(Here you find the Chinese text of the interview)

Interviewer (Helmut Opletal): When you are looking back at the Democracy Movement, including the Peking University elections, from today’s perspective, what feelings do you have? And how do you analyze these events today?

Wang Juntao: I think I feel pretty good and very proud that I was one of the first persons in China to join the Democracy Movement after the Cultural Revolution to seek to establish a democratic and free system and human rights. Many of the views we put forward at that time have now been proven to be correct, and many elements have been adopted by the ruling party as much as they could. Of course, democratic freedoms and the rule of law they did not adopt. But as for economic reforms, the development of market mechanisms and a market economy as we proposed, they have adopted all of these. Some of the ideas we advocated at that time, became broadly recognized in Chinese society in the late 1980s.

Interviewer: For example...

Wang: For example, that China needed a comprehensive political reform and democratic institutions, including changes to our National People's Congress. In fact, during our election campaign, one difference between me and others was that they discussed general ideas and criticisms, while I talked a lot of specific system building and reform measures. For example, I discussed from the perspective of political sociology, the role that forces from various social strata might play in future reforms. I also discussed a reform of the system of people's congresses, of the publishing system, and the direction which a reform of the Communist Party itself should take. Today I still think these ideas were correct. But looking back, some things we did not do well enough, but it was beyond our control.

We did not succeed for example, when the Communist Party and Deng Xiaoping later did not want certain changes anymore. When the situation in Poland and the “Solidarity” episode became known, the Communists decided to stop political reforms and throw Xu Wenli and Wang Xizhe’s group into jail. Wei Jingsheng had already been arrested before. Xu, Wang and others from the Democracy Wall Movement were incarcerated in 1981. Those in the universities were spared, but those outside the academic institutions were given long-term prison sentences. Why have academic institutions been spared? Because many university presidents and party secretaries were senior communist cadres who had themselves just come out of the prisons and they did not want political persecution to continue. In the later 1980s, they opposed the various campaigns against “spiritual pollution” or “liberalization”, so they actually protected us then. I know only of one student from Henan University who was expelled and arrested, all the others were not touched upon. Including Yang Guang from the Beijing University of Technology, who had collaborated with Wei Jingsheng. So looking back, first of all, I feel very proud. Second, I think we were right. And the longer the history goes, the more it proves us to be. Third, the ideas we brought up at that time, are still not outdated. I think it is sad that this country has not progressed. Proposals that we have made decades ago, still remain valid goals that we have to fight for in China.

But in which aspects has this country later progressed? As for development and democratic movements, you know, I later participated in various civil associations and experienced rights protection groups and church movements. In fact, all subsequent progress did not advance the basic issues or key structures of China. In fact, we have said everything that needed to be said in this regard. Specific progress was achieved by social and political groups who put forward their specific demands, and who made systematic progress around these demands. In the 1980s, in 1979, and 1980, we did not mention these things because China had not yet had economic reforms, the Communist Party had not yet undertaken social reforms. Mao Zedong’s structures were still in place. The cadre system started to be reformed only in 1984, when Deng Xiaoping demanded that officials should be more knowledgeable, rejuvenated, more professional and revolutionary. At that time, the cadres were all from the Cultural Revolution, so this was quite difficult then. This is more or less what I think.

Interviewer: When did you first come into contact with the ideas of democratization and human rights?

Wang: This is hard to say. As you know, I later studied politics. I have a PhD in political science from Columbia University. If you look at political history, many people accept ideas about human rights, democracy, and freedom, but they do not necessarily know and use these words, and they may even avoid using them. Using such words is sensitive, and it can affect one’s maneuvering room. But there are others who say that they are promoting democracy, freedom and human rights, but in fact they are acting against them. These notions started to be used after 1977 or 1978. Before that, this was a reactionary terminology. If you wanted to achieve a goal, you shouldn’t use such words, or you would lose your chance to do something. But if you want to combat political persecution, do away with political persecution, you will end up with a political system of freedom, democracy, and human rights. And I hated political persecution from the beginning.

Interviewer: What year were you born?

Wang: In 1958.

Interviewer: So you were still relatively young at that time?

Wang: Yes, I was the youngest.

Interviewer: Did you often talk about politics or the Cultural Revolution in your family?

Wang: Very little. My father was usually away and not at home. He was involved in the "Three Supports and Two Armies" campaign [in early 1967, to stop the chaos of the "Cultural Revolution" on Mao’s order]. As a soldier, he rarely came home. He was under military jurisdiction. My mother also participated in the Cultural Revolution. I lived in the military compound of the Political College of the PLA, so my parents were busy with the revolution and paid little attention to us children.

Interviewer: Did you suffer any persecution during the Cultural Revolution?

Wang: In the military compounds that did not really exist. But my education was negatively affected.

Interviewer: Did the Cultural Revolution influence your thinking?

Wang: I just couldn’t stand the Cultural Revolution. I didn’t like their lies and their propaganda because it was all fake. My rebellion against the Communist Party started because they were telling lies. Hu Ping and Chen Ziming are both recounting in their memoirs that their rebellion against Communism came from seeing so many violent incidents during the Cultural Revolution. For me it was different, because I came from a military family. Soldiers are trained for fighting, so violent actions are part of their world. In modern countries, prisons and police are all violent mechanisms. My initial aversion to the Party came when I found out that what the Communists said was untrue and that they were dishonest. I hope this world and the governments are telling the truth.

