communist party and put on hauser restad respoke out in favor of the tienanmen square protesters in 1989. he passed away in 2005. participating in the discussion of the book's editors, patty ignatius and winston lord, former u.s. ambassador to china. pcie the asia society in new york city hosted the event. it is an hour and 25 minutes. ..

>> a lot of these details are familiar to many of you but i will sketch out a little history of how this book came into being. 1989, the crackdown comes. zhao ziyang was already out of power. he had fought the hard-liners in the highest levels of the party during the student protests. he had argued for a relatively lenient line. he would not listen to when the decision was made to declare martial law which eventually led to the violent crackdown. he refused to go along with it. at that point his career was done. he was pretty much out of the decisionmaking in may to june 4th. a la was sitting in the courtyard when the troops moved in to tienmen square.

he lived under house arrest in beijing. and he was occasionally able to have visitors and travel, but frequently both were denied. in the book he talks about the kind of really almost comical attempts to keep him from doing normal things like going out to see somebody or play golf or something like that. so he spent the last 16 years of his life at home under house arrest. it was assumed that he never left a final testimony, never was able to leaf is take on what happened. it was assumed he didn't because he was under tight surveillance, he was too bidder, too broken,

too frustrated. there was a trickle of material that had come out, people who had spoken to him and written up the conversations. it was assumed -- the book is an incredible discovery that he did for secretly under the nose of his capital, he recorded 30 hours of tape. bob can add to this later. he did not know he was making recordings which he made around the year 2000, we are not sure exactly.

he taped over these. we can talk later about who the people were that made it outside of china. he made his recordings, he didn't specify what was to be done with them. on the other hand he meticulously numbered them all. there are passages when he is speaking where clearly he wants to be speaking to the great world out there. the judgment was made that he expected and intended these to be published for the world to read. he did not leave explicit instructions but implicitly it seemed quite clear. he made the recordings, he did and trust a few people to go outside the country and eventually they were reassembled, compiled,

translated, and it turned into the book. the hero in this stage is not me. it is something that was made for years where this would be published. the publishing house in hong kong publishing miscellaneous books, it is fair to say, really, have a publishing house operating for the time this book came out, which is exactly what he did. he and his wife who is not here today did the translation. where do i fit in? my wife and i knew about it for years. it is fair to say they needed somebody like me who had a journalist's take on the things, that kind of introduction could

help publish and find a publisher. some jumped in earlier and said yes, we want to do this book and that was a great thing. this was a secret we kept for a year and a half before publication, fearing that if the chinese government knew about this, it would do whatever it took to stop publication. including presumably squeezing the family, family members still living in china doing business, squeezing them in whatever way they could, do with you can to make sure this book does not come out. communicating with heavy-duty, encrypted e-mail technology and not saying anything on the phone, and there was a very small circle of people who knew about this until it broke in the media week before publication. with that, i will turn it over

to bao pu. >> i actually have things to say. my motivation is really from my vision of this publication, pressure, the pressure is -- i have -- brought up an interesting question, whether history was relevant to today. from my personal point of view, history is a highly relevant, not only relevant, what happens, actually did not personally experienced the time that it

happened. i remember my father was gone. he had something to do with what is happening on the street and a few days later, i saw what happened in beijing where the confrontation, the imagery on the street happens. i wasn't even sure about the precise connection between what happened to my father and things on the streets. on the streets, all these people were there, nothing wrong, when

actually your first reaction is anger, that is what happened. on the streets of beijing, on the night of june 3rd, it wasn't -- shortly after that, i was forced to basically alter my life plan, forced to learn what happened to me and my family. so during this process i discovered as a political

leader, someone associated -- my father had a working relation, which i didn't quite understand at the time, i was able to revisit the entire course of events in the 80s, so-called reform, so history was relevant to me personally. that period of history. i thought it was shifty relevance to everyone else. but if you read what happens, there is an interesting parallel, like what happened in the khrushchev take. in this story, as mentioned, at

one point, the general in this book, this is while he is under house arrest, the general office sent him speeches that he had done previously entered into already in the newspaper. far he asked to send these materials back to him. obviously he was trying to formulate some kind of recollection. and the answer was no. it is interesting that they are not even interested in having the formal general secretary and formal premiere to reflect what

happened, they weren't even valid, that recollection. certain things happen in the khrushchev tape, khrushchev's son said in the book, after the material was published in english and the k.g.b. came in and confiscated tapes, many years later, he discovered, he thought, after the publication took possession of these tapes, they would carefully listen to what he said and study what he said and many years later to his surprise, never happened, they just blocked the whole collection of tapes in the door and never bothered to revisit

them, so that this parallel, striking a parallel between the soviets and the communists, china's reaction to part of history that they wish never happened, there's a sharp contradiction to how i feel, and that is basically the motivation to work on this material. >> it might be helpful for the audience to very quickly tell everybody what happens. >> what happened indeed? >> in other words, what was the role during 1989 and what were the issues which divided the

