BEIJING, (Reuters) – Two decades after his downfall  and four years after his death, reformist Chinese leader Zhao  Ziyang  has broken the official silence on the 1989 Tiananmen  crackdown, denouncing the killings of protesters as a  “tragedy”.

In memoirs recorded secretly under house arrest, Zhao has  challenged China’s cautious, current leaders just before the  20th anniversary of June 4, when troops crushed pro-democracy  protests centred on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

He praises Western-style democracy and denounces the armed  quelling of the protests, when troops and tanks pushed down  Chang’an Avenue, shooting demonstrators and onlookers.

“On the night of June 3rd, while sitting in the courtyard  with my family, I heard intense gunfire,” says Zhao. “A tragedy  to shock the world had not been averted.”

Zhao, who was head of the Communist Party in 1989, rejects  the government’s claim that the student protesters were part of  an anti-Communist conspiracy.

“I had said at the time that most people were only asking  us to correct our flaws, not attempting to overthrow our  political system,” Zhao says in the book “Prisoner of the  State”, to be published by Simon & Schuster in English this  month ahead of the 20th anniversary.

The memoirs, about 30 hours of tape, were given to three  confidants and smuggled out of China. A manuscript was obtained  by Reuters.

Zhao’s account of Party elders pushing him from power sheds  rare light on the political warring behind the protests that  shook China 20 years ago, culminating in his ouster and the  crackdown that killed hundreds on the streets of Beijing.

“I told myself that no matter what, I refused to become the  (Party) general secretary who mobilised the military to crack  down on students,” he says.

Zhao had his eyes fixed on China’s future when he  secretively recorded his memories throughout years under house  detention until his death in January 2005. He decries what he  saw as the mistaken conservative path taken by the Party after  1989 and argues for a gradual transition to Western-style  democracy.

“In fact, it is the Western parliamentary democratic system  that has demonstrated the most vitality,” says Zhao.

“If we don’t move toward this goal, it will be impossible  to resolve the abnormal conditions in China’s market

economy.”

China’s current leaders brush aside the “disturbance” of 20  years ago as a distant event with a settled official verdict,  and Zhao’s book is sure to be banned by authorities who will  seek to stop copies of the Chinese edition slipping into the  mainland.

But Zhao remains a symbol of reformist rectitude to  sympathisers and, with even apolitical citizens eager to learn  about the Party’s secretive ways, copies may still spread.

Bao Pu, a Hong Kong-based publisher and son of Zhao’s  former top aide, said Zhao apparently wanted to give his  version of events to challenge the Party’s official  condemnation of the Tiananmen protesters and its one-Party  rule.

“He did not leave instructions … but clearly he wanted  his story to survive,” said Bao, whose New Century Press is  publishing the Chinese edition of the book.

“It’s a crucial period of history that defines modern day  China. It contradicts the government’s version of the truth.”

Bao Pu’s father, Bao Tong, lives under police surveillance  in Beijing but has been allowed to meet foreign reporters.

BREAKING WITH DENG

The thread running through Zhao’s memories of his rise and  fall is his tortured bond with Deng Xiaoping, the wizened  revolutionary veteran who steered China to market reforms but  rejected — ultimately with force — calls for democratic  change.

Deng is honoured by China as the pioneer behind the  country’s economic success, and Zhao’s account of  double-crossing and betrayal under Deng is likely to irk the  country’s current leaders, who like to present an image of  solid unity.

Zhao rejects the notion Deng was instinctively in favour of  political relaxation but was led astray by conservatives.

“Deng had always stood out among the Party elders as the  one who emphasised the means of dictatorship. He often reminded  people about its usefulness,” says Zhao.

Deng’s notions of democracy “were no more than empty  words”.

Deng was paramount among Party elders who dominated behind  the scenes while Zhao and his colleague, Hu Yaobang, coaxed  officials to break up rural communes and strictures on private  business that Communist leader Mao Zedong made his legacy.

But by the late 1980s, Zhao found it increasingly difficult  to weave between conservatives enraged by the crumbling of  Soviet socialism and the advances of market reforms and  intellectuals and advisers who wanted to push past barriers to  economic and then political liberalisation.

Zhao says that in ousting him from power, Deng,  then-premier Li Peng and Party conservatives trampled on rules  meant to prevent a return to Mao’s years of arbitrary, one-man  power.

The remedy to China’s problems, Zhao says, lies in gradual  but unceasing movement towards democracy.

“I believe the time has come for us to tackle this issue  seriously,” he concludes.