Interviewer: It was Mao Zedong’s teachings...

Wang: It started from the very first day of the Communist Party. When they thought they had mastered the truth in order to change the world, they deemed that propaganda was necessary to promote good things and oppose bad things. But in reality this meant telling lies.

Interviewer: In 1976, you were still a middle school student, right?

Wang: I was in high school.

Interviewer: So why did you consider participating in 1976...

Wang: In fact, in 1974, after the Lin Biao incident [when Mao’s deputy is said to have tried to overthrow him], Chinese started to really doubt Mao’s Cultural Revolution. After Lin Biao had been sacked as Vice Chairman, many young people of the “lost generations” [those who finished middle school between 1966 and 1969, but had no chance to go to universities] began to think. There were many reactionary factions among the so-called “educated youth” that formed Marx study groups or Mao Zedong study groups. They read texts that were different from the official ones, and they were labeled as “counter-revolutionaries”. I was still in primary school at that time. When Deng Xiaoping came back in 1974 to implement some political changes the following year, Chinese hated political campaigns, and they rather longed for economic development. This was what Deng Xiaoping stood for at that time, but the "Gang of Four" still wanted to carry on with political campaigns, attacking Deng and Zhou Enlai, and they had got Mao Zedong's tacit approval. That’s why a vast majority of people in Beijing were against the "Gang of Four" and Mao Zedong then. You didn't need to become aware of something, everyone thought and talked this way. So I think the Lin Biao incident was a turning point, and by 1975, this sentiment had reached its peak.

Had Mao Zedong not died, he would still not have been able to carry on the Cultural Revolution because people no longer wanted it. When young people I sometimes discuss with, say that they have Internet now, I tell them that they should not overestimate this. Under Mao there were only “two newspapers and one journal” [People's Daily", "Liberation Army Daily" and "Red Flag Magazine"], all in the hands of the Communist Party. Rumors and political information would still spread quickly, no worse than the Internet. If something was happening in the morning, in the afternoon or evening everyone in Beijing knew it. And immediately people took to the streets, even without Internet. But now, with the Internet, people are too lazy to turn to the streets, so there is actually no danger to the Communist Party. So making that choice was not difficult at all for me. It was only later that I was singled out as an ringleader and punished. But why was I be picked out from one million and punished? I was only a high school student.

Interviewer: What do you think?

Wang: Because they were attacking three types of people: one was the behind-the-scenes masterminds, one was the on-site commanders, and another one was the creators of “reactionary” poetry. I was responsible for all three, because I took two classes of schoolmates to Tian’anmen Square, I had planned this and conducted it on the spot. And later I wrote four poems and posted them. Therefore, I accounted for all three types of persons that the Party wanted to blame.

Interviewer: So you got arrested?

Wang: I was detained during two hundred and twenty-four days. I had written four poems with seven verses. The seven verses were seven characters in eight lines each, fifty-six characters per poem, makes two hundred and twenty-four characters all together, and two hundred and twenty-four days in prison. So every word I wrote cost me one day in jail.

Interviewer: How did this affect your thinking?

Wang: In prison, I think there were two aspects that had a big impact on me. As children we had received communist education and thought the Party stood for the people, just like Deng Xiaoping. They said that whoever represented the masses, would win. But later I discovered that although our movement represented millions, it was still easily suppressed by a small group, and this shocked me as it was different from the teachings we had received.

While in prison, I realized that there was a problem with China's political system. So after I had got out, we organized the journal "The Spring of Beijing". From the start we said that China needed two wheels, if it wanted to modernize. One for democracy and freedom, to get rid of ideological superstition, enable independent thinking and pursue truth. The second was to stand up against autocracy. It meant that the whole system in China was obsolete. It was superstition in ideology, and autocracy in politics, the two things we had to destroy. This is what we wrote in the foreword to “The Spring of Beijing”. As you know, the journal was run by a group of people who had participated in the April 5th Movement [of 1976] and had been in prison. Me, Chen Ziming and others had all participated in the April 5th Movement, and this helped us.

You asked me when in was that I started moving towards democracy and freedom. I was against political persecution and abhorred autocracy, but I had not yet thought about democracy. Anti-authoritarianism and wanting democracy are different. One can be an enlightened authoritarian. Later in prison I started to complete my ideological transformation. I realized that the Communist Party system was a big problem, because leaders supported by millions of people were still purged, but a small group of disgusted people could easily crush a movement of millions. This showed me that there was something wrong with this political system.

It was an advantage that I had grown up in a military compound, which was a very isolated area. In fact, we didn’t know much about China and society out there, and we didn’t know much about human nature. But in prison, I came into contact with people from all walks of life. During the Cultural Revolution there were many political prisoners, all kinds of people. For example, when I was in prison, the Tangshan earthquake [that caused several hundred thousand casualties] happened on July 28. At that time, many people were sent to jail for petty thefts. So I lived and ate together with people from all kinds of background. During more than twenty days in that place I learned a lot.

Interviewer: Was this in Beijing or in Tangshan?

Wang: In a detention center in Beijing, not the kinds of prison where you stay after being are sentenced. In a regular prison you are allowed to go to the exterior, but not in a detention center where you only sit inside without ventilation.

