Benjamin Kang Lim: China Imposes Security for Funeral of Purged Zhao

From Reuters, via the Wired News:

Hundreds of mourners braved police checks on Saturday to attend a low-key invitation-only funeral for Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese Communist Party chief purged for opposing the army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen protests.

Nervous the ceremony might spark protest, China’s leaders had wanted to permit only a quick funeral for Zhao who, as premier in the 1980s, launched market reforms that turned the country into a fledgling economic powerhouse from a centrally planned backwater.

However, in a nod to the seniority of a man whom the party had effectively made a non-person by keeping him under house arrest for the past 15 years, China’s number four leader, Jia Qinglin, joined mourners filing past his body at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

A dozen police checked identity documents and invitations of mourners and turned away non-mainland Chinese from the funeral for Zhao, who died in a Beijing hospital on Jan. 17 aged 85.