leadership and ended him up being put out of office. >> all right, there is no simple way to really talk about this. but there is one angel that you can take, that he was a politician, made sure that china's program went forward. end in the interests of protecting economic reform in 1989, when a social movement iraq's, at an unexpected time and he was compelled to protect the economic reform program from

being -- the other side, the conservatives, trying to use the student protests and their leverage and opportunities, the relation program, rolling back some of the reform programs, the general secretary made the difficult choice of choosing a moderate approach and choosing to have dialogue with the students and to defuse the tensions even though it is against the personal inclination to, the paramount leader, the of the battle, he made his choice and never backed down.

>> if you had just left china, as you watch these events unfolds, what was going through your head? >> let me begin with the society for convening a meeting, this is an incredibly interesting book and i encourage everyone to read it. secondly, remembering tianenmen square, we will develop this further later, this is extremely important not only a historical date, looking backwards, a future date. i think this will be a seminal point in chinese history. the verdict will be change, i don't know how soon, and it will be seen as evoking its political future of 1 fifth of mankind. i think it is that important an event. i am pleased with this panel, worrell is someone who can come

home to shoot -- u.s./chinese relations, sensitive ones with the chinese without fear. a terrific journalist but as a member of the embassy baseball team, and even better short stop. i only just met bao pu today but have great admiration for his father, on many occasions i met his father, he was in some of those meetings and what he has done ever since is a beacon in china, extraordinary. i will get to your question, but what i thought i might do is give you a sense leading up to it. what we saw, how much we could sense what is going on. none of us predicted the enormity of the events. i went to china as ambassador in november 1985, to jesse helms, we got there. we left on april 22nd, 1989,

which was a week after the first major demonstration, 1 hundred thousand people on the occasion of the funeral. he did go back prearranged, no one knew this was going to happen. gorbachev visited cbs television from tianenmen square. we had a general sense of political issues, some satisfaction. we spend the bulk of our time promoting good relations with the chinese and official u.s./chinese relations which we should do. we tried very hard with academic and cultural ties to meet with as many young people who perform as artists, academics, as we could in the embassy. so the first foreshadowing was the dynamism of the conversation on political reform and our

residence outside and the embassy. we couldn't predict what was going to happen but it was a free debate on sensitive issues. more specifically, i would cite three events that gave us foreshadowing of what was going to happen. 1986 around christmas time, there were major demonstrations in shanghai. these were sufficiently serious and important that zhao ziyang kicked out someone on political issues. that was significant. there were two personal episodes. 1988, betty and i were invited out to beijing university, what was later known as democracy seminar were students organized informal meetings with outsiders. to be very honest we didn't realize the full significance of these discussions. we had a general policy of

meeting many students performing as young people as possible so this was part of that effort by us. it was extraordinary, i will take the time -- we were very careful to not do anything as ambassador, students didn't have any trouble. i even praised the economic reforms. you could certainly get a sense of the unrest, not just on freedom but corruption, on school conditions, inflation, nepotism, that was the second foreshadowing. what brought home to me that it was getting sensitive was three days later i got a personal message from a high level chinese on behalf of king himself, how dare you meet with students without checking with me first? something is going on here.

no one can predict. the third event, showing sensitivity, the advanced premise, and we had a seminar this afternoon about whatever the image was. when president bush, newly elected, came to china in february 1989, had to give a return, and ordered the embassy to put together the largest possible guest list of all walks of life, we had the challenge of indicating a concern for reforms and human rights, the only prerogative. when he went to moscow he thought that was too much, showing symbolism, he went to church and raided his meetings but among those who were invited, an outstanding critique of the government, but working officially as a research assistant from a government institute, he was not a favorite

of donchao ping. it is part of the seatheme, whao we foresee? they stopped him at the last minute, kept from attending the banquet. the next few days, the white house managed to claim not the chinese for the are rages behavior but the embassy now only 4 not in fighting but the white house, which we have an. we did not foresee the enormity of the tragedy that ended. >> one could make the case that

there was a lot going on, that this was one of the most open periods in chinese history. that ended this hopeful period of reform and change. was this a bad exercise that send china back and said the reform movement back? >> it would be a long case. >> explain. >> first of all, you rate this in the introduction, it is true that as a result of the widespread resistance of corruption and freedom in china, the leadership was scared. the party secretary and premiere

was saying -- we have got to stress that students, people from all walks of life, there are 250 cities in china, not just beijing. this shook up the leadership as a result as you indicated. they didn't initiate. the company was frozen, and donchao ping went to the south and got the momentum going again. they have to have some legitimacy. they add economic progress, man or woman not worrying about political freedom. they may have accelerated economic reform as. as i said, this will continue to be a major event in chinese

