Chen Xitong was a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the Mayor of Beijing until he was removed from office on charges of corruption in 1995.
23 Facts About Chen Xitong
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Chen Xitong attended Peking University at the age of 18 and majored in Chinese Language.
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Chen Xitong was demoted during the Cultural Revolution and forced to clean toilets for some time.
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Chen Xitong served as the head of international goodwill delegations to a variety of places including North Korea, USA, Moscow, France, Ankara, Warsaw, East Berlin.
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Chen Xitong was the mayor of Beijing during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
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Chen Xitong played a central role in the events that unfolded during and after the protests.
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Chen Xitong blamed lower party officials for leading the students to believe they could have an audience with Li Peng.
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Chen Xitong did not appear on television to give this statement.
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Chen Xitong accused the paper of pushing a bourgeois liberalization agenda.
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Chen Xitong accused anti-socialist actors from Hong Kong of facilitating the student protest by providing weapons and money.
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Chen Xitong denounced Liu Xiaobo's connection with dissidents in New York.
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Chen Xitong maintained that protesters were influenced by foreign actors and did not invite foreign news agencies to his press conferences until March 7,1990.
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Political Scientist Joseph Fewsmith argues Chen Xitong was in the running to replace Zhao Ziyang, but Deng Xiaoping felt his public hardline stance in the Tiananmen protests made him a difficult choice to succeed Zhao.
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Chen Xitong was selected as the Beijing Party Secretary in 1991 after Li Ximing fell out of favour because of his opposition to Deng's economic reforms.
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In 2012, a book titled Conversations with Chen Xitong based on interviews with Chen, authored by Yao Jianfu, a retired journalist of the Xinhua News Agency, with a foreword by Wu Guoguang was published by New Century Press.
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Chen Xitong argues further that Li Ximing actually misinformed him about the student protests.
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Wu Guoguang's foreword states that due to the chaotic nature of those few days, it is plausible that Chen Xitong was not informed about his role in the crackdown in advance.
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Chen Xitong would go on to say he was "sorry" for the event of June 4,1989, saying that no one should have died in the crackdown.
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Chen Xitong rejected reports that thousands of people died in Tiananmen Square as "nonsense", while pointing to violence that occurred against People's Liberation Army forces.
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Chen Xitong was accused of having an extramarital affair with He Ping.
21.
In 1998, Chen Xitong was given a 16-year jail sentence on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty.
22.
Chen Xitong left Qincheng Prison in 2004 under probation, officially due to reasons of ill health.
23.
Chen Xitong died of cancer on June 2,2013, two days before the 24th anniversary of the Tiananmen Crackdown, and less than two months before his release date.