The release of the book Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang is big news for anyone interested in China. Zhao died in 2005, which makes this book a real surprise. If you don't know who was Zhao Ziyang, then caste your mind back (if you're old enough!) to the Tiananmen Square nastiness twenty years ago. Zhao was the reformist Chinese leader who went to the students on May 20th to appeal to them to disperse. By that stage he knew he was about to be purged by hardliners, and it was his last ditch effort to avoid what was to come. He was forced to remain in office to bear the shame of the brutal crackdown, then he resigned and Jiang Zemin took over. He was never forgiven by the party, and died while still under house arrest. The book itself represents a serious challenge to the official party line, based on Zhao's memoirs secretly recorded on tape, and it will add further weight to calls for an official re-evaluation of the events of June 4th 1989.
[Update] I did a little digging and found the official party version of Zhao Ziyang's role in 1989 given as part of his obituary in 2005:

In the political turbulence which took place in the late spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.
I found a newer story about this with some quotes, including this one:
"It would be wrong if our party never makes the transition from a state that was suitable in a time of war to a state more suitable to a democratic society," he wrote.
This is basically a reiteration of an ancient Chinese maxim first voiced by an adviser to Liu Bang after he had emerged victorious from civil war and founded the Han Dynasty c200BC. Liu Bang said
"all that I have, I won on horseback!" to which the adviser replied, "you can conquer a country from horseback, but you can't rule it from horseback."
I look forward to getting hold of the Chinese version of it, because I won't be at all surprised to find that Zhao Ziyang was in fact quoting this historical example and the translator thought it needed to be spelled out for the English speaking audience.