Dies at 90 Bao Tong, who went from heaven to hell in the Chinese Communist Party

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Bao Tong, a top member of the Chinese Communist Party who turned dissident and was arrested after defending student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, died at the age of 90 on Tuesday.

He “passed away peacefully at 7:08 am on November 9,” his son Bao Pu announced on Twitter, without specifying the cause of death. A former member of the Central Committee, Bao was political secretary to reformist Zhao Ziyang, leader of the party and, by extension, of the country from 1987 to 1989. A rising star in the Chinese CP, Zhao clashed with hardliners in the party over sympathy for the student movement.

When this wing of the CP triumphed, Zhao was removed from the leadership, and Bao, who supported the chief’s political reforms, sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. The student movement was repressed by Chinese forces on the night of June 4, 1989, when they gathered in a demonstration in Tiananmen Square.

Tanks advanced on the thousands of students, and soldiers opened fire indiscriminately.

After his time in prison, Bao was kept under surveillance for the rest of his life. Despite this, he was a critical voice for Chinese leaders and wrote articles and commentaries in the international press and fought for the official rehabilitation of Zhao, who died in 2005, who was also sentenced to house arrest.

Before succumbing to reprisals, Zhao and Bao were key players in driving China’s political and economic reforms in the 1980s. If it weren’t for the divergence over the repression of protests, Bao was a candidate to join the Politburo, the summit of the party and main political body in the country.

Convinced that China had gone the wrong way after the Tiananmen Square protests, Bao signed Letter 08, a manifesto to call for political reform and the protection of human rights.

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