Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang are the memoirs of the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang, who was sacked after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. The book was published in English in May 2009, to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the clearing of the square by tanks on June 4, 1989. It is based on a series of about thirty audio tapes recorded secretly by Zhao while he was under house arrest in 1999 and 2000.Co-editor Adi Ignatius pinpoints a meeting held at Deng Xiaoping's home on May 17, 1989, less than three weeks before the suppression of the Tiananmen protests, as the key moment in the book. When Zhao argued that the government should look for ways to ease tensions with the protesters, two conservative officials immediately criticized him. Deng then announced he would impose martial law. Zhao commented: "I refused to become the General Secretary who mobilized the military to crack down on students." In the last chapter, Zhao praises the Western system of parliamentary democracy and says that it is the only way China can solve its problems of corruption and a growing gap between the rich and poor. Source: Wikipedia (en)