history and i think of for the future. it is hard to speculate now what would have happened if he had prevailed. >> let's speculate on what would have happened. it is a soft line toward demonstrators, if that had prevailed, and the thing had died down quietly. what do you think the outcome would have been? >> speculation doesn't get you very far in terms of prediction. there are safe ways of predicting, if a dialogue was successful, it opened up the

opportunity for political reform, it shows there are other ways of doing things other than this authoritarian way. that really opened up the possibility -- intention was not -- when the students started protests, his intention was actually -- he successfully pushed this political reform package together and got it passed in part of congress a year ago. in his memoir he also mentioned this reform package, even after it was passed, it was very difficult to execute. the whole bureaucracy was working against it. nobody was interested in doing

anything concrete. so the student protest for him -- may be present him another chance to push reform forward. if a successful dollar happens it is safe to say that he will push political reform forward, finding the edge to get going. >> let me read a very short quote to this effect from the memoir, he said i also felt the student demonstrations could be resolved along the principles of democracy and law through dialogue and an easing of tension could take place, it could possibly do is china's reform so clearly he did have that agenda in mind but on the other hand, he also says the

crux of the issue was donchao ping himself. >> yes, he did. there are a couple points that are raised. he was not a particularly skilled political insider at the highest levels. he was a very good tactician. if you read the book you realize the lot of the tactical games that he played in order to key reforms moving, things like popularizing the primary stage of socialism as a blanket to cover dramatic capitalist style innovation he was pushing, that is one example but he had a lot of contacts, clearly from the book he was not very comfortable in his years, his years in beijing were not is happiest

years. when he was trying out things and making this happen, he goes to beijing and he is feeling with a lot of people who are not sympathetic. the elders are still alive, they are suspicious of reforms, their power struggles are of a personality, issues, i don't think he was ever comfortable. his relationship with donchao ping with very difficult. donchao ping wanted him to push a liberal economic agenda. and he kind of left it to him to do the fighting, he made a lot of enemies in doing so. donchao ping was not always there to back him up. i think when the split really happened, zhao ziyang looked around and had very few allies. >> the question, if zhao ziyang

had prevailed, at that point zhao ziyang was not talking a lot about political reform for its own sake. the only foreign journalists to interview his father in 1988, running zhao ziyang's political think-tank. the wall street journal in beijing, a senior editor came from new york. we have a great interview, weaver talking about political reform. he was very cautious and i assume represented zhao ziyang's thinking. we walked out thinking this guy is pushing political reform and there's not going to be a lot of political reform here. he showed political liberalization will help the development of the economy. political reform for its own sake, we don't really buy that. i publish the piece in the wall street journal saying this is

not that impressive an agenda, he was really pushing a pretty interesting line. later, a mutual friend of ours told us they story, it said this -- i you going to be ok? is this exposure good for you or is it a problem? is great, he is really conservative. it is hard to know what people are thinking. i think zhao ziyang in his later years under house arrest, this is reflected in the book, really began to feel that chinese society needed political reform, not just develop the economy but kind of live a better life, a more stable society, and if he had prevailed maybe that would have happened sooner, but the development of his own thinking

is pretty clear. >> a little bit of a change of mind when he is sitting at home for 16 years, he was a supporter of new authoritarian is some. he was a full blown democrat when he was in office. >> absolutely not. one of the interesting things to me in terms of how this might play out in the chinese debate about what should be china's future, from the western perspective you can say put him under house arrest, of course he is now going to say china should have democracy. i think there's another way of looking at it, which is that his entire career was spent as a faithful lieutenant, it would have been more logical for him to blame a few people who took the wrong line.

he does, but it is still -- communism needs to give way to democracy. >> a couple points, major political move in the 80s separating government of the party so that you can have more officially run businesses and not just party supervision. it is very clear, extremely honest, not only was he not thomas jefferson but didn't claim to be. he was pragmatic. what kind of system would advance the economic agenda. after several years of reflection, conceptual evolution, not just political anger. there was not as much value as what is going to make the

society work. >> you know when people leave office, they come to jesus in terms of being more outspoken. >> not everybody ends under house arrest. >> but that concentrates the mind. >> you could see the tension here between donchao ping and zhao ziyang, donchao ping was willing to get the economy moving. they never agreed, even though zhao ziyang was cautious on politics, donchao ping, consistently against political reform. 1978, he gets in coverage. you can see he and joe on this subject. he is a political liberal list.

