I found myself caught up in the excitement of the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989 by accident rather than by design. As Moscow correspondent of The Irish Times I had travelled to Beijing with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for a summit meeting with Chinese leaders. The visit coincided with the biggest demonstrations I have ever seen. The wide avenue that cuts through Beijing centre was crammed for miles with people supporting the students in their demands for democratic reforms and an end to corruption.
Everyone in the city it seemed had taken to the streets, factory workers, teachers, waiters, even the staff of The People's Daily, the top communist party organ. I was so convinced that there wasn't a single person out of step that I was taken aback when some plain-clothes security police brusquely ordered me away as I tried to reach the top floor of the Peking Hotel for a panoramic view. Wondering how the communist authorities could tolerate the loss of face by having to reschedule the summit ceremonies, I spent all of the chilly night of May 17th in the centre of the vast square, waiting for police or soldiers to make an appearance. Few of us got any sleep (the stone base of the Monument to the Fallen Heroes makes for an uncomfortable bed), and the night air was filled with the constant wailing of ambulances carrying away hunger strikers who had fainted. But dawn broke with the students still in command of the streets.
I remember wondering what precisely had gone on that night in the upper levels of the Chinese Communist Party. What did they make of the alarming river of intelligence flowing into the government compound at Zhongnanhai, so close by that they too could hear the sirens and the shrill speeches of the student leaders amplified by bull horns? They knew that the Beijing people had effectively taken over the capital. Was there panic at the top? How did they reach the decision to ignore the will of the masses and impose martial law with such bloody consequences some days later? This book purports to answer such questions for the first time. It is a collection of excerpts from internal party and police documents detailing, day by day, the minutiae of decision making as the leaders debated what to do. The documents were allegedly supplied by a reform-minded figure in the Beijing apparatus. This whistle-blower is not named, and the Chinese courier who conveyed them to the West also remains anonymous. Writing under the pseudonym Zhang Liang, the latter asserts they were leaked to hasten the day when the Communist Party verdict of counter-revolutionary turmoil against the students is reversed and China embraces democracy. They were given to Professor Andrew Nathan, a scholar of China at Columbia University, who in a foreword attests to their reliability on the basis of diligent double-checking with known facts, and by consulting other experts over a number of years.
However, cleverly forged Chinese Communist Party documents have appeared before in the West - and who can forget that another respected professor authenticated the forged Hitler Diaries? Also, the book contains only English translations. A reproduction of key documents in the original Chinese would have helped dispel a lot of scepticism. (A volume containing the Chinese documents is promised in the future). The story the papers tell is certainly intriguing. The arrival of Mr Gorbachev on May 15th was apparently the catalyst for a crisis in the Chinese leadership. An emergency meeting was held on May 17th at the Beijing home of Deng Xiaoping, the supreme elder of the first generation of revolutionaries. At this secret cabal, Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang argued that the students were patriotic and the way to end the hunger strike was to accept their demands to change the verdict in The People's Daily of April 26th, which accused them of counter-revolutionary turmoil. Li Peng urged that martial law be imposed on the grounds that the students were being used by a small group intent on overthrowing the regime.
Li emerges from the papers as a manipulator, flattering Deng and firing him up with accounts of how the students insulted his name. Deng eventually stated, "After thinking long and hard about this, I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Army and declare martial law in Beijing." Zhao replied: "I have difficulties with this plan," to which Deng retorted bluntly, "The minority yields to the majority", thus sealing Zhao's fate. There was, however, no majority in the Standing Committee for military force - only among the elders who backed Deng, used Li Peng as their instrument of repression, and selected Jiang Zemin to succeed Zhao Ziyang. To this day Zhao remains under house arrest, though he is allowed to play golf occasionally. The documents thus discredit the participants still in high office, especially President Jiang and Li Peng, who is chairman of the People's National Congress. This is clearly the aim of the person who provided them to the West. No one in Tiananmen Square that evening of May 17th knew what was going on at the same time at Deng's house, but when Zhao appeared with tears in his eyes to urge the students to end the hunger strike, we might have guessed that the die had been cast. The tanks didn't come that night, but from then on it was only a matter of time.
Conor O'Clery is International Business Editor of The Irish Times, based in New York. He was previously Asia Correspondent of the paper