Zhao Ziyang cremated in tightly controlled funeral

A Chinese woman cries as she mourns deposed leader Zhao Ziyang outside the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing yesterday. Former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang was cremated during a tightly controlled funeral as Beijing signalled it had no intention of changing its stance on the reformist leader purged for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. PHOTO: AFP

Nervous the ceremony might spark protest, China's leaders had wanted to permit only a quick funeral for Zhao who, as premier in the 1980s, launched market reforms that turned the country into a fledgling economic powerhouse from a centrally planned backwater.

However, in a nod to the seniority of a man whom the party had effectively made a non-person by keeping him under house arrest for the past 15 years, China's number four leader, Jia Qinglin, joined mourners filing past his body at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

A dozen police checked identity documents and invitations of mourners and turned away non-mainland Chinese from the funeral for Zhao, who died in a Beijing hospital on Jan. 17 aged 85.

"My heart is heavy. I did not expect so many people to show up," said mourner Shi Yijun, an author on party history.