Mais uma caricatura de J. Guedes
Lydia Selina Dunn, Baroness Dunn, DBE (
Traditional Chinese: 鄧蓮如;
Simplified Chinese: 邓莲如;
Hanyu pinyin: Dèng Liánrú;
Jyutping: dang6 lin4 jyu4) (born
29 February 1940) was the Senior Unofficial Member of the
Legislative Council and
Executive Council in
Hong Kong in 1985-1988 and 1988-1995, after
Rogerio Hyndman Lobo and
Chung Sze Yuen respectively. She has been deputy chairman of banking giant
HSBC in 1992-2008.
As one of the most senior politicians in Hong Kong, Dunn had considerable influence in the
Government of Hong Kong before her retirement in 1992, after
Chris Patten was made Governor.
Biography
Daughter of late Yen Chuen Yih Dunn and Bessie Dunn, Dunn was born on
February 29,
1940. She is married to
Michael David Thomas (唐明治),
CMG,
QC,
Attorney General of
Hong Kong from 1983 to 1988.
Educated at
St. Paul's Convent School in
Hong Kong, and at the
College of the Holy Names in
California, as well as at the
University of California, Berkeley, she joined the
Swire Group in 1964 and now she is an Executive Director of John Swire & Sons Limited and a Director of Swire Pacific Limited. She was appointed to a seat on the Legislative Council in 1976.
Being a
non-executive director since 1990 and a non-executive Deputy Chairman in 1992-2008 of the
HSBC Group, she also served as a non-executive director of
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited from 1981 to 1996.She was created a
DBE in 1989, and in 1990 made a
life peer as Baroness Dunn, of
Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong and of
Knightsbridge in the
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She is also the first Chinese female to be made a Dame.
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon,
CH,
PC,
QC (born 20 December 1926), known until 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Howe, is a
British Conservative politician. He was
Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving
Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Foreign Secretary, and finally
Leader of the House of Commons and
Deputy Prime Minister.
His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have hastened Thatcher's own downfall three weeks later, in perhaps the most dramatic period of British Conservative politics in recent times.
Early life
Geoffrey Howe was born in 1926 at
Port Talbot in
Wales. A pupil of the Bridgend Preparatory School, Bryntirion, he then attended
Abberley Hall School, Worcestershire and
Winchester College. He then did National Service as a
Lieutenant with the
Royal Corps of Signals in East Africa, by his own account giving political lectures in Swahili about how Africans should avoid communism and remain loyal to "Bwana Kingy George". Having declined an offer to remain in the army as a captain, he went up to
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Law and was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association, and on the committee of the Cambridge Union Society. He was called to the Bar in 1952 and was made a
QC in 1965. He became chairman of the
Bow Group, an internal Tory think tank of 'young modernisers' in the 1960s, and edited its magazine Crossbow.
Member of Parliament
Howe represented
Bebington in the
House of Commons from 1964 to 1966,
Reigate from 1970 to 1974, and
East Surrey from 1974 to 1992. In 1970 he was knighted and appointed
Solicitor General in
Edward Heath's government, and in 1972 became Minister of State at the
Department of Trade and Industry, with a seat in the Cabinet, a post he held until Labour took power in March 1974.
hadow Cabinet
In Opposition between 1974 and 1979, Howe contested the second ballot of the
1975 Conservative leadership election, in which Margaret Thatcher was elected, and then was appointed by Thatcher as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. He masterminded the development of new economic policies embodied in an Opposition mini-manifesto The Right Approach to the Economy. Labour Chancellor
Denis Healey described being attacked by Howe (at the time the Conservative shadow Chancellor) as "like being savaged by a dead sheep".