>> very important point calling on western parliamentary democracy. my interpretation, it is not an ideological paul, it is a practical choice. china needs advancement in its political system, nobody actually question -- the current political system has connections dated back to 16,000 b.c.. everybody is on the same page, they have a problem, there were of that problem. pay attention to the way he

mentioned democracy. he specifically mentioned western parliamentary democracy, it is very clear, however flawed the system is, there is no system that is better. why china should go down to make a choices, it it works in all the industrialized nations. it is a practical choice instead of an ideological call. >> all of you would have to agree, one would have to say in the year 2009, nobody could have imagined china would have gotten disappointed, it has been successful. do you think it would have been

more successful if there had been a different outcome in 1989? >> it is hard to make that case, they deserve credit. i am critical of the chinese political system, i believe in u.s. relations. doesn't mean you can't talk about flaws. they could have done much better but having said that, he is not 10 feet tall even economically. it is inevitable without many people and resources. i don't think you can make at case. you would like to think they have done at least as well and a lot of progress has been made thanks to the dynamism of the

chinese people but the key issue is the following. when i talk about the prospect of political reform -- you told me 20 years ago, they would not have had the phenomenon in south korea, the middle class political reform, they call out the of thes, i would have thought you were crazy. the issue for the future is will the amount of other countries, can you have a system, a huge country like this, we have tremendous economic progress but the political system, despite a developing middle-class, can you clampdown on the internet and cellphone and still develop the economy and maintain stability? i don't have the answer to that.

i am relatively optimistic but i am free making predictions. predictions are always as horrible as business. >> what do you think of this idea of china as a model? >>. political conservatism insists on autocracy and the crackdown, that brings stability to generate growth, and there's another thing going on, the profits of dismantling the mouth, the soviet system, and

two sings happen at the same time but to argue they have this causal relationship is wrong because there was economic growth before the crackdown. why do you have to insist that without the crackdown and economic. , would it continue? there are people who like this idea of crackdown and steadily growth, but that argument doesn't go that far, if you look at what happened. >> people generally credit donchao ping with being an architect, a kind of a miracle worker of china's new success,

how should he be appraised, in view of this book? >> let me add to that, i agree with bob, the causality it to the did to this, not necessarily correct, another way of looking at it, china has unleashed its people to do business to make money, they're really good at it, creating an even more free regime might have more growth, 1989, they lost three years, and three dark years until 1992, and we are on the wrong course and have to get this done again. the crackdown in tianenmen led

to this economic juggernaut. you can't replay it. the book proves what we thought we knew, that he was in favor of bold economic experimentation and has no tolerance for political reform, anything that would challenge the privacy of the communist party. it is interesting, chinese government has been pretty quiet about this book, they have not responded to it, there was one semiofficial peace and one of the things that has gotten under their skin is the idea that these are jobless reforms. zhao ziyang does not take credit. it was important to him to the

very end, he gives credit to donchao ping. when you realize a lot of the heavy lifting, a lot of -- he basically said go do it. zhao ziyang filled in the details. he did that in the province and as premier and general secretary running the economy after that. you can look at the book and say his role was bigger than people give him credit for. donchao ping said you should make this happen. >> provided protection. >> of 2 point. >> he had to have courage as a leader to outmaneuver opposition. when people say he deserves credit, the answer is both. nixon had the concept and courage to take tough decisions

and henry kissinger was the architect. there's a certain similarity. so i think donchao ping will go down with economic reforms and the opening to the outside world, very good relations with the united states which he promoted assiduously. but he will be forever flawed by ordering the massacre in tianenmen square and opposing political reform. will be a mixed verdict. >> the current chinese criticism against this material will be referring to english forward which says donchao ping is the godfather of reform and architect and a to the most of

the chinese audience, impact with them, because the state's machinery propaganda is basically consistently saying gun shopping was the architect of reform, so zhao ziyang is the architect and that made an impact but they omitted that donchao ping was the godfather. in the eyes of many chinese, they don't know what godfather is. it didn't go very far. >> how did they translate literally the word godfather? >> i translated myself in that peace and put it as a piece that replaced has something in the chinese worship.

god's father. but what godfather is, most of the chinese people, it is -- i don't know what they think because -- >> do we have an italian? >> it works. >> it will work the other way. >> before we take questions, let me throw out one that we began with. does history matter? does it matter that the chinese people, the media, does it matter whether this gets discussed in the public arena of china, or is it just as well to be forgotten? >> i want to hear what bao pu says about this but this debate is still going on. this is not history. at a certain point, the demonstrators's power struggle

played out to the highest levels. what played out and what you are left with is a china where the bargain is you can get rich, make money and criticize the government. that was the intention then and today. >> is the effort in china? >> yes, but i am not sure there will never be anything different. as soon as the chinese edition was published, it was posted on the file server and everyone is downloading this thing. people who care about it, it need to read it, are getting access to it. they had a different view of things, a different view of what was happening on the ground in

beijing, they added different view of what is an appropriate response, a different view about whether or not compromise is ultimately threatening to the state, whether or not people express themselves is something intolerable in a modern society. this debate is still going on. it is not history, it is -- this memoir has ended this debate. >> i believe the answer lies in the public reaction to this. to my surprise, each popular audience in hong kong, i think -- one thing, is because this character, zhao ziyang as a

