Word: bao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sixth floor of a high-rise apartment building lives a veteran of the opaque, unforgiving world of Chinese statecraft. Bao Tong was once a top aide to Zhao Ziyang, a former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Now he lives under virtual house arrest, his every move observed, every visitor screened by a handful of guards, every conversation presumably monitored. The Communist Party would clearly like him to fade into oblivion, to live out the rest of his days caring for his goldfish and taking walks in the park. But Bao Tong has no intention of going quietly...
...recent weeks Bao has repeatedly questioned the authoritarian nature of China's central government. He helped draft Charter 08, a lengthy pro-democracy manifesto that was made public Dec. 10 and was initially signed by 303 mainland writers, scholars and artists - a number that has since grown to several thousand. Then he released a series of essays through Radio Free Asia that questioned the accomplishments of the Party. In those essays, Bao argued that the Communist Party's motivations for reforming the economy in the early 1980s after the devastation of the Cultural Revolution were not entirely pure. "Even though...
...interview with TIME, Bao Tong says his decision to sign the charter comes from a long-held regret over joining the Party. "Sixty years ago I wanted violence. In order to promote Leninism and communism, I joined this party. I made this mistake. I signed Charter 08 to correct my mistake of 60 years ago," says Bao. At 76, his face is visibly weary. But he sits with an erect posture, and his eyes flash as he discusses history and politics in the Beijing apartment he shares with his wife, Jiang Zongcao, 76. "This is not about using violent means...
Police also questioned Bao about Charter 08. But his association with Zhao Ziyang offers him a degree of protection. "It's because Zhao still has a big following within the Party," says Bequelin. A picture of Zhao, who died in 2005, rests high on a bookshelf in a place of reverence in Bao's home. Zhao was deposed in May 1989, just before the Tiananmen crackdown, for sympathizing with the student demonstrators. Bao was arrested and spent seven years in prison for "revealing state secrets" and "counterrevolutionary propagandizing." Rather than silencing him, Bao's prison term convinced...
Chinese officials have said that now, when the country is straining under the growing pressures of the global downturn and spending billions to help create jobs, is the worst time to call for democratization. Bao argues that economic challenges need to be met with political progress. "Because we have an economic crisis, we need to bring the people together," he says. "We can't take every difference and dissatisfaction and let it intensify. Human rights, democracy, republicanism - these help eliminate, not intensify, conflicts...