Xu Jiatun

Xu Jiatun
许家屯
Communist Party Secretary of the Jiangsu
In office
1977–1983
Preceded by Peng Chong
Succeeded by Han Peixin
Governor of Jiangsu
In office
1977–1979
Preceded by Peng Chong
Succeeded by Hui Yuyu
Director of the Hong Kong Branch of the New China News Agency
In office
1983–1990
Preceded by Wang Kuang
Succeeded by Zhou Nan
Personal details
Born (1916-03-10)10 March 1916
Rugao, Nantong, Jiangsu, China
Died 29 June 2016(2016-06-29) (aged 100)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political party Communist Party of China (until 1991)
Occupation Politician

Xu Jiatun (Chinese: 许家屯; 10 March 1916 – 29 June 2016) was a Chinese politician and dissident. He was the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Jiangsu Province from 1977 to 1983 and the Governor of Jiangsu from 1977 to 1979. After sympathising with the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, he left the country and lived in self-exile in the United States.

Career

Xu was the member of the 11th and 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1977 to 1987.[1] He was the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Jiangsu Province from 1977 to 1983 and the Governor of Jiangsu from 1977 to 1979. He became the director of the Hong Kong branch of the Xinhua News Agency from 1983 to 1989,[2][3] then China's de facto political presence in the territory.[2] He participated in the preparatory works of the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR and was vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee.

Xu sympathised with the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989. After the military crackdown in June, he fled to the United States and lived there in exile.[2] He was later expelled from the Communist Party. In 1994, he published memoirs.

Xu later lived in Orange County, California, United States. In 1997, he joined an appeal to the Communist Party Congress meeting in Beijing to reverse the government report condemning the 1989 Tiananmen student protests.[4] In an interview with Initium Media in 2016, after a stay in hospital, Xu, in an interview with the Hong Kong journalist Simon Kei shek Ming, predicted that Xi Jinping would arrest "higher level" tigers in the Communist Party.[5] He died in June 2016 at the age of 100.[6]

References

  1. "Xu Jiatun 许家屯". China Vitae.
  2. 1 2 3 Zhao, Ziyang (2009). Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang. Simon and Schuster.
  3. Zhao, Suisheng (2004). Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior. M.E. Sharpe. p. 106.
  4. "Exile in U.S. Joins Tiananmen Appeal". Los Angeles Times. 18 September 1997.
  5. "百歲生死許家屯". theinitium.com. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  6. "Xu Jiatun dies at the age of 100". RTHK. 29 June 2016.
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