Talk:Zhao Ziyang

Tiananmen Square photo caption
File:Zhao Ziyang tiananmen.jpg In the Tiananmen Square protests section, the last part of the photo caption read, "On his back right is future Premier of China Wen Jiabao." Isn't Wen the guy on Zhao's left with dark hair and a dark jacket, not the guy behind him and to his right wearing a blue & white cap? I changed it to "to the right of Zhao and near the center of the photo is future Premier of China Wen Jiabao." Phlar (talk) 05:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Phlar: I think "back right" was supposed to mean "behind him, on the right". Your wording is clearer though, thanks for bringing this up. Yee no   (talk) 🍁 06:32, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Women in the Political Process
There has been some discussion between me and other editors on the issue of how to phrase and cite the debate on Zhao Ziyang’s position on female political participation in the Reformist Leader section, so I thought it would be appropriate to open a discussion here so we could discuss the issue further.

Personally, I have made it clear that I view the claims attributed to Ellen R. Judd currently in the Reformist Leader section as being both exceptional claims which have not been been corroborated by multiple sources, and inaccurate accounts of said claims which give readers a false impression of both the content and certainty of the claims. While I am very open to compromise on the language and specifics, I generally do not agree with the Verifiability of the current edit that was reverted to, and wanted to centralize the discussion on where to go from here. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 02:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear verifiable in this context means "Did Judd say it." See WP:V for more. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 02:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No, in the Verifiability page it clearly states that Exceptional Claims require Exceptional Evidence, so even if Judd’s claims are exactly as they are portrayed in the current edit (which I’d argue they’re not), if her claims are Exceptional they require additional evidence to be considered Verifiable. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 02:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But they aren't exceptional claims. If you want to attribute it to the author thats fine, but you seem to want to fight Judd here. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 15:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why you think I want to "fight Judd"? We can go back into the Exceptional Claims argument if you'd like, however I'd still like to know what part of my latest edit caused you to revert it entirely? For the record, I talked with RovingPersonalityConstruct, and I think there are some minor word changes which would be useful, so I have added some edits below in brackets. But what was your major problem with this edit that made it not count as attributing information and instead seemed to be "fighting Judd", in your view? If you think my bracketed edits have resolved the issue then let me know.
 * For context:
 * The 13th Congress was also notable for the absence of women in the party leadership; At the time Zhao [claimed] this was not the result of a policy change and explained the occurrence to newspapers by stating "It was the hope of us all that some female comrades would join the Political Bureau, but none were elected. According to later claims by [members of] the All-China Women's Federation, Zhao's "open comments" against female political participation led to fewer women in lower party positions. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I noticed a number of different edits back and forth on this issue. What’s the specific language or edit you’d like to propose?
 * My initial reaction is often these disagreements can be handled with attribution (Judd writes …) and the addition of other sources. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Eternal Blue Sky and I talked about this on my talk page (see User_talk:RovingPersonalityConstruct.) I too would like to see explicit attribution in the body text. I would also like the article to, perhaps, more closely reflect what is in Judd (source page). Judd has two points:


 * The lack of women in the 13th Congress (i.e. upper party positions) associated (but by whom is not indicated in the same sentence) with Zhao becoming General Secretary.
 * The women orgs crediting Zhao's public comments with the reduced number of women in lower party positions.


 * The current revision doesn't distinguish between the two.


 * For point 1, I don't think it is necessary to say that the Women's Federations, explicitly, associated the 13th Congress with Zhao; just saying that Zhao was associated with the result would be enough. It might not even be necessary to explicitly say that if Zhao's response to the matter (from Kyung Ae Park's paper ) is included in some form:


 * "The 13th congress in 1987 elected no woman to either of the political bodies. When asked about this, former General Secretary Zhao Ziyang replied, "It was the hope of us all that some female comrades would join the Political Bureau, but none were elected. However, this doesn't mean we have adjusted our policies on women""


