1978 – 1989
For China’s political reforms during the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping was the crucial factor. From the late 1970s, Deng gradually established his own power with the Party. While not possessing the absolute power of Mao Zedong, Deng’s power grew with the successful implementation of reform and opening up. But even then, there was a conservative faction that tried to reverse Deng’s reforms. Within the Party, there were two main political factions: the pro-reform camp was represented by Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang and the conservative camp led by Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Li Peng, and Yao Yilin. And Deng himself, who championed reform and opening even while insisting on the “Four Cardinal Principles,” became the deciding voice between the two groups.
Most of the time, Deng’s reformist views were exactly opposed to the opinions of the conservative camp, but that didn’t prevent him from standing with the conservatives on the issue of how to handle the 1989 democracy protests. On the question of preserving one-party rule, their opinions were exactly aligned.
On the surface, Zhao, as the general secretary of the CCP’s Central Committee, had the power to lead reforms, but in actuality, his position vis-a-vis the top leadership was quite weak. That meant that Zhao had a hard time getting like-minded associates appointed to positions of power within the various Chinese bureaucracies. The Organization Department, which handles promotions and assignments for Party members, was led by Song Ping, a member of the conservative faction.
To push forward any major changes, Zhao would need the support of Deng Xiaoping first. In the early 1980s, Zhao and Deng had a strong rapport. With Deng’s support, Zhao’s economic reforms succeeded. After the 13th Party Congress in 1987, though Zhao was officially the general secretary, he would still need Deng’s support to enact the desired political reforms. Up until early 1989, Zhao had this backing.
From the 1970s through the 80s, from Sichuan to Beijing, Zhao relied on Deng’s trust and support – too much so, as it turned out. Zhao thought that he understood (and was understood by) Deng. Although he knew that there was a limit to Deng’s support, the events of 1989 showed that Zhao had miscalculated the extent of Deng’s trust and his own control over the Central Committee. In truth, Deng did not support Zhao personally, but rather supported him because he would firmly carry out Deng’s own vision for economic and political reform.
As China shifted further toward a market economic system, the people inevitably adopted values that do not depend on traditional ideology, and society began to demand political freedom
On Jan. 31, 1979, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and President Jimmy Carter sign historic diplomatic agreements between the United States and China
On the question of political reform, though, Deng and Zhao were not entirely in sync. Deng hoped to reform the existing system, making it more efficient without entirely overturning it. Zhao, meanwhile, who was the true leader of the political reform movement, sought to change the way the Party wielded power, with the end goal of establishing a democracy. Under the aegis of Deng’s vision, Zhao conducted a bold experiment — trying to transform China’s highly centralized political system into a modern constitutional democracy.
The differences in Deng and Zhao’s goals eventually led Deng to stop supporting Zhao and throw his weight in with the conservatives to kill political reform. In the early summer of 1989, Deng believed that Zhao was seeking to use the democracy protests to push for more political reform, endangering one-party rule in China.
In May 1989, when the situation threatened Deng’s bottom line, his support for Zhao evaporated. Deng suppressed the student movement and stopped the political reforms cold. When Zhao opposed martial law and the use of force to end the protests, he was deposed by Deng.
Even when he had Deng’s support, Zhao faced steep opposition from the conservatives. The conservative faction had already seen their hand strengthened at the 13th Party Congress in 1987, when two ultraconservatives (Li Peng and Yao Yilin) made it on the five-member Politburo Standing Committee. The conservatives now had the ability to interfere with and influence Zhao’s work.
More seriously, the conservatives knew that if they wanted to change the direction of China’s reforms, they needed to remove Zhao from power. Beginning in April 1989, Li and Yao used Deng’s fear of the democracy movement to accuse Zhao of “supporting chaos,” leading to the final decision to use force to suppress the movement. In the end, the conservatives used Deng’s strength to get rid of Zhao.