Wang Zhen - Later Years

Later Years

Despite his uncorrupt behavior in the 1950s, and his strong support for Chinese economic reform, Wang Zhen was not popular among Chinese people after 1979 due to his political hard line conservatism. His political support of Deng Xiaoping and being a member of his regime was largely due to his close personal friendship with Deng, which was further strengthened by their common opposition to radical political reforms. As one of the architects of the suppression by force of the pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he was quoted in the Tiananmen Papers as stating in a June 2, 1989 meeting with other Communist Party of China elders: "We should announce in advance to those people occupying the Square that we're coming in. They can listen or not as they choose, but then we move in. If it causes deaths, that's their own fault. We can't be soft or merciful toward anti-Party, anti-socialist elements." He served as the Vice-President of the People's Republic of China from 1988 to 1993 under President Yang Shangkun.

In August 1989 a colonel in the People's Liberation Army, Zhang Zhenglong, published a 618-page reflection of his experiences fighting for the Red Army in Manchuria in the late 1940s, White Snow, Red Blood. In this book, Zhang claimed that Wang Zhen had smuggled opium during the Chinese Civil War. This and other claims made Zhang a target of Wang. Zhang was eventually arrested for making these claims, and his book was censored on mainland China.