Interviewer: In October [1976], the Gang of Four was crushed and Mao Zedong passed away. Did you have hope in socialism and communism again?

Wang: I didn’t really think about this issue. I just wanted to stop political persecutions in China. I didn’t think at that time Mao Zedong was bad, I just thought he was seriously problematic. Only later many things related to him became known, like the Great Famine. But at that time many had not yet been exposed yet. Logically speaking, in a family like mine, I should have known what had happened, but I didn't want to listen to such stuff. Like my parents’ generation and those in the military academies, they had known these episodes for a long time. When they talked about them, I just didn't listen.

After I came out from jail, I was sent “to the mountains and countryside” [following a directive by Mao] for nearly two years. I had got out of prison just in time to be able to graduate from high school. I was released in November, graduated in December just before being sent to the countryside. In fact, according to the policy, I could have stayed in the city and become a soldier. Because I had opposed the "Gang of Four", many senior army cadres liked me. Because my father was in the military, they had already assigned me to a literature group in the political department of the 11th Army. But at that time, I was already determined to engage in politics to end China’s dictatorship, and I needed to understand more about rural areas, so I went to the countryside with other young people at the end of 1976.

China's rural areas were large, and 90 percent of the population was farmers. Agriculture was still the main occupation, and I wanted to understand it better. In the village, I hang out with farmers every day to find out about their mentality. In fact, later I got to understand the situation in the villages even better, but the direct contact with the peasants was very important then. So prison and countryside made up for my knowledge and ways of thinking that I wasn’t able to get in those early years. I had the will to change this society, but actually no idea what was going on in it, what were the problems, what kind of people where there. What persons from different social strata were like, I didn't know either, because I had lived in a relatively independent environment, where all the other children were also children of army families. Only in prison and in the countryside, I obtained an understanding of the Chinese society.

Then in 1978, when college entry exams were resumed, I was admitted to Peking University. I was majoring in nuclear physics. I have been asked, why didn’t I study politics? But social sciences didn’t exist at that time as the Cultural Revolution had just ended. There were only philosophy, political economics, and scientific socialism, Mao Zedong Thought, the history of the Communist Party, and the international communist movement. I had attended all kinds of such classes. Because my father was in the Political Science Institute, our family possessed all these books, including a complete collection of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, and I have read them all. So I thought that I didn’t need to study these anymore. What I needed was natural sciences. Everyone knew at that time that our social sciences were being changed by natural sciences. So I signed in for the nuclear physics major. Of course I passed the exam. My only choices were Peking University and Tsinghua University, and I didn’t apply to any other schools.

Interviewer: Were you a party member at the time?

Wang: I was a member of the Communist Youth League, part of the presidium selected at the 10th National Congress. When the Communist Youth League was restored after the Cultural Revolution in October 1978, I had been already admitted to university in August and started in October. So when I entered university, it was just the time when the National Congress of the Youth League was being held to elect representatives. I was still an “educated young man” who had been to the countryside. When a team went there to make investigations about me, everyone said nice things about my person. As I had tried to collect information the rural areas, I had a good relationship with them, so they recommended me to be a representative. Then I became a member of the presidium of the Youth League Congress. Later they asked me if I wanted to continue studying or work for the Central Committee of the League. I responded that I still wanted to study and learn practical skills. So I came five years earlier than Hu Jintao and Li Keqiang who only made this career during the 11th National Congress of the Youth League.

Interviewer: How did you get in touch with the journal “The Spring of Beijing”?

Wang: That was in 1979, and it was actually us who founded it. The Democracy Wall Movement was the continuation of the April 5th Movement. Now, many from the Democracy Wall Movement are reluctant to talk about this, but in fact we from this April 5th Movement were their idols at that time. We had the highest education in these movements, so everyone respected us. In the Spring of Beijing journal, I was from Peking University, Chen Ziming from the Academy of Sciences, and Lu Jiamin [who in 2004 published the famous novel "Wolf Totem" under the pen name Jiang Rong] came from the Academy of Social Sciences, Li Shengping from a Peking University branch school. So our Spring of Beijing team was the most highly educated, together with those from “Wotu” ["Fertile Soil"], like Jiang Hong and Hu Ping, as nearly all of us attended university. The relationship between the two groups of us was quite good.

Interviewer: So how did you decide to start your own unofficial publication?

Wang: You know, there were no requirements to run a publication. During the Cultural Revolution, this was something that the Red Guards had naturally discovered. Just like the students in 1989 who wore strips of cloth around their heads, they had seen it watching South Korean and Japanese demonstrations where they did this. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards all ran their own tabloids. And when they were sent to the countryside, they privately mimeographed their underground poems and underground songs. The Red Guards have always had their own publications. The April 5th Movement was too short, but there were also some mimeographed pamphlets, like the "Tiananmen Poems" that were not officially published at the beginning, only after the April 5th Movement and the arrest of the “Gang of Four”. The April 5th Movement was put down, but the banned poems were mimeographed and circulated underground. Later during the Beijing Spring, the "Democracy Wall" got an impetus from Deng Xiaoping, when an American reporter had told the activists: "I'm going to see Deng Xiaoping. What do you have to tell him?"

