to use in carrying it out.”

Yao Yilin: “I strongly support Comrade Xiaoping’s proposal to impose martial law in Beijing’s urban districts. Taking this powerful measure will help restore the city to normalcy, end the state of anarchy, and quickly and effectively stop the turmoil.”

Zhao Ziyang: “I’m against imposing martial law in Beijing. My reason is that, given the extreme feelings of the students at this juncture, to impose martial law will not help calm things down or solve problems. It will only make things more complicated and more sharply confrontational. And after all, things are still under our control. Even among the demonstrators the vast majority are patriotic and support the Communist Party. Martial law could give us total control of the situation, yes; but think of the terror it will strike in the minds of Beijing’s citizens and students. Where will that lead? In the forty years of the People’s Republic, our Party has learned many lessons from its political and economic mistakes. Given the crisis we now face at home and abroad, I think that one more big political mistake might well cost us all our remaining legitimacy. So I see martial law as extremely dangerous. The Chinese people cannot take any more huge policy blunders.”

Hu Qili: “After much careful thought, I too have decided that I am against martial law in Beijing. In the complicated political situation we now face, we have to be wary of high-pressure tactics that could aggravate the confrontation. To be quite frank, I worry that martial law could lead to an even more serious social crisis: It could ignite new mass resistance, and it could make even more people join this student movement that should have been brought to an end long ago. It could leave us with a situation even harder to handle, and it could lead to extremes. In short, I don’t see how martial law is going to help us toward a peaceful resolution of the situation.”

Qiao Shi: “I’ve wanted to express my view all along. We can’t afford any more concessions to the student movement, but on the other hand we still haven’t found a suitable means for resolving the situation. So on the question of martial law, I find it hard to express either support or opposition.”

Bo Yibo: “This is a Standing Committee meeting in which Comrade Shangkun and I are only observers. We don’t have voting rights, but we both support Comrade Xiaoping’s proposal to impose martial law. Just now everyone on the committee had a chance to express his opinion. I think we should make the opinions even clearer by taking a vote, by saying ‘yes,’ ‘no’ or ‘abstain.’ This has been our Party tradition when we face important questions of principle.”

Following Bo Yibo's suggestion, the five members of the Standing Committee took a formal vote. Li Peng and Yao Yilin voted for martial law; Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili voted against it; Qiao Shi abstained.

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