Teng publicly cleared

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 8

Teng publicly cleared

NZPA-Reuter Peking The resilient Chinese VicePremier (Mr Teng Hsiaoping) has been cleared publicly for the first time of responsibility for the bloody riots that erupted in Peking’s central Tien An Men Square in April, 1976, and led to his temporary political eclipse. Some Western diplomatic analysts saw this as the final act in Mr Teng’s full rehabilitation after his return to power in mid-1977. The campaign against remaining extremist influence in the country, however, is continuing at full swing. The February issue of “Red Flag,” the theoretical journal of the Communist Party Central Committee, exonerated Mr Teng of blame in the riots, accusing the purged “Gang of Four” extremist leaders of having maliciously slandered and smeared the Vice-Premier by calling him a “sinister hand” and “the general boss behind the scenes.”

The rioting erupted on April 5, 1976, after authorities removed wreaths commemorating Chou En-lai, the Prime Minister who had died the previous January. Tens of thousands of people had gathered in the huge square on the traditional festival of the dead, and a number were injured and cars and a building set ablaze in one of the most extraordinary incidents in modern Chinese history. The “People’s Daily,” the Communist Party newspaper, said last December that the “gang” had “gone mad” after the riot, using it to further their own ends.