As soon as the April 5th Movement had been rehabilitated, people began to turn to politics at the Xidan Wall. The American journalist promised to forward questions to Deng Xiaoping, and said he would come back the next day. In this conversation, Deng told him: "The Democracy Wall is a good thing." Hu Yaobang had also said: "There is truth on the Democracy Wall." An associate of Bo Yibo’s told me the same thing. Bo Yibo had just been released from prison and was in a Beijing Hospital for treatment. He told an old subordinate who had come to ask him to solve a problem, "Don't ask me, it's useless, go to see the Democracy Wall." That's how the Democracy Wall started to flourish. When it was put up, everyone was watching what we from the April 5th Movement would do, and I thought we had a certain responsibility. Some of us sat together to discuss starting a publication. The name “The Spring of Beijing" was proposed by Yan Jiaqi [leading reformer and adviser to Premier Zhao Ziyang, exiled in 1989] and chosen after the "Prague Spring". He said it was clear that we should learn from the "Prague Spring" of 1968, a reform movement that originated from both inside and outside the Party. Later, when the Soviet Union squashed the movement, it became opposed to the Communist Party. In fact, Alexander Dubček [First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party] and the others were all communist leaders.

Interviewer: What did you think at that time, did you want to reform socialism or oppose socialism?

Wang: You grew up in a Western democratic country and know a lot, so you are very interested in this question. A good friend of mine during the Democracy Wall Movement published the journal "Road to Freedom" in Guangzhou, together with He Qiu. Later, he also came to Peking University and took part in the elections together with me. His name was Fang Zhiyuan. We both participated in the elections. Hu Ping received the most votes there, I came second, Zhang Wei was third, and Fang Zhiyuan was fourth. When I arrived to the US, he had already been active in the overseas Democracy Movement for more than ten years, later he was accused to be a spy. Once he said to me: “Juntao, after working so many years in politics, I think that there are two types of politicians, one rational and the other irrational. I am not talking about the Communist Party or the Democracy Movement. Only a rational politician can be considered a Communist, and he will support democracy, like Li Rui, Hu Yaobang or Zhao Ziyang. As long as they are rational, they will support democracy. Otherwise, even if they talk about democratization, they will still purge and attack others.” So his idea made me think. You are asking me what I think about this issue, but for us, this is not important. It only matters for people who are in charge.

Interviewer: Were you arguing about this issue at that time?

Wang: No, we were all arguing with the conservatives in the Party, and not too much among us. With such a powerful dictatorship, we all knew that the first step to modernization was secularization, refusing any “god” in charge of everything. In real life, real-life people take care. God is only responsible for the human spirit and things after death. Early, when the church was very powerful, it didn’t matter for people whether they were fighting the Inquisition because they were heretics or because they wanted to be secular. For us it was all the same, we were all victims. So in 1979 and 1980, China had already begun to divide. There were four types of people: Number one, the radical wing of the Maoists, the "Gang of Four." The struggle began on October 6, 1976 when the moderate Maoists arrested the radical Maoists. When the old ones came back, these moderate Maoists started De-Maoization. This became a struggle between those who wanted to follow Mao’s words and those who rather wanted to follow the facts. What did the Mao followers want to achieve in the Communist Party? Whatever Mao Zedong had set cannot be overturned, they claimed, it could only be softened with some modifications. The realities school believed that truth could only be found through practice. But later, this school split again and divided into the reductionists and the reformers. The reductionists were people like Chen Yun. They believed that since Mao Zedong was wrong, we should go back to Stalin and the time before the Cultural Revolution. That was Chen Yun's idea. If the Cultural Revolution was wrong, we should go back to the period before. Deng Xiaoping though believed that times had changed, and the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution had proved that there were also mistakes before the Cultural Revolution. So China should reform and open up and take a new path.

But another split occurred among the reformists. When our April 5th Movement supported Deng Xiaoping in 1976, he believed in “Stability and Unity” and economic development, he wanted to improve the economy and wanted us to support both of them. Later he said again that the Democracy Wall was undermining “Stability and Unity”, like the former “rebels”. Deng Xiaoping had always believed that those who organized the Democracy Wall and the Democracy Movement were the same kind of people as the so-called “three types” in the Cultural Revolution [followers of the radicals and of factional fighting]. Like the “rebels” they wanted to mess up the world and shape the economy, so they believed that people would support them.

But in 1976, as I just said, our thinking changed. We had supported Deng Xiaoping because he wanted to build the economy and political stability. But when we were suppressed, we came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the system in China. If we didn’t do away with superstition and political despotism, a small group of people could still suppress the majority. That’s why we wanted to change the system, and it was the point, when we and Deng Xiaoping split. There was a group called economic reformers, and when Deng Xiaoping said “both hands must grab equally strong” and talked about “one center and two basic points”, he meant to develop the economy as the center, while “Reform and Opening up” should assist the development of the economy, and everything that would not favor economic development should not be put aside.

Also, the “Four Basic Principles” [adhering to the leading role of the Party and the communist teachings] and centralized power had to be used in order to maintain political stability. We believed though that China needed a more comprehensive reform. Not only the Cultural Revolution proved to be a disaster, but also the previous system had shown serious deficiencies that actually caused the Cultural Revolution to happen; therefore the need for political democracy and freedom of thought. And we had to break the ideology and monopoly of the Communist Party.

