[7] Zhao rose to prominence in Guangdong from 1951,[8] initially following a ruthless ultra-leftist, Tao Zhu, who was notable for his heavy-handed efforts to force local peasants into living and working in "People's Communes".

[12] Jasper Becker, however, wrote that Zhao's torture campaign during the Great Leap meant he was partially responsible for the millions of people who died from starvation and malnutrition in Guangdong between 1958 and 1961.

[7] Zhao's methods of returning private plots to farmers and assigning production contracts to individual households were replicated in other parts of China, helping the country's agricultural sector recover.

Soon after they met, Zhao began a speech that he had prepared over the previous night: "I have been rethinking the Cultural Revolution during these years as a labourer..." Zhou cut him off, saying "You've been called to Beijing because the Central Committee has decided to name you as a deputy Party chief of Inner Mongolia.

"[14]: xiii After being recalled from political exile, Zhao attempted to portray himself as a Maoist, and publicly renounced any interest in encouraging private enterprise or material incentive.

[17] During his tenure in Sichuan, Zhao introduced a series of successful market-oriented reforms, which distributed farmland to families for private use, and allowed peasants to freely sell their crops on the marketplace.

")[7][14]: xiii After ousting Hua Guofeng as China's "paramount leader" in 1978, Deng Xiaoping recognized the "Sichuan Experience" as a model for Chinese economic reform.

Zhao successfully sought to establish a series of special economic zones in coastal provinces in order to attract foreign investment and create export hubs.

's 1985 visit, engineered by the band's manager Simon Napier-Bell, was a highly publicized cultural exchange and seen as a major step in increasing friendly bilateral relations between China and the West.

[22] In the 1980s, Zhao was branded by conservatives as a revisionist of Marxism, but his advocacy of government transparency and a national dialogue that included ordinary citizens in the policymaking process made him popular with many.

[7] Zhao and Hu also began a large-scale anti-corruption programme, and permitted the investigations of the children of high-ranking Party elders, who had grown up protected by their parents' influence.

The conservative faction in the politburo, led by Premier Li Peng and Vice-premier Yao Yilin, were constantly at odds with Zhao in economic and fiscal policy making.

The student protests triggered by the sudden death of former CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang, widely admired as a reform-minded leader, created a crisis in which Zhao was forced into a confrontation with his political enemies.

[citation needed] Zhao was general secretary for little more than a year before the death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April 1989, which, coupled with a growing sense of public outrage caused by high inflation and economic uncertainty,[36] provided the backdrop for the large-scale protest of 1989 by students, intellectuals, and other parts of a disaffected urban population.

Party hard-liners increasingly came to the conclusion that the demonstrations were due to Zhao's rapid pace of reform, which they believed caused a sense of confusion and frustration among college students.

Following the meeting, Li had the People's Daily publish an article (which he attributed to Deng), which criticized the protests as "premeditated and organized turmoil with anti-Party and anti-socialist motives."

In the letter, Zhao also warned that "imposing harsh measures while a majority of people are adamantly opposed may result in serious repercussions that threaten the fate of the Party and the state."

A day after Zhao's 19 May visit to Tiananmen Square, Premier Li Peng publicly declared martial law, leading to the deaths of hundreds to thousands of protesters on 4 June.

[48] The meeting included the Party's most influential elders, and aimed to shape the government's response to the events of 4 June, by consolidating support for the armed crackdown and removing Zhao from office.

Hu Qili, who was then a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, acknowledged he had sided with Zhao in opposing martial law, but said that Deng's 9 June speech made him realize his "thinking was not clear in the face of great issues of right and wrong affecting the Party's and the state's future and fate".

[50] Zhao himself later described some of the speeches at the meeting as "entirely in the style of the Cultural Revolution", saying his opponents engaged in "reversing black and white, exaggerating personal offenses, taking quotes out of context, [and] issuing slanders and lies".

[58][59] Supplied by the Beijing government, the Hutong residence had once belonged to a hairdresser of the Qing Dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi,[7] and Hu Yaobang before his death in 1989.

He continued to hold China's top leadership responsible for the assault, and refused to accept the official Party line that the demonstrations had been a part of a "counter-revolutionary rebellion".

[66] In order to manage the news of Zhao's death, the Chinese government created an "Emergency Response Leadership Small Group", which declared "a period of extreme sensitivity", and placed the People's Armed Police on special alert.

Open, public response was absent, though some online commenters stated that they planned to buy wreaths to mourn his death, or had stood in three minutes of silence to honour Zhao's memory.

[70] Similar memorials were held around the world, notably in New York City and Washington, DC where American government officials and exiled political dissidents attended.

[65] According to Du Daozheng, who wrote the foreword to the Chinese edition of Zhao's memoirs, the use of the term "serious mistakes" instead of the former verdict of supporting a "counter-revolutionary riot" represented a backing down by the Party.

[81] However, as of December 2019 both major crowdsourced encyclopedias subject to government censorship in mainland China contain articles about the life of Zhao, omitting references to the activities surrounding his dismissal from the party and subsequent house arrest.

[citation needed] Since 1989, one of the few publications that has printed a non-government-approved memorial praising Zhao's legacy has been Yanhuang Chunqiu, a magazine which released a pro-Zhao article in July 2010.

[83] In the last chapter, Zhao praises the Western system of parliamentary democracy and says it is the only way China can solve its problems of corruption and a growing gap between the rich and poor.