Xu Jiatun (; 10 March 1916 – 29 June 2016) was a Chinese politician and dissident. He was the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

secretary of Jiangsu Province from 1977 to 1983 and the Governor of Jiangsu from 1977 to 1979. After sympathising with the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, he left the country and lived in self-exile in the United States.

Career

Xu was the member of the 11th and 12th

Central Committee of the Communist Party of China The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a political body that comprises the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is currently composed of 205 fu ...

from 1977 to 1987. He was the

secretary of Jiangsu Province from 1977 to 1983 and the Governor of Jiangsu from 1977 to 1979. He became the director of the Hong Kong branch of the

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...

from 1983 to 1989, then China's ''de facto'' political presence in the territory. He participated in the preparatory works of the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR and was vice-chairman of the

Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Basic Law Drafting Committee (BLDC) was formed in June 1985 for the drafts of the Hong Kong Basic Law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) after 1997. It was formed as a working group ...

. Xu sympathised with the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989. After the military crackdown in June, he fled to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and lived there in exile. He was later expelled from the Communist Party. In 1994, he published memoirs. Xu later lived in Orange County,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, United States. In 1997, he joined an appeal to the Communist Party Congress meeting in Beijing to reverse the government report condemning the 1989 Tiananmen student protests. In a 2016 interview with the Hong Kong journalist Simon Kei Shek Ming, published in Initium Media, Xu, who had been recently released from hospital, predicted that Xi Jinping would arrest "higher level" tigers in the Communist Party. He died in June 2016 at the age of 100.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Jiatun 1916 births 2016 deaths Chinese centenarians Chinese dissidents Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese Communist Party politicians from Jiangsu Delegates to the 5th National People's Congress Expelled members of the Chinese Communist Party Governors of Jiangsu Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee members Members of the 12th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Men centenarians People's Republic of China politicians from Jiangsu People from Rugao Politicians from Nantong Xinhua News Agency people