Qian Liren - Tiananmen Square Incident and Dismissal

Tiananmen Square Incident and Dismissal

During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Qian was the head of the People's Daily, the CPC's party newspaper. At the time, the Communist Party leadership was split between those advocating conciliation with the students and those advocating a hard-line crackdown. During the protests, the newspaper printed several stories which were later regarded by the government as less than fully critical of the students. In addition, both Qian and the Editor-in-Chief Tan Wenrui were accused of tolerating pro-student editors, who obliquely attacked the hardliners in their reporting. Specifically, Qian directly authorised a series of reports, titled "Xth day of Martial Law", which was said to mock the hardliners by exaggerating the frivolity in Beijing while under martial law. Its reportage of international news was also said to satirise the hardliners in the CPC leadership.

In its June 4 Edition, the People's Daily made a series of editorial decisions which the government later condemned as oblique criticism of the crackdown. In the international news section, for example, the Gwangju Democratization Movement was reported with a headline, printed in bold type, of "Seoul students go on hunger strike to protest government massacre and crackdown". The headline of a story on Poland was "Warning: no-body should play with fire", with a tagline "Polish leaders say elections are a great experiment in reconciliation". A number of reports on "Convicted criminal becomes People's Representative", and "Judge perverts justice" were also included. A headline in the sports section was headed "the unconquerable man".

More serious, however, was the "People's Daily Extra incident". Some People's Daily employees under the leadership of editor Wu Xuecan organised the printing of an unauthorised "extra" edition, which re-printed student flyers and took the point of view of the student protestors. Only about 1000 copies were reportedly printed, all of which were distributed to the protesting students. The "extra" was a direct response to the "April 16 Editorial", an editorial written by hawkish CPC leaders and published in the People's Daily, and which took a hostile attitude to the students. Despite immediately printing a notice that disclaimed the Extra as unauthorised, both Qian and Tan Wenrui were removed from their posts in the purge at the People's Daily that followed.