Wan Li - National Politics

National Politics

Wan was elected to the 11th Central Committee in 1977, and to the CC Secretariat in February 1980, where he worked under General Secretary Hu Yaobang. In April he was made Vice Premier to fellow agrarian reformer Zhao Ziyang, and in August Wan was named Minister of the State Agricultural Commission. He was also made a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress in September of that year.

Wan Li became the Vice Premier in 1984 and the Chairman of the National People's Congress in 1988. Wan backed Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in arguing to spread the household land contract scheme nationwide in 1979-81. He also supported Zhao in curtailing the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in the mid-1980s.

After the January 1987 resignation of CPC General Secretary Hu Yaobang, Wan Li was named to the interim five- member party Politburo Standing Committee; he was confirmed in that role at the September 1987 13th National Party Congress. The appointment was opposed by party elder Bo Yibo and others in the Chen Yun faction such as Yao Yilin. While resistance to Wan remaining on the PBSC had to yield to Deng Xiaoping's wishes, the conservatives were able to block Wan's elevation to the State Presidency, a position handed to General Yang Shangkun. As a compromise, Wan was named Chairman of the National People's Congress.

He was on an official visit to Canada and the United States during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and made speeches sympathetic to the student movement. Some of the protestors planned a demonstration to welcome him back to Beijing in late May. But instead he returned to Shanghai, where he was met by Jiang Zemin and others who tried to persuade him to oppose the protests. It's been suggested that he was temporarily put under house arrest. He expressed conditional support for the leadership on May 27, suggesting that a tiny minority of the protestors were conspiring to overthrow the government. He kept his position until he retired in 1993.

In 2004, he called for more democratic decision-making procedures in China to improve the country's "imperfect" Socialist system and boost economic development. Along with 20 other retired Politburo members, they openly asked the Central Government to rehabilitate former General Secretary and Premier Zhao Ziyang’s name and hold memorial services for him for his many important contributions to China.