Beijing – Tiananmen Square – Beijing: the Great Hall of the People

03 Chapter CTW:Master Testpages CT 6/3/08 18:40 Page 105 3 Beijing – Tiananmen Square – Beijing: The Great Hall of the People – Beijing: Central Military Commission – Construction site of the Three Gorges Dam – A village in Shanxi province Beijing – Tiananmen Square he sky was overcast and it was raining. High over the Tianyuan TGate the national flag hung damply at half-mast. The guard of honour, wearing black armbands, stood motionless as statues. For the last three days, the official announcement of the General Secretary’s death had been broadcast repeatedly by television and radio, between intervals of solemn music. The wording had not changed and no explanation given of the phrase ‘a brutal assassination by an enemy of China’. In Tiananmen Square, at the foot of the Memorial to the Heroes of the Revolution, the few wreaths of paper flowers had wilted in the rain, but the real flowers remained fresh and colorful. The leaders of the Democracy Front did not know how to react to the sudden death of this powerful, slippery man, the commander-in- chief of the despotic system and their main target. But for him the Democracy Front would not exist, there would have been no meetings, no propaganda and no occupation of Tiananmen Square. He was almost an ally. Now the enemy had gone, their target had vanished, and a slight anxiety was beginning to spread about what the attitude of his successor would be. Police patrols in the square had been doubled and there were armoured cars and steel-helmeted police with bullhorns and electric batons everywhere. Plainclothes men from the State Security Bureau mixed with the crowd and kept watch on foreign correspondents (who were only worried that nothing might happen), and on uneasy diplomatic personnel, amongst whom were several intelligence agents. The Square was calm. All amusement centres were closed and many passers-by had stopped to have a look. Even the loudspeakers of the People’s Front and the Democracy Front did not really know what to say. Nothing was going on and few people stayed long. 105 03 Chapter CTW:Master Testpages CT 6/3/08 18:40 Page 106 Not many people noticed that several times the usual number of those large luxury coaches used to transport foreign tourists were parked between the History Museum and the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, their curtains drawn. All was quiet there too, and there were no tourists to be seen. The ninety-two coaches looked empty; but inside there were 4,650 well-equipped and travel-weary soldiers, quietly waiting. Beijing: The Great Hall of the People Lu Hao-ran had forgotten his pass and was stopped by the guards at the entrance to the Great Hall of the People. There were at least twenty personnel from the office of the Central Committee inside, yet no one came forward to vouch for him. He searched his pockets and brief-case in vain. He must have left the pass in his car, which was already on its way to the underground car park. He waved to the driver, but decided not to shout. He would have cut a sorry figure and the man would not have heard anyway. The people from the office were laughing. Not long ago they were wagging their tails in his presence, hoping to be noticed. Now, if he asked a service of one of them, he would probably be ignored. He went down the curved ramp to the car park, the light rain falling coldly on his face. He was usually driven straight to the special lower ground floor entrance to the lifts, like other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. This time, though he was still a member, the office had only issued him with a pass to the main entrance. There had been no explanation but he knew that his security status had been lowered. He had not made a fuss, knowing that this petty slight was intended to convey to everyone attending this special meeting of the Central Committee that he was not going to be General Secretary, or member of the Standing Committee, or even Premier. Three days earlier, when the news of the General Secretary’s assassination had broken, he had received a call from Wang Feng, asking him to call an extraordinary meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee to be attended by members of the Central Committee at present in Beijing, in order to elect a new General Secretary. Lu Hao-ran had asked whether this had to be done at once. ‘Yes,’ replied Wang Feng. ‘We must act promptly and firmly. Please stress that the meeting is to be attended only by members now in Beijing.’ ‘A clumsy way of doing things,’ thought Lu Hao-ran. Too obvious. Perhaps that summed up Wang Feng: clumsy and unsubtle. Lu Hao-ran had no idea what Wang Feng was planning. He had only told him that 106.

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