Wen Raises Eyebrows by Praising Hu Yaobang in inscrutable PRC

Wen Jiabao

The Economist has a very intriguing story about Premier Wen Jiabao in its latest issue, that raises more questions than can be answered for perhaps several years to come:

ON APRIL 15th the arcane and neglected art of reading China’s political tea leaves suddenly surged back into fashion. The Communist Party’s turgid broadsheet, the People’s Daily, published an article on the top of its second page by the prime minister, Wen Jiabao. Its glowing praise for Hu Yaobang, a politically incorrect former party chief whose death triggered the Tiananmen Square protests 21 years ago, struck a remarkably liberal note.

Hu’s death on April 15th 1989 prompted thousands of students to take to the streets in mourning. They bore aloft pictures of the late leader, who though still a member of the ruling Politburo when he died had been forced to resign as the party’s general secretary two years earlier for being too soft on dissent. Because Hu had not been fully purged, the party had no choice but to hold an elaborate funeral for him. This provided cover for the students, who soon switched their attention to demands for democratic reform.

Since the bloody suppression of the protests, Hu has been referred to sparingly by Chinese officials; and the liberalism with which he was associated has also been permitted only sparingly. Of late, it has been notably absent, as the party cracks down on human-rights activists, tightens controls on the internet and frets about unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang. Yet China’s leaders are preparing for a change of guard in 2012-13. Mr Wen will be stepping down. Could it be that, having established China as a global economic power, he and his colleagues are at last thinking of making it politically more respectable?

The speculation triggered by such an potentially historical article is positively dizzying in its ramifications. Is the Peoples' Armed Forces ready for a more liberal political arena now that the economic base of the PRC, recently named by the IMF as the world's third economic power behind the USA and Japan, appears as solid as ever? This question is not brought up by the Economist editors, who are aware that too much frank discussion of the various implications of Wen's article could arouse enmity among the more conservative---i.e., Stalinist-Maoist---elements remaining in the PRC power structure. Which in turn might invite retaliation by said atavistic elements to the detriment of the Economist's access to journalistic and other sources in the Middle Kingdom?
In any event, Wen's article does leave a very intriguing anecdote at the very end, the final para of the piece:

Bao Tong, who was a top aide to the late Zhao Ziyang, Mr Hu Yaobang’s equally liberal successor, believes there could be an ultra-subtle message in the party’s re-embrace of Hu. Officials—he points out—like to encourage the idea that Zhao helped topple Hu (though Mr Bao says he did not). Far from being a sign of yearning for reform, support for Hu could indicate repudiation of Zhao, about whom reminiscences remain strongly discouraged. Zhao was thoroughly purged after Tiananmen and died under house arrest five years ago.

Mr Wen’s article, however, does hint strongly at a huge problem in China’s political system. It describes how Hu instructed Mr Wen to sneak out of an official guesthouse and visit a village under cover of darkness, to find out what peasants were really thinking. “Remember, do not inform the local government,” Hu was quoted as saying. A quarter of a century later, Chinese leaders remain almost as prone to deception by their underlings.

Perhaps the entire gist of the piece by Wen is contained in the rather pathetic anecdote, which almost pleads for a more open dialogue among various players in the vast political arena in the economically and socially expanding PRC. Perhaps the Premier is hinting that political change commensurate with the giant social and economic growth should be a topic for consideration in the near future?