Chen Xitong
By June 5, Chen Xitong was one of the first CCP officials to give an official statement concerning the events. Chen Xitong did not appear on television to give this statement. James Miles, BBC's Beijing correspondent at the time, believes his physical absence to back up the statement was a sign of the Party's political uncertainty following the crackdown. On June 30 at the 7th National People's Congress’ (NPC) 8th session, Chen Xitong delivered the CCP’s official narrative of the events titled "Checking the Turmoil and Quelling the Counter-revolutionary Rebellion". In this report, Chen accused the liberal leaning "Economics Weekly" ("Jingjixue Zhoubao"), owned by Chen Ziming’s Beijing Social and Economic Science Research Institute, of attempting to protect Zhao Ziyang and overthrow Deng Xiaoping. He also accused the paper of pushing a bourgeois liberalization agenda. "Economics Weekly" was closed down after the crackdown. However, the speech focused on the role Zhao Ziyang played in the crisis than that played by the official “black hands” of the crisis, Chen Ziming and . It also focused on foreign influences. Chen Xitong accused anti-socialist actors from Hong Kong of facilitating the student protest by providing weapons and money. He also denounced Liu Xiaobo's connection with dissidents in New York. Chen Xitong maintained that protesters were influenced by foreign actors and did not invite foreign news agencies to his press conferences until March 7, 1990.