In government
With Conservative victory in the
1979 general election, Howe became Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. His tenure was characterised by radical policies to correct the public finances, reduce inflation and liberalise the economy. The shift from direct to indirect taxation, the development of a Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the abolition of exchange controls and the creation of tax-free enterprise zones were among important decisions of his Chancellorship. Howe's famous 1981 Budget defied conventional economic wisdom at the time by deflating the economy at a time of recession. His macro-economic policy emphasised the need to narrow the budget deficit rather than engage in unilateral tax cuts of the kind subsequently pioneered in 'Reaganomics'. His micro-economic policy was designed to liberalise the economy and promote supply-side reform. This combination of policies became one of the defining features of Thatcherism in power. Some commentators regard Howe as the most successful Chancellor of his era.
Foreign Secretary
After the
1983 general election Thatcher appointed Howe Foreign Secretary, a post he held for six years. He became in effect the ambassador for a Britain whose international stature had been revived by the growing success of the 'Thatcher revolution'. He played an important part in reasserting the role of the five permanent members of the
UN Security Council, and developed a strong working relationship with
US Secretary of State George Schultz, paralleling the bond of Reagan and Thatcher. His tenure was made difficult, however, by growing behind-the-scenes tensions with the Prime Minister on a number of issues, first on South Africa and then on Britain's relations with the European Community. In June 1989, Howe, and his successor as Chancellor,
Nigel Lawson, secretly threatened to both resign over Thatcher's opposition to British membership in the exchange rate mechanism of the
European Monetary System.
Deputy Prime Minister
In the following month of July 1989, the little-known
John Major was unexpectedly appointed to replace Howe as Foreign Secretary, and the latter became
Leader of the House of Commons,
Lord President of the Council and
Deputy Prime Minister. In the reshuffle, Howe was also offered, but turned down, the post of Home Secretary. Although attempts were made to present it positively, Howe's move back to domestic politics was generally seen as a demotion, especially after Thatcher's press secretary
Bernard Ingham belittled the significance of the Deputy Prime Minister appointment at his morning lobby briefing the following day. The personal insult to Howe was compounded by having to give up the Foreign Secretary's country residence
Chevening. The sceptical attitude towards Howe in Number 10 weakened him politically — even if it may have been driven to some degree by fear of him as a possible successor — a problem compounded by the resignation from the Treasury of his principal ally Nigel Lawson later in the same year. During his time as Deputy Prime Minister, Howe made a series of coded calls on Thatcher to re-position her administration, which was suffering rising unpopularity because of opposition to the
Poll Tax, as a 'listening government'.
Resignation
With pressures mounting on Thatcher, Howe resigned from the Cabinet on 1 November 1990 — in the aftermath of the Prime Minister's position at the Rome European Council meeting the previous weekend, at which she had declared for the first time that Britain would never enter a single currency — writing a cautiously-worded letter of resignation in which he criticised Thatcher's overall handling of UK relations with the European Union. After largely successful attempts by
Number 10 to claim that there were differences only of style, rather than substance, in Howe's disagreement with the Thatcher on Europe, Howe chose to send a powerful message of dissent. In the famous
resignation speech in the Commons on 13 November, he attacked Thatcher for running increasingly serious risks for the future of the country and chastised her for undermining the policies on EMU proposed by her own Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England. He offered a striking
cricket metaphor for British negotiations on EMU in Europe: "It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain". He called on others to "consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long". Although Howe said subsequently that his intention was only to constrain any shift in European policy by the Cabinet under the existing Prime Minister, his dramatic speech is widely seen as the key catalyst for the
leadership challenge of
Michael Heseltine a few days later, as well as Thatcher's subsequent resignation as Prime Minister and party leader on 22 November 1990, after failing to win an outright vote on the first ballot.
Retirement
Howe retired from the House of Commons in 1992 and was made a
life peer as Baron Howe of Aberavon of Tandridge in the County of Surrey. He published his memoirs "Conflict of Loyalty" (Macmillan, 1994) soon after. In the Lords, Howe has continued to speak on a wide range of foreign-policy and European issues, and more recently led opposition to the Labour government's plan to convert the second chamber into a largely elected body.
