Wang Yannan, the daughter of late ousted Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang, has thrown open the doors of her ancestral home in Beijing to a host of mourners, petitioners and well-wishers in recent years on key anniversaries, as well as for the traditional Chinese grave-sweeping festival on April 5. In an interview with Hong Kong's relatively free media, Wang now adds her voice to a growing chorus of calls for political reform which includes that of outgoing premier Wen Jiabao:
"The times are changing, and they are doing it in a way that makes me feel more and more that my father was right," Wang told Hong Kong's Cable TV network on Thursday, just days after the authorities disabled comment features for several days to stem a growing tide of political rumors.
"Democracy and the rule of law really are the key to solving our current set of problems," said Wang, who until now has kept a low profile and avoided commenting on national politics.
"If we don't use these methods, then we won't ever solve anything," said Wang, whose comments offer a rare glimpse behind the scenes of China's ruling Communist Party.
Commenting on recent reports that Wen, who is slated for retirement later this year, had called behind the scenes for a reevaluation of the official verdict on the military suppression of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, Wang said she "hadn't heard anything," and thought it "unlikely."
"I think that this matter isn't that simple," she said. "There are all sorts of vested interests developing right now, and a lot of conflict between various groups. It's not straightforward."
"I think everyone knows, at the highest and the lowest levels of power, that things can't remain this way. There will eventually come a day when [the Tiananmen crackdown] is re-assessed."
Last November, an outspoken commentary in a cutting-edge newspaper openly praised Zhou, whose name has been all but erased from the public record, the first positive appraisal to appear in China's tightly controlled media since 1989.
In an article dedicated to the memory of a liberal official in the city, Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily quoted a comment by late Guangdong provincial governor and reformist politician Ren Zhongyi:
"Guangdong wouldn't have got where it was today without the contribution of [Deng] Xiaoping, [Hu] Yaobang and [Zhao] Ziyang," Ren is reported to have said, listing the key reformers of the post-Mao era.
Zhao was demoted and held under house arrest for nearly two decades after he favored a conciliatory approach to mass student-led pro-democracy protests in 1989. A well-known news photograph of the time shows him addressing the hunger-striking students on the Square through a megaphone just days before his ouster, accompanied by a younger, but worried-looking, Wen Jiabao.
A former general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, Zhao's name has been edited out of official records and history books, along with those people who died during the Tiananmen military crackdown.
Reported by RFA's Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
