Yang Shangkun

But in previous decades, the job was held by powerful politicians who influenced policy and supported the top leader: Yang Shangkun, for instance, a People’s Liberation Army general who was close to Deng Xiaoping.

If Deng, through loss of face or life, ceased to rule China, Yang Shangkun might attempt to maneuver himself into the leadership of the Central Military Commission and replace Deng as China’s most eminent leader.

As recounted by President Yang Shangkun in these papers, Zhao’s offenses included failing to support a harsh editorial in the People’s Daily that condemned the demonstrators and refusing to join other Politburo members in backing martial law.

On that day, Mr. Zhao wrote a letter of resignation, although Yang Shangkun, the military commander close to Mr. Deng, persuaded him to withdraw it, warning him that it would inflame the protests, Mr. Zhao said in his memoirs.

After Mr. Zhao was dismissed, he lamented his endorsement and his absence from that key meeting at which Mr. Deng called the student protests “turmoil” after hearing reports from Prime Minister Li and Yang Shangkun, the state president and a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, who was close to Mr. Deng.