In his early retirement, Howe took on a number of non-executive directorships in business and advisory posts in law and academia, including as international political adviser to the US law firm Jones Day, a director of Glaxo and J P Morgan, and visitor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His wife
Elspeth Howe, a former Chairman of the
Broadcasting Standards Commission, was made a life peer in 2001, as Baroness Howe of Idlicote. Lord Howe is a patron of the
UK Metric Association.
Howe was a close personal friend of
Ian Gow, the former MP, parliamentary private secretary, and personal confidant of
Margaret Thatcher. He delivered the principal appreciation of Gow at the latter's memorial service after Gow was assassinated by the IRA.
Rogerio Hyndman Lobo
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searchSir Rogerio Hyndman Lobo,
CBE JP (
Chinese: 羅保, also known as Rogerio Lobo and Roger Lobo, is a businessman of
Portuguese and
Scottish descent and has been an active
philanthropist and
politician in
Hong Kong.
Born
15 September 1923, he has been a member of the
Urban Council,
Executive Council and
Legislative Council. He is famous for his
Lobo Motion in Legislative Council of Hong Kong during the negotiation of the future of
Hong Kong between
United Kingdom and
PRC in early 1980s.Contents
Family
Rogerio Lobo's father moved from
Portuguese Timor to
Macau between late 19th century and early 20th century. He settled in Macau and married Branca Hyndman, the great granddaughter of Scottish sea captain Henry Hyndman, served in the
British East India Company at
Singapore and settled in Macau at the beginning of the 19th century.
He married Margaret Mary Choa; they have five sons and five daughters.
arly life
He studied in the
Lyceum in
Macau and
La Salle College in
Hong Kong. After his study, Rogerio Lobo joined his father's business in 1945.
Political life
Lobo was appointed as a member of Urban Council on
1 April 1965. He has been a member of Executive Council between 1967 and 1985, Legislative Council between 1972 and 1985 (the
Senior Unofficial Member between 1980 to 1985) and Urban Council between 1965 and 1978.
On
14 March 1984, in his famous Lobo Motion,
This Council deems it essential that any proposals for the future of Hong Kong should be debated in this Council before any final agreement is reached.
Other public services
Lobo has participated in many public services in
Hong Kong. He has been long participating in
Civil Aid Service and became her commissioner in 1977. He was appointed as the head of
Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority from 1989 to 1997.
Zhao Ziyang (
simplified Chinese: 赵紫阳;
traditional Chinese: 趙紫陽;
pinyin: Zhào Zǐyáng;
Wade-Giles: Chao Tzu-yang) (17 October 1919–17 January 2005) was a politician in the
People's Republic of China. He was
Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and
General Secretary of the
Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989. As a high-ranking government
official, he was a leading
reformer who implemented
market reforms that greatly increased production and sought measures to streamline the bloated
bureaucracy and fight
corruption. Once slated as
Deng Xiaoping's successor, Zhao Ziyang was
purged for his sympathetic stance toward the student demonstrators in the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and spent the last fifteen years of his life under
house arrest.
Rise to power
Zhao was born Zhao Xiuye (赵修业), but changed his given name to Ziyang while attending middle school. The son of a wealthy landlord in
Hua County (Chinese simplified: 滑县
[1]),
Henan province, he joined the
Communist Youth League in 1932 and worked underground as a Communist Party official during the
Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and subsequent
Chinese Civil War. His father was killed by party officials in the late 1940s. He rose to prominence in the party in
Guangdong from 1951 and introduced numerous successful agricultural reforms. In 1962, Zhao began to disband
the commune system in order to return private land to
peasants while assigning production contracts to individual households. He also directed a harsh purge of cadres accused of corruption or having ties to the
Kuomintang. By 1965 Zhao was the Party secretary of Guangdong province, despite not being a member of the
Communist Party Central Committee.
As a supporter of the reforms of
Liu Shaoqi, he was dismissed as Guangdong party leader in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, paraded through
Guangzhou in a
dunce cap and denounced as "a stinking remnant of the landlord class". He spent four years in
forced labor at a
factory. In 1971 he was assigned to work as an official in
Inner Mongolia and then returned to Guangdong in 1972.