 * The same paragraph in Park also seems to suggest this was just part of a downward trend in women's political participation starting from at least mid-1970s; this might also be added to the article as context. - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 15:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I can’t pull up the book page for Judd and so it’s hard for me to suggest any specific language. But conceptually, your approach makes sense. I think you should make an edit in this regard. It can always be further refined if there are alternative views or suggestions. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, my general objection has been that it's not clear to readers where the allegations are coming from. In the current phrasing, "Members of the All-China Women's Federation attributed this to Zhao's rise to General-Secretary. Zhao had previously made comments opposing the participation of women in political processes.", it seems like the All-China Women's Federation officially blamed Ziyang for the lack of women in the 13th congress, which is then also supported by the fact Ziyang was known for being or well evidenced as being Misogynist (in the sense that he opposed female participation in the political process). In reality though, this exceptional claim is all from Judd's claim that the ACWF associated these issues with Ziyang's rise due to alleged previous comments. But there is no additional evidence in any other sources which corroborates the fact that the ACWF made these claims, or that they were supported by any comments Ziyang had made. So I feel it would be appropriate to edit the language so that readers are clear on the fact that both sentences are from Judd who attributes them to members of the ACWF, and that this is not some generally agreed on scholarly truth. This is especially so because this is an unsupported exceptional claim which is coming from a government body of the Chinese government which would have a clear conflict of interest with a political prisoner like Zhao Ziyang. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You contradict yourself, are you saying that the claim comes from "members of the ACWF" or "a government body of the Chinese government"? Also note that membership in the ACWF is traditional for all female CCP members, so you do effectively seem to be saying that women (but not men) have a conflict of interest when it comes to gender. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Alright, to be clear what I am saying is that the claim (according to Judd) originates from interviews with members of the ACWF, which is an organ of the Chinese Communist Party United Front. I agree my phrasing was not 100% accurate, but my point stands and is identical in its focus regardless of wording. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So your point is that women involved in the Chinese political process have a conflict of interest when it comes to the topic of gender representation in politics but men in the Chinese political process have no such conflict of interest? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:27, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Again I feel like you are narrativizing what I'm saying in bad faith, when my point is clear. The ACWF, as would any other organ of the Chinese government, has an incentive to say negative things about political dissidents the Chinese government has arrested, and therefore has a conflict of interest in reporting truthfully on facts regarding controversial political dissidents. Gender is not relevant to my argument. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:38, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You're being unclear again... We're not talking about the ACWF, we're talking about members. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * My point is clear. When I talk about the ACWF having a conflict of interest, this would obviously also apply to members of the ACWF acting in a representative (or even a non-representative) capacity. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Is there any suggestion here that the members were acting in a representative capacity? The author seems to be suggesting the opposite. If the COI "obviously also apply" to all members in all contexts how is that functionally different from "women involved in the Chinese political process have a conflict of interest, men do not"? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I have never said anything like what you're quoting? If a man in the ACWF, in the CCP, or in any branch of the government said something identical my objection would not change? It is not at all founded on member's status as women, for all we know the information could have come from interviews with male members of the organization.
 * In addition, while my objection also works if the members are not acting in a representative capacity, this would only lessen the credibility of Judd's claims. She gives no qualifications for these people's reliability as sources of information other than their membership in the ACWF, and does not provide any names other than that of the general organization, so if she is just saying some random unnamed people at some undisclosed level of the ACWF said something not supported by the organization, then this to me feels like incredibly weak support for an exceptional claim. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 16:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You are looking to add a quote from the subject of this article, Zhao Ziyang, not from the time when he was a political dissident but from when he was a leading member of the CCP. You do not insist that his statements be supported by other sources despite his conflict of interest. Again, there is no exceptional claim here... The claim that a senior CCP official wasn't crazy about female political representation isn't surprising... The opposite is actually true, it would be extraordinary to claim that a senior CCP official actually did support equal female participation in the political process. Judd does not need to name their sources, this is above and beyond the scrutiny we generally level at top tier academic sources. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 17:27, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah okay, so I see your point here, but first my point in this discussion is not to delete Judd's quote at this point, I simply want to provide reader context. Both Ziyang and Judd are not supported despite conflicts of interest, and I think both should be included with context regardless.
 * For Ziyang I thought the conflict of interest was clear in my most recent edit as I make clear things are something Ziyang said, whereas the current edit presents Judd's claims about Ziyang's comments as facts without any qualification. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * For your second point about not supporting female political involvement being unexceptional, I have a couple objections. First of all, I'd really like to see your source for this, as I don't think this is true, as I'll get to in a moment. Second of all, even if this might be broadly true for CCP officials, it does not change the fact that Ziyang is known for being atypical among CCP officials, and that him holding this position would massively shift the common understanding of Ziyang's beliefs.
 * To return to the former point regarding whether it was common for CCP members to support female political participation, I just don't think your characterization is accurate. Overall, it is demonstrably true that during the reform era, Women's rights and power were eroded. However I question your claim that this was due to active Anti-Feminist views being held by the overwhelming majority of CCP members. From everything I've seen, most CCP officials were apathetic towards Feminist issues, and followed Deng's view of economic reform while maintaining social stability, ie not changing the status quo when it came towards social issues. Feminism was viewed by many reformists as an element of the Cultural Revolution, which led to a minority of active Anti-Feminists and a majority who were as I said apathetic towards towards the whole debate. Overall, China was still pretty socially conservative and the power of women in society had mostly been a top down imposition by Mao, so with the removal of Maoists from the party most of the women who had been elevated were removed, and without Mao to elevate them again they lacked the institutionalized power necessary to force through their own candidates. I think an entirely fair criticism of Zhao is that he did nothing to prevent this erosion of female power, but from all available evidence this seems to have been because he took a similar but slightly altered view to Deng, that being the promotion of both economic and political reform while maintaining social stability (at least in the short term).
 * While Ziyang being passive towards Feminist issues would not be exceptional, what would be exceptional is active anti-feminist sentiments, and even more so would be if Ziyang was publicly vocal about his anti-feminist sentiments (as Judd's text extremely heavily implies). Because as with Deng's avoidance of rocking the boat, the official party line remained endorsing Feminism, as seen in Ziyang's quote, so even if the actual De Facto policy had changed Ziyang openly stating that would have meant breaking with the party line which would have been seen as unacceptable. So within the context of being unexceptional, at most Ziyang if he was anti-feminist would have probably made these comments in private, and if so we must wonder why Judd states in the text that Ziyang made "open comments" and also where she is getting her information, as we have no evidence any of her interviewees had any contact with Ziyang at the time and would have been aware of private comments.
 * You may write all this off as personal speculation, and I agree it is, but I'm not trying to make truth claims. I'm just trying to lay out what we might reasonably consider exceptional or unexceptional for the time period, in order to argue that if Ziyang did what Judd alleges he did this would qualify as exceptional within the framework of the time period. But again, even if we accept this idea that it would be unexceptional for the time, it would still be exceptional in the context of the mainstreaming understanding of Zhao Ziyang individually. Eternal Blue Sky (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes it is personal speculation, I am failing to how this would "would massively shift the common understanding of Ziyang's beliefs." I don't even think it shifts them a little bit. The common understanding of Zhao Ziyang is not that he was a feminist. Also note that a position of "not changing the status quo when it came towards social issues" is not a passive position in this context, that is an anti-feminist position because the status quo was anti-feminist. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk)

I have edited the article (Special:Diff/1214628397). Please see if this gets us any closer to something that is mutually acceptable (or mutually but acceptably dis-satisfactory.) - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 03:50, 20 March 2024 (UTC)