The legal dispute over Li Rui’s diaries poses far-reaching implications for understanding the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s modern history.

By Amy Hawkins | The Guardian

Summary

A trial this week in California to decide whether Stanford University can keep the diaries of a top Chinese official underscores the ongoing struggle between the desire for historical transparency and the Chinese government’s efforts to control the narrative of its past.

Li Rui’s diaries, with their wealth of detail, are seen as an invaluable asset to understanding the true history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and modern China.

A veteran of the CCP and a former personal secretary to Mao Zedong, Li Rui kept detailed diaries from 1938 to 2018, which provide a firsthand account of some of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history, including the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

After Li Rui’s death in 2019, his daughter Li Nanyang, who lives in the United States, transferred the diaries to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, claiming that this was in line with her father’s wishes. However, Li’s widow, Zhang Yuzhen, disputed this claim and filed a lawsuit in Beijing, arguing that she was the rightful heir to Li’s estate and that the diaries should be returned. Stanford subsequently filed a countersuit in California to eliminate Zhang’s claims to the materials.

The significance of Li Rui’s diaries lies in their detailed insights into elite CCP politics, as well as the personal and domestic details that provide a unique window into the life of a high-ranking party member. These diaries are particularly valuable to researchers because they offer a narrative that is at odds with the official Chinese government’s version of history, which has sought to distort and erase events like the Tiananmen Square massacre from the historical record.

The legal battle between Stanford University and Zhang Yuzhen has raised questions about the motivations behind Zhang’s actions. While her lawyers argue that the dispute is about privacy and the deeply personal nature of the materials, others are skeptical and believe that the Chinese government may be influencing the litigation behind the scenes. This suspicion is fueled by the fact that Zhang, who is in her 90s, is spending significant resources on the legal battle, which Stanford argues she would not be able to afford on her own.

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