Zhao Ziyang (October 17th 1919 - January 17th 2005) was a Chinese politician, arrived at the post of Prime Minister of 1980 with 1987 then first secretary of the Chinese Communist party of 1987 with 1989.

Leader of a local cell of the PCC during the Second world war, Zhao Ziyang reaches the post of secretary of the PCC for the province of the Guangdong at the end of the years 1960. Persecuted and put at the variation during the Cultural revolution, it occupies then various stations within the PCC and is made known for the improvement made to the Industrie and the Agriculture of the province of the Sichuan.

Become member of the central committee of the Chinese Communist party in 1973, it becomes Prime Minister in 1980.

At the time of the Manifestations of the place Tian' anmen with Beijing in May - June 1989, it tries parlementer with the students claiming more Démocratie in the country. The demonstrations are crushed in blood against the opinion of Zhao Ziyang and this one is isolated capacity by cacic party. Since 1989, it is under house arrest.

Its death put the Chinese authorities in the embarrassment. Its funerals had to wait one week during which the family of late fought so that its official obituary is not expurgée. In vain, its function of Prime Minister was not even mentioned:

“During the period of opening and reform, the comrade Zhao Ziyang was used the Party and the State for an important station and contributed an invaluable share to the Party and the people. But for the political period of disorder, to the spring and the summer of 1989, the comrade Zhao Ziyang made serious errors.”

Finally, it was incinerated in the revolutionary cemetery of Babaoshan with Beijing the January 29th 2005 during a ceremony very framed by the police force. A few hundreds of demonstrators however tried to express outside the cemetery and some were stopped. Today still, the recall of the events of Tian' anmen remains a subject taboo for the capacity.