Zhao was
rehabilitated by
Zhou Enlai in 1973, appointed to the
Central Committee, and sent to China's largest province (not including autonomous regions such as Tibet, etc),
Sichuan, as first party secretary in 1975. Sichuan had been
economically devastated by the
Great Leap Forward, and the consequent
Cultural Revolution. Zhao turned the province around by introducing radical and successful Market-oriented rural reforms, which led to an increase in industrial production by 81% and agricultural output by 25% within three years. Deng Xiaoping saw the "Sichuan Experience" as the model for
Chinese economic reform and had Zhao inducted into the
Politburo as an alternate member in 1977 and as a full member in 1979. He joined the
Politburo Standing Committee in 1982.
Survived Assassination Attempts
Since
Sichuan province was a strong base of Radicalism during the
Cultural Revolution, the ardent followers of the
Gang of Four vehemently opposed Zhao's reforms. However, Zhao's policy had huge popular support and the supporters of the Gang of Four turned to assassination after all other supposedly legal means failed. Over the years in
Sichuan during the
Cultural Revolution, there were no fewer than half a dozen attempts on Zhao's life, and the most serious one happened when Zhao's jeep was ambushed in a valley during one of his trips, where he narrowly escaped death, but in an attempt to save Zhao's life, his driver/secretary was crushed and buried by an artificially induced landslide. Although attempts on Zhao's only resulted in this single loss of life, the last culprits were not caught until 1983, well after the end of the
Cultural Revolution.
Rehabilitation
Zhao was rehabilitated in 1971 and appointed
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Revolutionary Committee secretary and Vice Chairman in March 1972. He was elevated to the 10th Central Committee in August 1973 and returned to Guangdong as 1st CCP Secretary and Revolutionary Committee Chair in April 1974. He added Guangdong Military District Political Commissar to his titles in September 1975. Zhao was transferred to Sichuan, and in addition to his party titles, became Political Commissar of the Chengdu Military Region in December 1975.
Reformist leaderAfter six months as vice-premier, Zhao was appointed premier in 1980 to replace
Hua Guofeng,
Mao's designated successor, who was being pushed out of power by Deng Xiaoping. He developed "
preliminary stage theory," a course for transforming the
socialist system that set the stage for much of the later Chinese economic reform. As premier, he implemented many of the policies that were successful in Sichuan, including giving limited self-management to industrial enterprises and increased control over production to peasants. Zhao sought to develop coastal provinces with
special economic zones that could lure
foreign investment and create
export hubs. This led to rapid increases in both agricultural and light-industrial production throughout the 1980s, but his economic reforms were criticized for causing
inflation. Zhao also persisted in advocating an open
foreign policy, fostering good relations with
western nations that could aid China's economic development.
Zhao was a solid believer in the party, but he defined socialism much differently than party conservatives. Zhao called political reform "the biggest test facing socialism." He believed economic progress was inextricably linked to
democratization. As early as 1986, Zhao became the first high-ranking Chinese leader to call for change, by offering a choice of
election candidates from the village level all the way up to membership in the Central Committee.
In the 1980s, Zhao was branded by many as a revisionist of
Marxism. He advocated government transparency and a national dialogue that included ordinary citizens in the policymaking process, which made him popular with the masses. In Sichuan, where Zhao implemented economic restructuring in the 1970s, there was a saying: "要吃粮，找紫阳 (yao chi liang, zhao Ziyang)." The wordplay on his name, loosely translated, means "if you want to feed yourself, follow Ziyang."
In January 1987, Deng forced reformist leader
Hu Yaobang to resign for being too lenient to student protestors; Zhao replaced him as CPC General Secretary, whose vacated premiership was in turn filled by
Li Peng. This put Zhao in the position to succeed Deng as paramount leader. While General Secretary Zhao favored loosening government controls over industry and creating free-enterprise zones in the coastal regions, Premier Li favored a cautious approach that relied more on
central planning and guidance.
