China Party Ousts Bao Tong, Aide of Ex-Party Chief Zhao
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BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party has ousted former party chief Zhao Ziyang’s top aide, three years after the aide was arrested for allegedly supporting the 1989 pro-democracy movement, a party official said Wednesday.
The expulsion is the party’s first decision regarding Bao Tong, the highest-ranking official arrested for allegedly sympathizing with the massive, student-led protests.
The leadership had disagreed on how to handle the case. But Wednesday, the party’s Central Committee announced that it had decided to “remove Bao Tong from the Central Committee and to expel him from the party.”
Bao, 57, joined the powerful Central Committee in 1988 and was Zhao’s right-hand man.
Zhao was purged in June, 1989, for supporting the democracy movement and splitting the party, but he is still a party member. He remains under house arrest, awaiting a decision in his case.
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