Following is the statement written by Fang Lizhi after the meeting between Deng Xiaoping and Henry Kissinger, and passed on to the Chinese authorities while he was resident in the American embassy in Beijing in November 1989.
Concerning the Past:
1) I have maintained that China should move forward with the reform of society. In many speeches before 1988, I openly expressed my advocacy of reform in China.
2) I acknowledge that the following are my principal views:
a) Marxism—whether viewed as a philosophy, a school of political economy, or a theory of socialism—is obsolete. Over time, science has shown that some of its basic principles are either obsolete or incorrect.
b) Almost without exception, everything that has been done in socialist countries under systems of state socialism has led to failure. The Lenin–Stalin–Mao Zedong mode of socialism has almost entirely lost its appeal.
c) Forty years of socialist China under the rule of the Communist Party of China have been a disappointment. The constant waging of huge “class struggles,” year after year, has kept China’s economy mired below the top one hundred in the world in the elimination of poverty, while the Communist Party itself has grown increasingly corrupt.
d) There can be no true modernization without democracy and human rights. The Constitution should be amended to remove all mention of “class struggle.” The same goes for [Deng Xiaoping’s] Four Cardinal Principles and Mao Zedong’s Six Political Standards, which have extended the political system of class struggle. So long as the Four Cardinal Principles remain rigidly in place, there can be no hope for democracy and modernization.
3) The student-led political movement that arose in April 1989 at Tiananmen was peaceful in its approach and aimed to accelerate the reform of China’s government. I therefore completely agreed with it and supported it. I also agreed with the idea that the National People’s Congress should remove Premier Li Peng from office under Article 63 of the Constitution.
4) I take conscientious note of the fact that, beginning in June 1989, the Chinese government has regarded the foregoing political positions as “counterrevolutionary” and the accompanying actions as “commission of the crime of counterrevolutionary propaganda and agitation.”
Concerning the Future:
1) I plan to concentrate on scholarly exchange and research after I leave China. I have received invitations from more than twenty universities and research institutes in North America and Western Europe.
2) My concerns for China, as a Chinese citizen, will be for its peace, its prosperity, and its modernization.
3) Accordingly I will welcome and applaud any activity by the government of any nation of the world if the activity supports the progress of China’s society; and I will refuse to support the same organizations if their actions are not based on the principle of advancing China’s progress.
4) As soon as conditions allow, I will return to China to continue my service to Chinese science and education.
