CourcyInt

COURCYINT SPECIAL BULLETIN

To: All Courcy's Intelligence Service members

Date: 14 January 2005

From: JKC de Courcy, Chief Executive, Courcy's Intelligence Service

Subject: China preparing for death of Zhao Ziyang

DEVELOPMENT:

On Wednesday (12 January), the Chinese authorities introduced new regulations under which visitors to Beijing's Tiananmen Square now have to be escorted by police to watch the daily flag-raising ceremony.  The move has been widely interpreted as an attempt to pre-empt any major protest in the square on the death of the former Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, now 85 and in hospital with - it is thought - a serious respiratory illness.

ANALYSIS:

Zhao was removed from public view on 19 May 1989 when he urged students to end their protest in Tiananmen Square.  Martial law was declared the next day, and on 3-4 June the army crushed the student protests in Tiananmen Square.  Beijing now fears that Zhao's death could spark mass demonstrations - as happened with the deaths of premier Zhou Enlai in 1976 and party chief Hu Yaobang in April 1989.

In addition to the increased security measures in Tiananmen Square, sources say that the reports in the Hong Kong media on Tuesday that Zhao had died on 8 January could have been deliberately placed by the Beijing authorities, first as a trial balloon in order to gauge the reaction, and secondly in order to diminish the effect of Zhao's death when it does eventually take pace.  A similar exercise took place in 2003 when reports of Zhao's death appeared in the Japanese media.

Beijing's evident nervousness over the forthcoming death of Zhao needs to be seen against the background of growing civil unrest in the form of riots, protests, and demonstrations.  Last year it was revealed that in 2003 some 3m people took part in 58,000 mass protests, almost 160 every day, and the number of high-profile disturbances in the last three months shows that civil unrest continues to be geographically widespread and regularly involves tens of thousands of people.

CourcyInt's sister service - the Asia Intelligence Service (http://www.asiaint.com) - published a special report on "The growing threat of civil unrest" in China in the January edition of the AsiaInt Political and Strategic Review.  In view of the present situation in China I am pleased to enclose a complimentary copy of this report.  Please just click on the following link for access:

China: The growing threat of civil unrest - http://www.asiaint.com/arl/arl5262.asp

END