Going back to answer your question on the debate about socialism, me may call it whatever we want, but we must reform. People who do things and people who engage in ideological discussions were different, and there were also two types of people doing things. One is engaging in pioneering work, and the others are integrating all the positive forces in society to drive progress. And those who do the thinking? They just try to explain the ideological matters as clearly as possible. We might look the same, but someone discovers that our thoughts are different. He will look very philosophical and capable.

But politics is the opposite. Different forces heavily struggle with each other. To achieve a goal, you must bring them into one camp, and you can mobilize in multiple ways. People who try to explore the realities, don’t actually care much about the slogans, they are more concerned about the objective of a political game that is played. What is the operational goal? If we want to realize it, we need to integrate different forces. Why arguing about socialism or capitalism for example? Whether farmers in China can now have their own land, you can call it socialism or capitalism. But just give the land to the people. Of course there might still be ideology behind it. But to be honest, the value of ideas can be seen in practical politics. The reality of politics never corresponds one-to-one with ideology. Political reality is always a mix of ideas, an equilibrium.

For me, to really do science, I would have rather engaged in nuclear physics. I would have clearly achieved something, and there would not have been so many interests, emotions, and personal things lingering. It would have been useless to gossip, because the scientific standards are clear. But since I did not go into nuclear physics, but wanted to engage in politics, I tried to use all my power to make China gradually progress. At this point, I needed all kinds of forces, including some in the Communist Party, for example Zhao Ziyang. We may call it socialist commodity economy, when he supported small private businesses. We may also say he wanted to import capitalism, but he actually did not want this. But I didn't care about such discussions, I just said that in reality systematic progress was the most important. That’s what I think.

Interviewer: In 1979 and 1980, among the leaders of the Party and the main officials within the system, who was actually supporting or protecting you?

Wang: To be honest, the people who protected me did not agree with my ideas. They didn’t protect Hu Ping and others, but they protected me, maybe because they accepted me more. For example, after I had been in prison in 1976, communist leaders like Bo Yibo and Wang Zhen were very grateful to us. Wang Zhen read our magazine Spring of Peking and admired it very much. Guo Xiaochuan was a Communist Party poet and a good friend of Wang Zhen. After his death, his daughter Guo Meimei [actually Guo Lingmei] was a good friend of our journal Spring of Beijing. She read it to Wang Zhen, as his eyesight was not very good any more, and Wang Zhen loved it. Wang Zhen was also very resolute when fighting the "everything faction" at the Third Plenary Session of the CCP. We wrote an article about his role, and he was very happy. At the beginning, Bo Yibo, like some other relatively conservative party leaders, were good to us, because we had supported them and opposed the "Gang of Four" during the Tian’anmen April 5th Movement. So did Deng Xiaoping. But later, in the 1980s, when the Communist Party suppressed the Democracy Wall...

Interviewer: Only Bo Yibo supported it, not his son?

Wang: His son was at Peking University. You know, last September, CNN’s Jimmy FlorCruz [a political refugee from the Philippines, who had become CNN’s China correspondent] wrote an article on his Peking University class of 1977 where he studied together with Bo Yibo's son, Bo Xilai [future member of the Politburo, sentenced to life imprisonment because of corruption in 2013]. He also wrote about me and Li Keqiang [a future prime minister] and Bo Xilai [all students of the same year]. When he came to see me, he asked: "Juntao, do you still want to become prime minister?" Me: "I never wanted to be prime minister." He replied: "When we were at Peking University, we said that if this university produced a leader during this century, it should be you, because you were talking about national affairs every day, and everyone at the university knew it." He also said that Bo Xilai's idea at that time was to become a foreign correspondent. At that time, foreign correspondents from communist countries could buy refrigerators and color TVs and bring back some foreign exchange every year. So Bo Xilai's idea being a reporter, was to enjoy life. He also said that none of us knew about Li Keqiang.

Interviewer: What was the title of this article?

Wang: It was called “United by University, Separated by Fate”. Just open the CNN website and search for Wang Juntao ["The good, the bad and the exiled? China's Class off '77" of October 7, 2013].  Of course he didn't write what I just told you, but he said this when talking to me. He told me: "At that time at Peking University, we all felt that you should be a future leader of China." I answered: "I have never thought of it this way, I just wanted to be a pacemaker." I was a young man, it was unrealistic to want to become a leader then.

Interviewer: Did you communicate with Bo Yibo directly or through someone else?

Wang: Those princelings were not in a position to talk to me. I did only discuss with their fathers. I had a discussion with Hu Yaobang at his home. Hu Deping [Hu Yaobang’s son] still couldn't... They only rose up after the Communists had suppressed us.

Interviewer: How was it when you talked to Hu Yaobang?

Wang: I told Hu Yaobang that I was against political persecution. At the time of the Democracy Wall, I cherished Hu Yaobang a lot and respected him very much. I do still respect him. But by Chinese political standards, he was not very mature yet, therefore it was easy for his political adversaries to attack him. I believe that Deng Xiaoping wanted to sponsor and supported him, but he was a person difficult to control because of his frankness.

Interviewer: Did you talk to him for a long time?

