從1970年代四川的農田，到上海的高樓大廈，趙紫陽主管了初期的用以結束大躍進、文化大革命的政治狂熱帶來的飢荒的改革。他成功的試點是在鄧小平的家鄉，鄧小平對中國的貧困感到吃驚，也同樣為基於個人自治概念上的改革所帶來的成效所驚訝。
這個初期的西南省份的成功經驗是改變了每個中國人生活的深刻變革的開始。趙的原動力很簡單：社會主義創造了痛苦的令人羞恥的貧困，還創造了把主動的精神、創造力都視為叛逆的制度。他在改革的十年當中，在北京的政治局裡試圖說服那些思想僵化的同事放鬆管制和放棄馬列教條實際上是有益的。
他開創了地方選舉並且支持公開的社會對話，最終導致鄧小平和他的保守派在1989年天安門殘暴鎮壓的前幾天廢黜了趙紫陽。如果說趙紫陽不同意示威學生的方法的話，他同情學生提出的某些建議。他從此被軟禁，昨天兩行字的訃告是中國官方第一次承認確有趙紫陽其人。
趙紫陽絕不僅僅暴露了中國政治的不透明，他的個人經驗和政治理念應該在全球根治貧窮的爭論中具有其影響力。他小心翼翼地不使他的業績上成功同他務實的思維方式相聯繫，反而歸功於社會主義的市場改革。他說「社會主義的初級階段」是必經的道路，但是他清醒地從來沒有提出這種「初級階段」到底有多長。
他的一生對那些事事喧嘩的喜好貌似科學術語的西方政治家也起指導性的作用。毛澤東以前的中國就神化權力，趙不喜好「奉天行道」也敢於去除權力的神秘色彩。在公共場合隨意放鬆，允許記者在直播全國的記者招待會上直接提問。這些在八十年代的中國都是真正革命性的。
趙紫陽不是一個完美的民主派，但是他的思想和政策改善了千百萬人的物質生活和心理環境。毛澤東思想對這個世界的某些地區還有影響實在是一件可惡的事情。如果政治家和學者真想懂得中國的崛起的話，他們應該學習趙紫陽思想，並且像趙紫陽那樣更相信市場經濟和人民的正直。讓我們拋棄毛澤東，銘記趙紫陽吧！
原文：
The Times - Editorial:
January 18, 2005
Zhao lives
The death of the man who reformed China and changed the world When political figures are evaluated for their impact on history, it is the curse of the Chinese, apart from Mao, that their names are unpronounceable and that their policies are made difficult to divine by the demands of Politburo intrigue. But there is no doubt that few politicians have exercised more positive influence in the past century than Zhao Ziyang, the engineer of China』s economic reforms and an architect of gradual political reform who was consumed by the authoritarian system that he sought to change.
A straight line can be drawn from the top of Shanghai』s skyscrapers to the paddy fields of Sichuan in the 1970s, when Zhao oversaw the first phase of reforms designed to end the famines caused by the ideological extravagances that were the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. His successful experiments were conducted in the home province of Deng Xiaoping, who was appalled by China』s impoverishment and astounded by the results of reforms based on the concept of individual autonomy.
That early success in the south west was the starting point for the profound changes that have touched every Chinese. Zhao』s motivation was simple enough; communism had created a grinding, humiliating poverty and institutionalised a system in which any show of initiative or creativity was perceived as an act of insurrection. For almost a decade, Zhao attempted to work the Politburo in Beijing, convincing unreconstructed comrades that it was in their interest to relax control and feigning fealty to the dogmatic drivel of Marx and Lenin.
He commissioned local elections and encouraged public debate, which ultimately prompted a fatal conflict with Deng and his commode Communists, who purged Zhao days before the brutality of Tiananmen in 1989. Zhao had sympathised with some of the arguments, if not the methods, of protesting students and was put under house arrest─ the first official recognition of his existence since that moment was the two-sentence announcement yesterday of his death.
Zhao is more than merely a symbol of the opacity of Chinese politics, and his personal experience and political thoughts deserve to be influential in the global debate over remedying poverty. He was canny enough not to ascribe success to his own pragmatic thinking, but to cast it in the Communist tradition: market reforms, he said, were necessary in the「primary stage of socialism」, though, knowingly, he would never be drawn on the duration of that「primary stage」.
His life is also instructive for politicians in the West fond of ceremonial distance and pseudoscientific symbolism. The mystification of Chinese power long preceded Mao, but Zhao was contemptuous of the「mandate of heaven」and had the courage to demystify power, daring to appear relaxed in public and to allow journalists to pose questions in press conferences broadcast nationally, which, in 1980s China, was genuinely revolutionary.
Zhao was far from a perfect democrat, but his ideas and policy changes improved the lives of hundreds of millions, materially and psychologically. That Maoism remains an influential ideology in parts of the world is an abomination. If politicians and academics want to understand China』s rise, they should study Zhaoism and, like Zhao Ziyang, have more faith in the integrity of markets and of people. Forget Mao─ and remember Zhao.
