Editorial | Controversy follows Li Peng to his grave
- Tiananmen Square crackdown defined career of late premier, who was also instrumental in building the contentious Three Gorges Dam
Li is best remembered in Hong Kong, where there was sympathy for the Beijing protesters, for ordering the June 4 crackdown, the official verdict that justified it and the witch hunt he launched for democracy activists. His official obituary prominently reaffirmed the verdict, saying Li played an important role in cracking down on the counter-revolutionary riot “under the resolute support” of former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.
The only son of a father the party recognised as a “martyr” after his execution, Li was groomed by party elders as a second-generation leader. He studied engineering in the Soviet Union and began his professional career as an executive in China’s power industry, the springboard to his political rise as vice-minister and minister of the industry before Deng made him acting premier, then premier to succeed Zhao Ziyang in 1988.
After two terms as premier, Li served as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress from 1998 until he retired in 2003. His longevity near the top suggested political adroitness and shrewdness that belied his public image as a colourless, hardline technocrat with good connections who believed the way forward lay in huge infrastructure projects such as the Three Gorges Dam. Ironically, however, it was during those years when Li was among the top leadership that China began to implement a market economy “with Chinese characteristics”.
Li’s last word on June 4 was in a 2004 memoir that said any challenge to the official verdict should be seen as an attempt to divide the party. But 15 years later it remains a dark chapter in China’s history from which it is yet to fully emerge. Until the verdict is revised, to many people it remains a stain on Li’s record.