Wang: We talked for several hours. At first, our conversation should have lasted 15 to 30 minutes, but then he was so much into our talk that it continued for several hours. He told me that he had stayed at home that day because of tooth pain, but I think he just took the day off because he wanted to talk with us. Before it began, I met his secretary. I introducing myself as the deputy editor-in-chief of the journal The Spring of Peking, but the secretary suggested, "Maybe this is not so appropriate, let's call it a conversation between the elder and the younger generation." That's how I went in. We talked on a variety of subjects. In short I said that I hoped for reforms in China, that there were no political persecutions any more, that China would never return to the time of the Cultural Revolution. If you said this, these old men, including Deng Xiaoping, would listen because they were too afraid of a new Cultural Revolution. For sure, they no longer wanted to engage in personality worship, no more autocracy, and no more lies as these would eventually harm themselves. Liu Shaoqi in had pointed to the constitution and said as the State President he were protected by this constitution. But the Red Guards would not listen. They had themselves followed Mao to destroy this Constitution. Why didn't they talk about the Constitution when they fought the “rightist”? They had followed Mao purging others, why didn't they talk about the Constitution then? Only when Mao Zedong was purging you, you remembered the Constitution.

Interviewer: Did you really say all this to Hu Yaobang?

Wang: Yes, I clearly told him that I opposed the detention of Wei Jingsheng. Hu Yaobang did not give an answer to this. He just pulled out a report by the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and said: "Look, the Committee had ordered the arrest of Huang Xiang of the Enlightenment Society and later released him again because of humanitarian considerations. This should be our way to solve problems.” And he opposed political persecution. I then said: "You have to enact political reforms." He answered: "I do want reforms to the point that even my tooth hurts and that I find no sleep because I am always pondering how China should be reformed. But reforms are not as simple as young people like you might think. Tell me, from what we have done since the Third CCP Plenary Session, what was poorly done and what was done well?" Later, during the election campaign, when I made a lot of specific proposals for the political system, it was because Hu Yaobang had suddenly silenced me with this question. I really thought that the Communist Party should be reformed, but I had never considered where and how reform should specifically take place. On his desk, there was a collection of essays by Wang Anshi [a politician and reformer of the Northern Song Dynasty], and he said: "I was reading Wang Anshi's book on reform and was so excited that I couldn't put it down. But when I finally put it aside, I thought, why have all the reformers of China failed?"

He also told me about the war, when he fought together with Fu Zuoyi on the North China battlefield. At that time, Hu was a political commissar of an army column under him. There were four brigades, Fu Zuoyi probably commanded a regiment. Hu’s column thought that this battle would not be easy to fight because the Kuomintang had a lot more soldiers, they only had very few. If he didn’t dare to fight even this, how could the Chinese revolution win in the end? So he had to fight, and Fu Zuoyi ordered to go into battle. As a result, there were only two brigades left in the evening. His forces were defeated in a single battle. He desperately stood on a mountain top watching the defeated army. Later, when the Communist Party triumphed, they realized that this battle had been miscalculated. The enemy had five million soldiers, we only had one million, one million against five million. ... In the end it took three more years to succeed. But he said he knew, he was very familiar with the Communist Party. Three years later, from 1946 to 1949, the Communists defeated the Kuomintang. So what Hu wanted to say was to be patient, that’s how things go in this world. ...

Later he said to me: "Young people like you have three advantages: First, you have ideals; secondly, you are well educated; and thirdly, you have the zeal and energy to realize your aspirations. But you also have two disadvantages, one, you are not realistic, you never set out from the facts when you consider what has to be done, you only believe it must be done like this or like that; and secondly you are impatient and too anxious. Much is not done well because of too many worries.” The conversation with Hu Yaobang left a strong impression on me. And one reason why I did not oppose the Communist Party for such a long time was that there were reformers like Hu Yaobang within the Party. ...

He was willing to discuss any problem. But I should have had the same knowledge and information. For example, when he asked me what they had done poorly after the Third Plenum in 1978, I answered arresting Wei Jingsheng was not good. Then he told me how he viewed this issue. He also mentioned that they were preparing the trial of the "Gang of Four" which had not been tried yet. Some people wanted a death penalty for them, but not him, it seemed. Finally, a compromise was reached and the verdict became a suspended death sentence. My impression was that after the Cultural Revolution, the communists thought that many things had gone wrong. That’s one reason why Deng Xiaoping did not want to learn from the Soviet Union any more, but from the United States. Then Wang Zhen went to the UK. Before he came back, the Party told the embassy in the UK that it seemed that the British comrades were doing a good job. Although they did not have a communist party, they probably were still communists, as 80 percent of the British economy was nationalized then.

Interviewer: Do you have a record of your conversation with Hu Yaobang? I think it seemed very important to you. How did he think about the pro-democracy movement?

Wang: This was not an issue. I just wanted a dialogue with the Communist Party, hoping to promote a reform of the Party. This had two meanings to me. First, I was convinced that the Communist Party could be reformed; second, I thought that it was important to talk to the reformers in the Party on how to change, not just that they had to change. That issue was recognized. For Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, it was not a matter of whether to change, but how to change, and whether this could be achieved. This was my perspective to discuss and explore the issue. To carry out reforms, we didn’t have to get rid of them and overthrow the Communist Party. But meanwhile it has been proven that they also had problems. Under the authoritarian system they could not even protect themselves. Although they were willing to reform, the autocratic system later would not tolerate them, and both CCP General Secretaries were toppled. In the end, it seems clear that a General Secretary had to coexist with this authoritarian system in order to survive.

Interviewer: I still want to discuss your conversation with Hu Yaobang. He said that young people like you were not realistic enough. What did he mean?