In the 1987 Communist Party Congress Zhao declared that China was in "a primary stage of socialism" that could last 100 years. Under this premise, China needed to experiment with a variety of
economic systems to stimulate production. Zhao proposed to separate the roles of the party and state, a proposal that has since become taboo. According to western observers, the two years Zhao served as General Secretary were the most open in modern Chinese history—many limitations on
freedom of speech and
freedom of press were relaxed, allowing intellectuals to freely propose improvements for the country.
Equally important, in the economic arena, Zhao was one of the first leaders to advocate the reduction of state control in enterprises by increasing private ownership via stock. Although the idea also became
taboo during Zhao's era, it did begin to become a reality since 1990s.
Zhao's proposal in May 1988 to accelerate price reform led to widespread popular complaints about rampant inflation and gave opponents of rapid reform the opening to call for greater centralization of economic controls and stricter prohibitions against Western influence. This precipitated a political debate, which grew more heated through the winter of 1988 to 1989.
The second half of 1988 saw the increasing deterioration of Zhao's political environment. In fact, Zhao found himself in multi-front turf battles with the party elders, who grew increasingly dissatisfied with Zhao's hands-off approach to ideological matters, as well as the conservative faction in the
politburo led by
Li Peng and
Yao Yilin, who were constantly at odds with him in economic and fiscal policy making. In the mean time, Zhao was under growing pressure to combat the runaway corruption by the rank-and-file officials and their family members. As the year of 1989 kicked off, it was evident that Zhao was faced with an increasingly difficult uphill battle, to some extent he was fighting for his own political survival. If he was unable to turn things around rapidly, a showdown with the party conservatives would be all but inevitable. As it happened, the student protests triggered by the sudden death of former CCP General Secretary
Hu Yaobang, widely seen as a reform-minded leader, provided Zhao with a golden opportunity to regain political upperhand and to advance his reform agenda.
Purged after Tiananmen Square Protests
Zhao Ziyang (accompanied by then-Chief of Staff
Wen Jiabao) addressed the student protestors at Tiananmen on 19 May 1989. He apologized to the students, saying "Students, we came too late. We are sorry."
The death of
Hu Yaobang on 15 April 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, provided the backdrop for the large-scale protest of 1989 by
students,
intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected
urban population. Student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, reacted to a variety of causes of discontent, which they attributed to the slow pace of reform. Ironically, some of the original invective was also directed against Zhao. The party hardliners increasingly came to the opposite conclusion, regretting an excessively rapid pace of change for causing the mood of confusion and frustration rife among college students. The protesters called for an end to official corruption and for defense of freedoms guaranteed by the
Constitution of the People's Republic of China. Protests also spread through many other cities, including
Shanghai and
Guangzhou.
The tragic events of the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 sealed Zhao's fate and rendered impossible any further democratic movement. While he was paying an official visit to
Pyongyang, the party hard-liners exploited the opportunity to declare the ongoing protests "counter-revolutionary." Upon returning from Pyongyang, Zhao made several attempts to steer the course toward what he called "a track based upon democracy and the rule of law". He opened up channels for direct dialogues between students and the government at multiple levels. He also ordered the news media to cover the student demonstrations with unprecedented openness. A number of legislative initiatives aimed at the reform of press, news media and education were also under way. However, Zhao's initiatives, along with his conciliatory attitude toward the students, were seen by the elders and other party hard-liners as hastened steps toward breaking free the party control, therefore a recipe for ultimate disaster. The evening of 16 May marked the point of no return of Zhao's political career. At the onset of his meeting with the visiting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhao made a stunning announcement declaring that Deng Xiaoping, though officially no longer a member of the party central committee, was still having final say in major decision-making. Zhao's move was viewed as an unmistakable sign of departing company with the party leadership, especially the aging paramount leader. It was at this point that Zhao completely lost the trust of Deng Xiaoping, his long-time political patron and mentor. On the night of 18 May, Zhao was summoned to Deng's residence and a hastily called Politburo Standing Committee was called to endorse
martial law with Zhao casting the lone dissenting vote.
