This came to us from blogger Rick Carew:
Last week I found out that an obituary of the former Secretary of the Communist party Zhao Ziyang would be published by Xinhua before the end of January. This information was given to our publication so they could prepare to publish an obituary for him.
This afternoon, as we were preparing our next issue, over lunch
several collegues were discussing the dismissal of a Worker’s Daily (Gongren ribao) senior editor when he switched the following character in the official Xinhua obituary. The first, zhong nian, was in the official version – it has a very neutral connotation, like “He died at the age of 85.” The editor substituted the second, xiang nian, which means something like “He enjoyed life until the age of 85.” A colleague noted that the second was probably not very accurate since he’d been placed under house arrest since 1989. Here are the characters:ÁªàÂπ¥; zhong nian
享年; xiang nian
The difference was caught by a copy editor and was not published. This　might seem like an overreaction, but it seems that this particular　editor had done similar things in the past. This was likely a third　strike.
Here’s a copy of the official English version of Zhao’s obituary.
Here’s the Official Chinese version.
One thing to note is the one line reference to the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre, noting that he “made serious mistakes.”
We don’t have any further details about this incident, but if true, it would demonstrate how sensitive authorities are about the publication of any information about Zhao’s death. Even changing one word in the official obituary can mean trouble.