Wang: He asked me, what did we do well and what poorly, what precisely? But I realized I couldn’t name any examples in detail. Just like a student who demands democracy and freedom for his college. But how should the books and newspaper be like then? What about demonstrations and street marches? How should an electoral system be created? We had not really thought that way. There was also the question of who was blocking reform in China, and how to deal with them. We had not thought about it either. We originally thought that the Communist Party did not want to reform. After talking with Hu Yaobang, my feeling was that the Communist Party actually did want reform, and that he was also pondering how to do reforms efficiently. But we hadn't thought about this issue. Of course, it could be said that we were not in this position, I was not the Secretary General of the Party, so there was no need to think about problems from that position.

But that day, he really wanted to hear how I wanted to do things. He told me reading Wang Anshi's book made him more excited than me. After I had read it, I just wanted to reform China, but I was not as excited as he was. Hu Yaobang really... While he kept talking happily, he got up, threw his military coat on a chair and continued talking while he walked around and the two of us were arguing together. He made a deep impression on me when he said that communist parties could be reformed, especially those pragmatic communist parties, and this actually happened in politics. People like Mikhail Gorbachev or Boris Yeltsin had all been communists, and during the political struggle, they all went step by step forward. Today I feel that it was quite important when Hu Yaobang caused to be patient. I was not worried why he didn’t go on with reforms. But I found out, that he was reforming and pondering how to do reforms better. Because resistance was big, the cadres at that time were still from Mao's time, “workers and peasants” officials and those had who “rebelled” during the Cultural Revolution. It was not until 1984 that this problem began to be solved.

Interviewer: In addition to Hu Yaobang, did other leaders or senior officials invite you for conversations?

Wang: I also talked once with Hu Qiaomu [Marxist philosopher, Politburo member]. He was very bad. When I discussed with him at his home, I emphasized that the issue of corruption should be addressed. His answer was: "Corruption exists in every dynasty. If it can't be solved, there is also no need to solve it." There were other leaders we have talked with, but none of them impressed me as much as Hu Yaobang. Later, many of my own friends became leaders, like Liu Yandong who was my campaign consultant and advisor when I was running. She is now a member of the Politburo.

Interviewer: You have been involved in the overseas pro-democracy movement for a long time, and you are also a major figure in this movement. How would you analyze it?

Wang: You know that I am now organizing the Democratic Party in the overseas movement. For me, I originally tried to achieve three things when I went abroad. The first thing was that I had contracted several diseases when I was in prison and wanted to cure them, and I basically succeeded. The second thing was that I tried to understand political transition. Chinese have debated for a long time the issue of revolution and reform. But this concept is outdated. In a mature political game both can be a strategy, an actional strategy. Are you cooperative or non-cooperating? In game theory this is not the principle. The principle is what objective you have. Sometimes you need reform, sometimes revolution. A better concept today is transformation. In this process, you need to understand what forces are involved in the change and what do they want. Then you have to position yourself and choose your strategy of action. From my overseas perspective, I want to understand how transformation occurs in various countries around the world, what are patterns employed, and finally, what conditions lead to its results.

Another task for me was gaining knowledge about political change. Since we need to act rationally, the Chinese always talk about being peaceful and rational, but in fact they are not rational. Why? For them, rational thinking is always conducting political debates like academic discussions. In fact, they are different. Politics require conflict, and you can't discuss it in an academic way. Academic discussions require scientific concepts, information, knowledge, and knowledge about other countries. I raise this question because in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, when they underwent transformation, they did not do well and the sacrifice was too high. China also underwent transformation in 1911, but it failed. So I wanted to understand how changes happen and what studies have done on China's transformation. That was number two.

The third thing was to develop a new network for my work, creating an organization, but having no money and no posts to offer to others. Running an organization is also very tiring. Hu Ping has always said, "Build a car. It's very difficult for you, but you will not have the time to drive it." Setting up an organization, there might be no political environment for you to work. But with a network, to finish some task one day, you just make a phone call and ask a favor to help. Such a network I wanted to set up. But after I finished reading that book, I discovered that for organizing a movement in China, our current movement was quite problematic. We were not well prepared to operate in the political field. Whether in a democracy or autocracy, it always is a political struggle and a political game. I am saying this because looking back, both Chinese abroad and Westerners criticize the pro-democracy movement saying it’s all internal fighting. Many ask me why I still want to organize a political party, and why I am still prepared to face internal hostility. I said Flushing [in Queens, New York, where many mainland Chinese immigrants live] is my practice room, my political action field. In this place, I want to exercise my way of thinking and my muscles to be able to return to China in the future.

Looking back, I understand that transformation takes place in three stages: the first is to initiate changes to overthrow autocracy. This may seem difficult before the transformation, but actually once it happens, you will find it very easy, like in Egypt [where mass protests took place at the time of the interview] or 1989 in China. When it really happens, you might suddenly realize that it’s already finished. Before you can fully react, it is already over. Looking back then, it wasn't that difficult. What is difficult though is the fighting among the various groups, when they sit together at a round table to discuss developing a new country to build true democracy and overthrow the old authoritarian regime. You will find that the cost is very high.