Shortly before 5 A.M. on the morning of 19 May, Zhao appeared in Tiananmen Square and wandered among the crowd of protesters. Using a bullhorn, he had the following famous speech with the students at the square. It was first broadcast through
China Central Television nationwide.
“
Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak, it is the 7th day since you went on hunger strike, you can't continue like this. As the time goes on, it will damage your body in an unrepairable way, it could be very dangerous to your life. Now the most important thing is to end this strike. I know, your hunger strike is to hope that the Party and the government will give you a satisfying answer. I feel that our communication is open. Some of the problem can only be solved by certain procedures. For example, you have mentioned about the nature of the incident, the question of responsibility, I feel that those problems can be resolved eventually, we can reach a mutual agreement in the end. However, you should also know that the situation is very complicated, it is going to be a long process. You can't continue the hunger strike for the 7th day, and still insist for a satisfying answer before ending the hunger strike.
You are still young, there are still many days yet to come, you must live healthy, and see the day when China accomplishes the
four modernizations. You are not like us, we are already old, it doesn't matter to us any more. It is not easy that this nation and your parents support you to study in colleges. Now you are all about early 20's, and want to sacrifice lives so easily, students, can't you think logically? Now the situation is very serious, you all know, the Party and the nation is very antsy, the whole society is very worried. Besides, Beijing is the capital, the situation is getting worse and worse from everywhere, this can not be continued. Students all have good will, and are for the good of our nation, but if this situation continues, loses control, it will cause serious consequences at many places.
In conclusion, I have only one wish. If you stop hunger strike, the government won't close the door for dialogue, never! The questions that you have raised, we can continue to discuss. Although it is a little slow, but we are reaching some agreement on some problems. Today I just want to see the students, and express our feelings. Hopefully students will think about this question calmly. This thing can not be sorted out clearly under illogical situations. You all have that strength, you are young after all. We were also young before, we protested, lied our bodies on the rail tracks, we never thought about what will happen in the future at that time. Finally, I beg the students once again, think about the future calmly. There are many things that can be solved. I hope that you will all end the hunger strike soon, thank you.
[3]”
" 我們已經老了，無所謂了。" - "We are already old, it doesn't matter to us any more." became a famous quote after that. That was his last public appearance.
House arrest until death
The protesters did not disperse. A day after Zhao's 19 May visit to Tiananmen Square, Premier Li Peng publicly declared martial law. In the power struggle that ensued, Zhao was stripped of all his positions. What motivated Zhao remains, even today, a topic of debate by many. Some say he went into the square hoping a conciliatory gesture would gain him leverage against hard-liners like Premier
Li Peng. Others believe he supported the protesters and did not want to see them hurt when the military was called in. After the incident, Zhao was placed under
house arrest and replaced as General Secretary by Jiang Zemin, who had suppressed similar protests in Shanghai without much bloodshed.
Zhao remained under tight supervision and was allowed to leave his courtyard compound or receive visitors only with permission from the highest echelons of the party. There were occasional reports of him attending the funeral of a dead comrade, visiting other parts of China or playing
golf at Beijing courses, but the government rather successfully kept him hidden from news reports and history books. Over that period, only a few
snapshots of a gray-haired Zhao leaked out to the media. On at least two occasions Zhao wrote letters, addressed to the Chinese government, in which he put forward the case for a reassessment of the Tiananmen Massacre. One of those letters appeared on the eve of the Communist Party's 15th National Congress. The other came during a 1998 visit to China by
U.S. President Bill Clinton. Neither was ever published in mainland China.
