Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang by Zhao Ziyang

“I was trying to persuade them to end the hunger strike . . . I felt it was a waste for these young students to end their lives like this. [The students could not] imagine the treatment in store for them.”
“Not only should [China] implement a market economy, it must also adopt a parliamentary democracy as its political system.”
Zhao Ziyang was Premier of the People’s Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989. He introduced market reforms that greatly increased production, was an advocate for the separation of party and state and further free market economic reforms.
During the Tiananmen Square’s students’ protest, in April 1989, he showed a sympathetic stance for the student demonstrators which lead to his overthrowing by the conservative old guard of the Party.  He was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. Having suffered from pneumonia several times he died on January  17, 2005. He was survived by his second wife and 5 children.
During his house arrest Zhao Ziyang methodically recorded his memoirs on tapes which were smuggled out of the country. He gave detailed accounts of what happened behind the scenes of some of China’s more critical moments, and revealed what really happened in the Tiananmen breakdown. He also confirmed his belief that China needed to switch to democracy to insure long term stability.
Ziyang speaks to today’s China. His voice rises from the grave trying to make it listen.