The transformation could be done at a low cost, but once the in-fighting begins, the cost will be very high, and it might even lead to division and civil war. So what is the significance of the struggle of a democracy movement abroad? It is like any country establishing a new state system. Although the overseas pro-democracy movement is based in the United States, it’s not governed by US laws because no one is applying them, and it does not concern us because American judges would not be able settle all our struggles. From this perspective, there is a problem in our Chinese culture, especially among intellectuals. We are all tolerant, but when differences occur between us, we usually lose our composure because it stretches our tolerance too much. This is not about politics, because when we face different opinions there, we should know that differences are universal.

Cooperation is stage by stage. Many of us don’t think much about the psychological and operational qualities required for political action. So I'm not worried. We Chinese are becoming stronger and more daring now in the fight against autocracy, not afraid of persecution or mistreatment. Nowadays, even more people in China are bravely facing persecution, including ordinary people or human rights lawyers. But if this authoritarian Communist Party is overthrown, there will so many groups, interests, some owing favors to the Communist Party. A scholar said to me: "Wang Juntao, if you really want the Communist Party to collapse, be aware you will have to repay the debt it owes to people." They will not say that the Communist Party owes them something. But whoever will be in power, will have to pay it back. So what I mean is that the mood of violence and impatience caused by the Communist Party will be something we all have to encounter in the early stages of democratic changes. People will need a strong mental constitution to face rifts, challenges, attacks, and all kinds of dirty political games. And these people, who build the new China with us, should by no means be like the current Democracy Movement. [… …]

That day when Ren Wanding had left China, Professor Andrew Nathan [sinologist at Columbia University] said to me, it seemed that another great person had come out. I knew what he meant, but it seemed that he won't listen to what I told him: "We have been in prison for such a long time. Our state of mind is like that of a group of patients, we are not supermen, but just like other people. If you have been locked up and isolated for such a long time, you have become a patient with mental illnesses. After being freed, we should have received careful treatment. But you treated us as heroes and wanted to listen to our opinions on the world. In reality, it was a big mess for us. There was disappointment. How could China become like this? We got to the feeling that our struggle had ended in disarray." When I had left China, my ideas were different at the beginning. I wanted to take care of my health, then acquire knowledge, and thirdly, help the people back in China. Then develop a network of relationships to support people back home, and gradually build a network to be able do meaningful work. [… …]

I also thought that if a change happened in China and the Communist Party collapsed, it could be without any serious contribution by me. I could not be immediately on the scene because it would probably happy by chance, like an accident. After reading "The American Revolution" [...] I told an American journalist: "It seems that the American Revolution was an accident, an extraordinary co-incident." He replied: "Which revolution is not an accident? In a dictatorship, the regime can imagine everything that you imagine. And it usually doesn’t think of events that you don’t imagine either. But something like that […] will cause everything collapse then.”

But what can we do from abroad? Can we initiate change? But in fact, there is little we can do because it will happen accidentally in China. Under current conditions, there are very few people in China who will get a chance to initiate this. I don’t know who is there who could do this. Maybe it would be like the “February 28” incident in Taiwan [an anti-Kuomintang rebellion in 1947]. An old lady, a hawker whose cigarettes had been confiscated, knelt down and begged the soldiers. But they beat her, which in turn sparked the rebellion. Maybe it will be like the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, where a street vendor was slapped in his face and set himself on fire. An investigation later found out that he actually had not been slapped. It was just a rumor. […] Even a rumor can cause a revolution. So even if none of us were present in the first place, as long as it is a revolution and not just a single revolt or riot, if it lasts for several years, we will all have the time to go in. [… …]

People also talk about “exile”. In fact, this notion sounds poetic and noble, but it has stifled many people. Thoughtful and tasteful persons are often lonely. They may feel lonely in their country and even among their own relatives. What is exile? If you are in a foreign country and have a positive approach, you will still find many friends. Even though the food and the language are different, you won’t feel lonely or exiled. [… …] On the other hand, politically speaking, the notion of “exile” has caused many people to give up their efforts just because they consider themselves in exile. In reality, they are in exile, but in the West they also find better conditions than an average Chinese. You have a certain aura, and people are willing to help you, which is not available to ordinary Chinese. Regardless of your experience or past achievements, your will have certain conditions that give you more opportunities.

In China during the 1980s, these people were very successful. Why did they, once the United States and the West, got worse than ordinary Chinese? Because they were strangled by the concept of "exile". Because I am an exile, I am no longer like an ordinary Chinese, nor do I seize opportunities and work hard like I did during the Democracy Movement when I was still young. Here I must maintain my image and position. I have been to the Congress, also this year. If I don’t go next year, this will be like a failure. I will feel a sense of dismay if the members of Congress forget about me. This all comes from my status as an exile. So give yourself a reason, give up on yourself, and fight like every ordinary person.

If you really reduce yourself to an ordinary person and you study for a degree like an ordinary student, this will give you an advantage. In China we were at the best universities. Ten years after the Cultural Revolution, in the fiercest competition, we managed to enter the best schools. We certainly had some qualities. Why are these people, once they are abroad, not active anymore? It's because they think of themselves as exiles. Exiles have a mission, sometimes culture also has a mission. But they rather seem like political fossils, not much different from the politicians who once represented them. A fossil is not a bad thing, like a statue or sculpture. But fossils have no influence on real life. They only give inspirations when people think about their significance. Only when people are willing to feel inspired by an image, it will be effective. I don’t want to be a fossil, but still want to be a practical actor. And this kind of action, even abroad and so far away from China, I am practicing and training for the future.