character is still being remembered and people want to hear his version of history. the other aspect is that people instinctively know that this version of history is more relevant to reality and it is very simple because in the chinese version of history, this man served seven years as china's premier and two years as general secretary, does not exist. people instinctively know that maybe this is more truthful to what really happened. reflection that the blood still

yearning for, people are interested in what happened. it is actually within all of us and the publication triggered something positive in the air, this truth came out, i want to read it, and here we are, this is the answer, whether history is relevant or not, history is only relevant when all of us think, what truly happens should be relevant to the present. >> i approve of those answers and i agree with them, particularly i yield to my chinese colleagues to examine this question. i will repeat what i said, we are not just talking about history but the future. >> can you three foresee a day soon when there would be a re-evaluation of 1989 and zhao

ziyang's roll? >> i won't make any more predictions. i do think it will happen but i won't to you when it is going to happen. what might have happened, nobody in power had anything to do with it directly but for obvious reasons in terms of legitimacy, they don't want to discuss it. at some point -- i am not going to predict, i am saying the students were wrong, i will keep saying students, nobody else was involved, which we keep forgetting. they were not revolutionaries, they were naive, they emphasized debate and they meant well but they made mistakes and they did the right thing. that was the first step. at some point it will be seen that the hooligans will become heroes, but that is a little longer away. >> i believe zhao ziyang is in the history and the future in

all of us, and whatever the future outcome, whatever it is going to be, all of us, our choice is, we to make our personal choices of how to deal with china and how to did this order to get a visa and we will have more business opportunities in china. the future is determined by our own choices. so if anybody says you should blame for whenever future outcome is, the first person is you in the mirror. >> obviously it is impossible to

say, there is no sign that this book is playing into any momentum toward the evaluation or people on the street again. but these things pick up. in 1989, the reaction was unexpected, there was contexts, democracy in 1988/1989, crazy exhibits, shooting bullets at installations, it was a time when it was a context, at least in hindsight you could say when the demonstrations broke out, certain time they existed. on the one hand, yearning for democracy but on the other hand the rising expectations among the middle class, as economic reforms slowed, and zhao ziyang completely botched inflation. there was the context that i

don't see now that would lead to anything like this. the only thing i can say is zhao ziyang, i think, as he left this memoir, these remembrances, was in part making them for in future tribunal, whatever it might be, that would reevaluate what happened, what his role was. this was about making his case when that time comes. >> let's take some questions from you all. please wait for the microphones, because this will be aired on c-span. let's start right here in the aisle. if you will please stand up and tell us who you are. >> michael medical. my question is the panelists, what it is about political reform, was it more about corruption and asian governments

and the middle-class from reform? was it the gun who misinterpreted what was going on? thank you. >> i was having a conversation about that before and with someone who is in the audience now. as a journalist who was there, the shorthand that we use is this was a pro-democracy movement. there was a backlash later, the twentieth anniversary, we are seeing that, it wasn't about democracy at all, students to know what they wanted. i think the backlash has gone too far. the university salons were very important in terms of the development of this movement that was triggered by the death, but triggered by something else as well. there was a sense -- other people in this room could speak to the center but a sense among people who emerged as the early leaders of the movement that the

party was distracted by the economic problems. this was a moment to push the envelope and raise questions about political freedom, and maybe in this context would not be. i've is looking at my notes recently, in the earliest days that this was happening, people were saying this is about democracy. you are a journalist, tell our story to the world. did they know what they meant? no. the look and iran. did people want to overthrow the government? no, probably not exclusively or necessarily at all. but they know that it stinks. that is what is going on. we have problems in terms of freedom, or more broadly in terms of the ability to affect political development, whether

it has to do with the economy and corruption, that is the democracy movement even if everybody is participating, had a different day. i am here because i think there should be dialogue between the government and various aspects of society. there was that decision but to me it was a democracy movement. >> i have one question, it wasn't specific kinds of democracy but general unease with the system, specific issues like corruption. i was surprised, the students purposely didn't push inflation as an issue because that would be a reflection on the economic reforms being favored. to have a word about inflation it wasn't a major issue. my obvious -- my memory is

faulty, i thought inflation was one of the key issues along with democracy and corruption but the book suggests otherwise. >> i think it was a reason feeding into the sense of malaise but not articulated so forcefully. >> it is show to protect economic reforms, that is the implication which is interesting. >> there is one point, that movement was an intellectual movement in 1989, different from the calling of their own rights. when an intellectual comes forward, they have their own concerns but they tend to argue, we don't even have democracy. there's a tendency among intellectuals to converge on what they are calling for, this

ideological, fundamental issue. it may be triggered by corruption, by concerns of other issues, and an intellectual movement tends to quickly converge on some fundamental issues. the tapes in 1989. >> next question, we have one right in the back of the aisle. >> scott smith. what do the sanctions have in the development of china since tianenmen? >> i couldn't quite hear. >> in squelching sanctions. >> squelching the sand -- descent.

