CHINA: China's newspapers stuck closely to script yesterday, printing only the state news agency's report on the cremation of former leader Zhao Ziyang, purged for opposing the use of force to end democracy protests in 1989.
The one-time general secretary of the Communist Party died on January 17th, aged 85, having spent the last 15 years of his life under house arrest after being sacked and accused of splitting the party.
Most newspapers in Beijing, including the party mouthpiece People's Daily, printed the brief Xinhua agency item in the upper left-hand corner of the second page, but the People's Liberation Army Daily put it on the back page. Mr Zhao lost power in May 1989 after opposing the decision by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and other party elders to send in troops and tanks to crush the pro-democracy protests centred in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Hundreds were killed on the night of June 3rd-4th, 1989 when troops fired into crowds to put down the student-led democracy movement.
On Saturday, hundreds of mourners braved police checks to attend the low-key invitation-only funeral for Mr Zhao.
Nervous the ceremony might spark protests, China's leaders had wanted to permit only a quick funeral for Mr Zhao who, as premier in the 1980s, launched market reforms that turned the country into a fledgling economic powerhouse from a centrally planned backwater.
However, in a nod to the seniority of a man whom the party had effectively made a non-person by keeping him under house arrest for the past 15 years, China's number four leader, Jia Qinglin, joined mourners filing past his body at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. - (Reuters)