Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese Communist Party leader deposed after tearfully sympathizing with the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, was hospitalized in a coma Saturday and may be near death, a human rights activist said.
Zhao, 85, went into shock from a lung ailment Friday night, Hong Kong-based activist Frank Lu said in a telephone interview. Lu had said earlier this week that Zhao was hospitalized for lung problems, citing Zhao's daughter Wang Yannan.
"He's still in a deep coma," said Lu, who said he'd spoken to Wang late Saturday night. "His condition is unchanged."
Lu said Wang wanted to thank all the people who had sent their sympathy. In an earlier statement, Lu said Zhao's family had been distraught and "crying on the telephone, telling people who know him to wish him well."
Earlier this week, China denied a report in a Hong Kong newspaper that Zhao had died — an extremely rare disclosure by the government, which usually refuses to respond to requests for information about the ousted leader.
Zhao has spent more than 15 years under house arrest since he was purged from the party leadership. He was accused of sympathizing with hunger strikers in Tiananmen Square who, for seven weeks, had demanded democratic reforms and the resignation of then-Premier Li Peng.
He was last seen in public on May 19, 1989, when he visited the square to talk to student hunger strikers, one day before martial law was declared. "I have come too late," he apologized, in tears. Sources said then that Zhao, who was opposed to a crackdown, had offered his resignation.
