Chen Yizi, a former aide to ousted Communist Party chief and reformer Zhao Ziyang, died at his home in Los Angeles on Monday.
Chen's death came on the eve of the anniversary of the death of former party chief Hu Yaobang, which triggered the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Chen was director of the Institute for Economic Structural Reform under the State Council, and, along with Zhao, called for negotiations with student demonstrators. When the hardliners ousted Zhao and sent the tanks rolling in, Chen fled into exile, avoiding imprisonment.
From the SCMP's obituary:
Born in 1940, Chen graduated from the prestigious Peking University. He was an architect of China's economic reforms in the 1980s and the founder of several government think tanks.
During the pro-democracy movement in the spring of 1989, Chen urged the government to negotiate with the student demonstrators.
When tanks rolled into Beijing and troops opened fire to crush the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4, Zhao's aides and liberal intellectuals in government think tanks became targets of repression along with other outspoken young intellectuals.
Chen became one of the seven most-wanted dissidents in China. His institute was closed down for six months following the repression, and he was forced to flee after Zhao was placed under house arrest and Bao Tong [Zhao's personal secretary] jailed.
He boarded a train and eventually reached Guangdong. He then escaped to Hainan , from where a boat spirited him to Hong Kong. Two days later, he flew to France.
On the 25th annivesary of Hu's death, many commentators have called on the government to at long last embrace his reformist message. "Although we have a constitution which guarantees freedoms in speech and assembly… in fact, there are hardly any freedoms. We have no right to supervise [the government]," Hu's son told the SCMP.
[Left: Chen Yizi. Right: Zhao Ziyang, flanked by future premier Wen Jiabao, addresses student demonstrators in 1989]
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