From: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Subject:      A Letter from Bao Tong's Son in the U.S. on New York Times
Reply-To: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 00:42:28 -0500
Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu

The following was carried in July 21's CND-US.

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2. My Father Is No Enemy of China:
   A Letter from Bao Tong's Son in the U.S. ............................. 82
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From:  Eddie Cheng, <echeng@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Source: The New York Times, July 21, 1992
        By Bao Pu

[CND Editor's Note: Mr. Bao Tong, a  former  aid  to  Zhao Ziyang, has been
sentenced to 7  years  in prison,  according to  reports  by news agencies.
Please read July 22's CND-Global for more information on the  sentencing of
Mr. Bao Tong.]

[NYT's Note: Bao Pu is a  graduate student in  computer engineering at  New
Jersey Institute of Technology]

Kearny, N.J.  -  Bao Tong,  my father, is  to go on  trial today in Beijing
after nearly  three  years of  detention  without  charge.   The  case  has
attracted considerable international  attention because my father  was  the
top aide to  the ousted Communist Party chief, Zhao Ziyang, who sympathized
with the  students  in Tiananmen Square.  His  trial may  have implications
both for Mr.  Zhao and for the fate of economic and social reform.

I want people to see my  father for himself,  to understand his strength of
character and how his hopes and  beliefs have been trampled on to serve the
ambitions of others.

As Mr. Zhao's chief of  staff,  Bao  Tong was deputy director of the  State
Commission  for  Economic  Reform  from  1980  to  1987.   This  commission
developed policies that successfully dissolved thousands of communes, which
had stifled the  productivity  of some  800  million  farmers for more than
three decades.

In cities, primitive market systems were set up and nurtured.  A few cities
were  opened  for  foreign  investment.   Deng  Xiaoping's  intentions  for
economic reform were carried out with great care.

My father ardently  believed in the necessity  of  political reforms.  From
1987 to 1989, he was the director of the Political Reform  Research Center,
a  research and  policy-making institution.  He was in charge of developing
an extensive program for reform, including  plans for separating the powers
of party and state, setting up  a fair and  equitable civil service  system
and promoting democratic procedures in party and government.

The  market system  grew  while the old economic  system slowly  dissolved.
Privatization took place in various ways.  Public property first started to
fall into the hands of the  most impoverished, who were also the most eager
for change.  But those  with the right  connections in  the old bureaucracy
had the best access to new opportunities, and the use of bureaucratic power
for  financial  gain  became  incredibly  tempting.  Some  made  outrageous
fortunes in comparison  to  average  wages.  Anger brewed  among  those who
still depended  on  the old system;  to them  it  appeared that the  reform
mostly benefited corrupt bureaucrats.

The profound social changes that resulted from the initial economic reforms
made the reformers  vulnerable.  The proposals for political reform sharply
aggravated the  party's  internal  struggles.   Recognized  reformers  were
personally attacked as supporters of "bourgeois liberalism."

In the spring of  1989,  the people's  anger  and  impatience  with  reform
expressed itself in the students' pro-democracy movement.  Conservatives in
the leadership  seized this  as  a pretext to  overthrow  the  faction that
threatened them.  Zhao Ziyang was ousted and Bao Tong was arrested and held
near Beijing in Qin Cheng, a special prison for political prisoners.

My father considered economic inequities unavoidable in the early stages of
reform and felt that corruption was dangerous to its progress.  He strongly
believed that regimes  that  become  autocratic are bound to degenerate and
that personal gain was incompatible  with serving the public  interest.  He
persisted, aware of the precariousness of his position.

In 1987 and 1989,  he quietly endured numerous political attacks, hoping to
avoid  any  ideological controversies  that  might  destroy  the  chance to
proceed with reform.   He  was attacked  by the  old  guard  as dangerously
radical and criticized by impatient young reformers as too cautious.

He continued to push for reform, despite what  he  saw as  the  inescapable
predictment  of all  reformers of a Communist  system.  As with  Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, attacks would come from all sides -- from old party veterans and
from the  people, whose  lives were suddenly disturbed by the economic  and
social instability that inevitably accompanies change.

Bao Tong's persistent efforts to grapple with seemingly clashing viewpoints
and his personal  sacrifice for a  vision of a better future for the people
of China  exemplifies the kind of courage  and strength respected by people
everywhere.  My father's  trial is not just a political  event.  It  is  an
attack  on  values  that have universal respect --  individual  courage and
self-sacrifice for a greater good.

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Forwarded by Bo Xiong in Chicago
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china