>> such as when bush veto the sanctions bill from congress, what role did that have in the development of china since then. >> you are probably talking about the most favored nation debate. >> also before that, discussions from congress to tie trade to human rights. ..

which i called, which have is tough on the chinese government, overly optimistic about the future as i have already said but i also said we cannot this think the whole relationship that is too important. human rights is got to be a significant part of our agenda but we have to many other issues to be subsumed under when-issued even though that is a painful trade-offs but it is prudent. >> i think after, i mean the crackdown and i guess he was right, the two leaders were quickly the leaders of both countries were quickly on the same page and they both think you know that the relationship with-- was too important and whatever happened in tiananmen

was you know in some way was the up this-- obstacle between the relationship of the two nations and they made their choices to have a continued relationship and how to deal with it is you know, on this side of deng xiaoping he does not have to convince anybody to release, to remove the tactical and the obstacles that are standing in between the two relationships, but you know i think you know they were determined to keep the relationship going. i think on this side of president bush, he made the determination that deng xiaoping is in power and china is polling ford with the reform program so

in a longer context, there is nothing to worry about. i think deng xiaoping, in this book, deng xiaoping, when he asked zhao to confirm that he is still and after zhao becomes the general secretary and deng this is seen as the ultimate decision-maker and deng made the argument that so long, the world knows that i am in power and you know, it is a signal to the rest of the world that china is committed to reform, so there is, there is, it was clear that the two leaders were on the same page. >> alright, next question. there is one right here.

>> my name is tongue and i am from pace university. my question is to mr. bao. inert earlier. >> you mentioned that you saw at anger. could you spend a little more about who was angry at him? the students angry citizens for the army? we really want to know by that time, you know of so many people were involved and i want to know your opinion, your experience. >> it is actually very simple because when people think they are doing, they were doing nothing wrong and simply peaceably expressing themselves on the streets, and the chinese constitution still claimed that there is such a thing called

freedom of expression and it was supposed to be protected. and that, when they were doing it and they thought obviously it was not, they didn't do anything wrong. when you actually met with pier violence, and this is when the anchor was triggered. you know i am not sure where the hangared was directed specifically, but obviously it was the people's general feeling towards the state's action, the military action against them. >> yeah, to add to that beijing, i mean that they served spun for the past 20 years is that there was a rebellion inside the city and they put it down just as in a reasonable government would have. to me, it is worth remembering a

lot of journalists left beijing on or about june 2nd because to be honest the movement seemed to be losing momentum. people were finally taking in r&r break after weeks of round-the-clock coverage. this includes myself by the way. you left april 22nd and i left may 23rd. our first child was born in hong kong, so i didn't rush back. again, because there was this sense that the movement had kind of lost steam and still was computated in beijing. then on june 2nd, thousands of troops come running in from the suburbs dressed in military fatigues apparently unarmed and they get stopped because they don't really know what they are doing and they are not armed. the only thing that accomplished was to basically get all of beijing out of the streets again in the sense of agitating concern and then the next

night-- >> and to make people feel perhaps a sense of falls power because they had stopped the troops the first time. >> so the next day they come in for real, the army comes in with real bullets and with guns and with tanks, and you know if the government put down a rebellion on june 3rd and june 4th is because they created it. i can prove that the intentionally created it by sending these guys out on june 2nd but, zhao was out of power by this point so he does not have any inside knowledge of this but, getting, reading about the power struggle and the desire to have a decisive victory that would not only clear the square but also stop the liberal trends in society and that does come in the book. you realize that is the struggle. it is not inconceivable that the point of sending people and on june 2nd was to get people out

of the streets so there could be a decisive strike june 3rd and 4th. we can't prove that but it has always struck me as being a possibility. >> the journalists left the end of may for the same reason. they could have resulted peacefully although you all are much greater experts. they were not trying to overthrow the government. maybe an occasional person here or there but they were asking for dialogue essentially. this allows the system as you pointed out, so my conviction is the one to send a strong message for the future and it wasn't so much that they-- this point. i am embarrassed after all these weeks. >> that is an interesting question. the whole question of face. the government certainly lost a lot of face and the gorbachev of visit could not take place in tienanmen square. the military was for it. the government seem to be powerless. do you think in a certain sense

that dynamic sort of compelled the government to take a harder line position, to sort of regain a sense of face? >> i mean, i believe the government never lost control and they know that. and zhao's hazy argued that he was not worried about the demonstrators could not subside. he argued, he is concerned and his worry was that it would open up the possibility for another anti-liberalization campaign, which would roll back economic reform and i think you know, in this book, and you could get a sense where the beaurocracy's reaction in the course of the bends end the truth is, the chinese leader had never lost control over its bureaucracy and

