Historic diaries kept by the late Li Rui, a former secretary to Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong, are at the centre of a court battle in California between Stanford University, to which the records had been donated, and Li’s widow.
The BBC reports that Stanford claims Li, who had been a critic of the Chinese government, donated his diaries to the university as he feared they would be destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Following Li’s death in 2019, his widow, Zhang Yuzhen, sued for the documents to be returned to Beijing, claiming they belong to her.
A Beijing court ruled in Zhang’s favour and ordered the diaries to be handed over to her. Stanford has rejected this ruling. Its lawyers have argued that “Chinese courts are not impartial in politically charged cases such as this”, and that the university was not given a chance to defend itself.
The trial that began in California on Monday is over a separate lawsuit launched by the university against Zhang in the US. Stanford is asking the California court to declare the university as the lawful owner of the diaries.
The BBC quotes Mark Litvack, one of Stanford’s lawyers, as saying before the trial began: “If [the diaries] return to China they will be banned… China does not have a good record in permitting criticism of party leaders.”
The diaries, which were written between 1935 and 2018, cover much of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule. In those eight tumultuous decades, China emerged from impoverished isolation to become indispensable to the global economy.
As a young outspoken cadre, Li caught the eye of Mao who made him one of his personal secretaries in the mid-1950s. But the position was short-lived.
When Li criticised Mao’s views at a political meeting, he was ousted from the party and spent years in prison. He was among hundreds of party officials and public figures, including close allies of Mao, whose relationship with the mercurial leader ended badly.
Like some of them, Li returned to prominence after Mao died in 1976. He oversaw the ministry of hydroelectric power and a CCP department that selected officials for key positions. Within the party, he was allied with the more liberal, open-minded faction advocating for reform.
After his retirement, he continued to lobby the party for reform. But his unsparing, sharp-tongued criticism of leaders, including President Xi Jinping – whom he dismissed as “lowly-educated” – needled the government. His writings were censored, and his books banned in China.
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