Death and muted response
In February 2004, Zhao had a
pneumonia attack that led to a lung malfunctioning and was hospitalized for three weeks. Zhao was hospitalized again with pneumonia on 5 December 2004. Reports of his death were officially denied in early January 2005. Later, on 15 January, he was reported to be in a
coma after multiple
strokes. According to activist
Frank Lu, Vice President
Zeng Qinghong visited Zhao in the hospital. Zhao died on 17 January in a Beijing hospital at 07:01 at the age of 85. He is survived by his second wife, Liang Boqi, and five children (a daughter and four sons).
The government's response to Zhao's death was notably muted, probably out of fear that mass mourning would spark national protests as had occurred after the deaths of
Zhou Enlai and
Hu Yaobang. The official government
Xinhua News Agency reported as "Zhao Ziyang died at 85" in the English version,
[4] while the Chinese title was "Comrade Zhao Ziyang died." It did not make any note of his official titles or legacy as a leader. This is considered unusual, because people who have lower ranks than he did would usually get numerous titles, such as the great revolutionist, loved by the people, etc.[
citation needed] Zhao's death was not mentioned on state-run television and radio programs. All Chinese newspapers carried the exact same 59-word obituary on the day following his death, leaving the main means of mass dissemination through the
Internet.
[2] Internet forums, such as the
Strong Nation Forum and the
SINA.com Forum were flooded with messages expressing condolences for Zhao, but these messages were promptly deleted by
moderators, leading to more postings attacking the moderators for deleting the postings.
In
Hong Kong, 10,000–15,000 people attended the candlelight vigil in remembrance of Zhao. Mainlanders such as
Chen Juoyi said that it was illegal for Hong Kong legislators to join any farewell ceremony, stating "...under the '
one country, two systems' a Hong Kong legislator cannot care anything about mainland
China." The statement caused a political storm in Hong Kong that continued for three days after his speech.
Szeto Wah, the chairman of
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said that it was not right for the Communists to suppress the memorial ceremony. The twenty-four pan-democrat legislators went against the chairperson of the
Legislative Council of Hong Kong, insisting that security be tightened at Tiananmen Square and at Zhao's house, and that the authorities try to prevent any public displays of grief.
Similar memorials were held around the world, notably in
New York City and
Washington, DC where American government officials and exiled
political dissidents attended.
Zhao's positions would have normally entitled him to a
state funeral, but the PRC government stated that the funerary arrangements for past leaders had been streamlined and state funerals were no longer held. Skeptics have questioned whether future funerals of Chinese ex-leaders will be as muted as Zhao's.
On 29 January 2005 the government held a funeral ceremony for him at the
Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, a place reserved for revolutionary heroes and high government officials, that was attended by some 2,000 mourners that had been pre-approved to attend. Several dissidents, including Zhao's secretary
Bao Tong and
Tiananmen Mothers leader
Ding Zilin, were kept under house arrest to prevent them from attending. The most senior official to attend the funeral was
Jia Qinglin, fourth in the party hierarchy. Mourners were allowed five at a time to view Zhao's flag-covered body and to pay respect to his family. They were forbidden to bring flowers or to inscribe their own messages on the government-issued flowers. There was no
eulogy at the ceremony because the government and Zhao's family could not agree on its content: while the government wanted to say he made mistakes, his family refused to accept he did anything wrong. On the day of his funeral, state television mentioned Zhao's death for the first time and issued a short
obituary acknowledging his contribution to economic reforms, but saying he made "serious mistakes" during the 1989 protests. After the ceremony, Zhao was
cremated. His ashes were taken to his Beijing home as the government denied him a place at Babaoshan.] Push for rehabilitation
In 2005, former NPC Chairman
Wan Li joined more than 20 retired Politburo members, including Tian Jiyun, former Vice Premier, in asking the Central Government to rehabilitate Zhao’s name and hold memorial services for him for his many important contributions to China. The Chinese government agreed to hold a ceremony to honor the late Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, but the response fell far short of satisfying the requests from both inside and outside the CPC.
Lobo was appointed
OBE in 1972 , the
CBE in 1978, and knighted in 1984. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws,
honoris causa from the
University of Hong Kong in 1982.
.BMP)
