From: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Subject:      [News] Bao Tong Gets 7 Years in Jail
Reply-To: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 00:35:45 -0500
Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu

The following is carried in July 22's CND-Global.

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2. Bao Tong: Aide to Ousted China Leader Gets 7 Years in Jail...........80
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:    Chonggyu Hua <cyuhua@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Source:  UPI, 7/21/92
By:      David R. Schweisberg

[Editor's note: Bao Tong's son Bao Pu, a graduate student in computer
                engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology, U.S.A.,
                published a letter "My Father Is No Enemy of China" in
                July 21's New York Times, please see July 21's CND-US,
                CND-Canada and next issue of CND-Europe/Pacific for details]

BEIJING -- The former chief aide to ousted Communist Party leader Zhao
Ziyang was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for offenses during
the 1989 pro-democracy movement in the last major trial expected from the
Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The Beijing Intermediate People's Court convicted and sentenced Bao Tong,
59, after a half-day trial. Bao was the highest-ranking Chinese official
arrested in the 1989 crackdown and the most senior known to have been tried
in more than a decade.

His trial was believed to be the last major criminal case stemming from the
1989 protests and will allow Chinese leaders to resolve the divisive party
charges still pending against Zhao before a crucial national party congress
this fall.

Bao, who as Zhao's key adviser formulated many of China's bold economic and
political reforms during the 1980s, was apparently sacrificed to placate
hard-line leaders instead of prosecuting the party chief, who was a protege
of senior leader Deng Xiaoping until his ouster June 1989.

Dozens of police surrounded the court building on the city's west side
Tuesday morning during the closed-door trial. Bao's relatives were barred
from the trial and allowed only to witness the sentencing.

Court spokeswoman Fan Shumin said Bao was sentenced to four years for
revealing state secrets and to five years for counter-revolutionary
incitement. The 1989 protests are officially labeled a
"counter-revolutionary rebellion."

Officials said the court fixed the sentence at seven years under
discretionary laws allowing parts of the terms to run concurrently. Bao has
been held without trial since May 1989, and officials said he could be
freed in 1996 with credit for time served.

The sentence was shorter than those given to some other 1989 figures, but
Bao's wife, Jiang Zhongcao, dressed in black for the trial, expressed
outrage after the verdict.

"He's not guilty in the first place," Jiang said. "So even one month would
be heavy."

"It's not a question of guilt," said another family member outside the
court. "There's no guilt -- all the charges were trumped up."

The most serious charge against Bao was reportedly that his office gave to
the Tiananmen Square protest leaders the routes the Chinese army was to use
on May 19, 1989, as troops moved into Beijing before martial law was
declared.

Family members said Bao appeared at ease and confident during the
sentencing. They said he would likely appeal, but such appeals in China are
generally rejected.

The need to close the books on Tiananmen has come as Deng has this year
revived many of the reforms previously associated with Zhao, and hopes to
enshrine pro-reform policies and officials at the fall party congress.

But Chinese leaders want to first clean up the political mess involving
Zhao, who has remained in limbo and under virtual house arrest for three
years.

Bao served as Zhao's chief of staff when Zhao was premier from 1980-1987,
and then as his key adviser when he was party chief. Bao also headed a
political reform office, disbanded after the 1989 crackdown, that was
linked to intellectuals who joined the protests.

But Zhao, a gregarious moderate who became the front-man for Deng's reforms
in the 1980s, was shunted aside in a bitter power struggle as martial law
was imposed in Beijing in May 1989.

He was formally ousted in June 1989 for "supporting the turmoil and
splitting the party" and has since refused to admit wrongdoing despite
pressure from hard-liners.

A party investigation failed to make a criminal case against Zhao, and he
now is expected to be disciplined for internal party violations.

Bao is the highest-ranking government official known to have been tried in
China since the 1980-1981 public trial of the so-called Gang of Four, the
radical leaders of the Cultural Revolution.

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