over its army and in fact, the student who was actually disbursed with the violence in a single night and after that it was gone. so, to argue that students were already a political force, i mean it is premature. i mean, there wasn't. there are a lot of-- anger and worldwide condemnation but what really was that work was there is still a strong authoritarian state that was firmly in control of this power. and its bureaucracy. of course, when the scale of the event, and only the scale of the event was not predicted by the chinese leaders. when the scale of the fence

reaches a certain stage, then the moral issues become more prevalent then there are more people in the government that are making more choices. if you pay attention, then those would take moral choices like zhao, where-- where rare actually and most people were taking the standard bureaucratic approach. they would side with power. >> further on the question of phase, the turning point, it sounds so esoteric now, but to me the turning point in clearly to zhao was the publication of his editorial and news daily that ran the protesters as, try to do it specifically but i'm getting the words wrong. essentially unpatriotic, disloyal, trying to bring down

the state. i forget the exact words. but, dino i think it is entirely possible the movement would have petered out had not this then just viewed by students and their sympathizers as just a slap across the face, that the students felt they were like there may fourth, the may 4th generation many years earlier that they were standing up for china and would be called the disloyal, suggesting that there were manipulating us all for small political or even big political reasons really got the movement going again in a big way so then the question is, once this editorial had been published, could you backed down? deng xiaoping's fingerprints were on this. zhao did not want this printed, but once it was, his information was on it so what could you do?

zhao kept looking for ways. >> said look, if we back off things are going to look better and the response of his clothes were we can't back them. basically can't back down. it would be a loss of face for deng. they basically took that argument all the way to bloodshed because we can't back down. now, zhao and others, blaming me. i did sign off on this and zhao was in north korea when this first appeared. blame me, let me take responsibility for blame the mayor of beijing who later was toppled any way for a correctly sizing up the situation when it was presented to deng. that was where it could have happened and nobody was willing, nobody was willing to risk doing something that could reflect badly on deng and it led to

hundreds at least being killed. >> okay, another question right here in the green shirt i believe, yes, standing up. >> thanks very much. mickey wharton from human rights watch. i would like to thank the asian society and the editors of the book for igniting this very important discussion and debate, which is of course not actually happening in china. and come i think perhaps the real achievement of the book is that you have brought zhao ziyang back from the great politburo in the sky to have another turn at the debate. do you have any indications about whether chinese leaders are passing this around on usb stakes awe among themselves? is there any hope that this will reignite the debate that was

artificially stopped in 1989? >> we don't know. [laughter] i mean, i would encourage finding the chance for them to ask themselves, what they thought when they read this. from, from a personal point of view i would hope that they would read it because this is a highly relevant to today's china. >> their response externally was to have no response, and that is probably a very smart response if you are the government of china, in some ways legitimacy to what happened in 1989. [laughter] >> here you have a response. >> i'm not sure whether that was classified or not. [laughter]

>> allred i.t. think we have time for one more question, let's see. how about right down here. >> the trick is to sit along the perimeter. >> i am afraid that is true. >> i am a novelist from hong kong. i wanted to ask mr. ignatius and mr. bao about editing this material, what challenges you face and what editorial compromises if any you felt you had to make to publish this book? >> well, the challenge, we were approaching this book and again priscilla was the editor of the bookish simon-- simon & schuster antisuffrage from the start that this was an important book to bring out. the goal was to create a book not just for people who are concerned, asian scholars or people who are knowledgeable about china but more for a general audience.

you know, a lot of it was tough going. these are the memoirs written by a guy who's spent his life as the official. people's afscme do you think the material is real? for a variety of reasons aidoo including the fact that it is not sensationalist. id is not sexy. it is fascinating and you know i have told my family-- >> simon & schuster is going crazy. you are not pushing this. [laughter] >> reader's digest version. >> it is a small miracle to me that this actually made "the new york times" best-seller list and i say actually because i thought it might, who knows who zhao ziyang is? who remembers he is but it really did well and i think the reviews have been incredibly favorable. it is a moving story of the material got out and we have

never seen somebody at that level peeling the curtain back in describing how these people, not only what happened but how did these guys talk to each other. as a journalist we used to write about liberals and hard-liners and you never had firsthand information but you felt pretty confident that there was that kind of split. not only does zhao confirm that but they go after each other sometimes in petty ways. zhao, the famous moment when zhao is out of power and he goes to tienanmen square to talk to the students with a bullhorn. he talks about, he talks about-- he then says he was terrified and immediately left. >> a smart move. lohse be a smart move. he also talks about other events that zhao was set before that were deng would show up and stand in front of zhao to be

between the photographer had and zhao. they were like little school kids and then to describe how they would rush off to get to deng xiaoping first, that deng did not always know what was going on and someone would present the information to him. it would matter who spends the heads first and will make the decision in an oracle light. this is extraordinary. this is some of our kind of worst fears of how the government might actually be operating, were it in fact true. so, i mean the challenge mostly for me where riding introductions to every chapter so when zhao talked about the specific events and all these people at was not an overwhelming mystery to people. >> by way of conclusion and having read this book and that

reflecting back these 20 years, on these 20 years, what one question with each of you like to pose to the leaders of china today, and let's start with whoever has the question formed in their mind. >> no, i mean the question to me, the mystery is, will it is actually what i was talking about. what happened june 2nd? what was the point of sending in the ama arm soldiers' on june 2nd, which had the result of bringing all of beijing back to the streets again, taking in movement and suddenly the streets were receiving before the live ammunition came about. i would like to know more about that. >> i think there is a highly relevant issue that is being reopened now on the verdict of

tiananmen and the response. the government that was trying to justify its military action against peaceful protesters by saying that it was premeditated, it was aimed against-- it was aimed at overthrowing the chinese government and therefore their action was justified and i think they tried to push this political arguments through, and unsuccessfully. after they realized this, they sort of to end down their claim and they are now saying, it is just a minor disturbance so, admission that the political case they are trying to make wasn't convincing to the rest of the world. and, here, the question that

zhao actually brought back is that the student who wasn't, the event should be very clear by now, and that my assessment was that you know the student was aiming at correcting our mistakes instead of overthrowing the chinese government. on my right or your right, so the actually presented this highly relevant question. i mean, today and we released the audiotapes and precisely he was saying that and i think this is the most important question that the chinese government has to answer. even though the current leader is not responsible for, for the bloodshed personally 20 years ago, but they have this responsibility to resolve this

unresolved political case. >> i have two related questions if i could ask the politburo of the leaders, really looking now into the future. one, in all sincerity whether they can wave believe what over the longer term china will need a general political reform or is this a façade in semantics and delaying action and may be interparty cleaning up and better qualifications for a party cadre, but never any genuine freedom of the press etc. or accountability with officials. and really an honest answer and if so what timeframe? if they devised a new system, will it work forever and defy history because it has never worked before but so far they have really done an incredible job. related, if things are so stapled and they are so

confident in the chinese people, why were they so nervous? why are they locking people up been censoring the internet, not letting the grieving mothers of 20 years ago of tienanmen square still know what happened, not to mention the szechuan, about what happened in szechuan. so, maybe they are a little bit more nervous than we think there. i can explain this paranoia, where they go into paranoia and fear when anything challenges them. i am still puzzled by that, that they have to be this brutal. i am for good relations with china but let's not kid ourselves, this is still a brutal system. >> i hope you will all join us for a reception upstairs. i hope you all will join the asian societies so we can continue to do the events like this and join me in thanking our panelists for joining us.

[applause] >> bao pu is a political commentator and publisher of new century press in hong kong and adi ignatius covered china for the "wall street journal." for more information visit asia society.org.

>> this summer booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> my name is michelle bachmann and imam member of congress from minnesota six congressional district. i have too great books i am working on right now this summer and early summer and i will switch into something a little bit later but the first book is by dr. michael then, a constitutional scholar. it is called liberty and tyranny. it is been on "the new york times" best-seller list for nine out of the last ten weeks. it is sold over 1 million copies and it is essentially a treatise on why conservatives believe what they believe. those three number of different issues. it is a fabulous book. i have read it once, highlighted it. it is that all dog-eared, the pages. liford notes and all of the

margins. i urge people to read his book. it is fabulous. i'm going through the second time now and taking more notes on it. i am also working on another book by a great lady that i have heard several times speak about the book and it is the forgotten man by amity shlaes. it is so timely because she is writing the history of the hoover and years of fdr and the great depression and the forgotten man is the american taxpayer, who is paying for all of the expense for building up the welfare state, so it is a fascinating story to see how the american economy is taking a real parallel today in 2009, with the same course he might say of action that was taken back in the great depression so this is the very instructive for members of congress right now, very pertinent to what we are doing because of we are going to applied the principles of big

government interventionism we see what played out in the 1930's and action prolong the action so that for that man is a great book, plus we have been able to hear from her personally. we had dr. mark levin here last summer. he was speaking at a luncheon and he had not yet written liberty and tyranny but since his book liberty and tyranny there has been so much excitement in washington about that book and i am hopeful that dr. live then we'll come back and allow us to hear from him personally but that is the number one book i would encourage all americans to read, liberty and tyranny and also amity shlaes, the forgotten man. >> to see more summer reading lists and other program information, visit our web site at booktv.org.