Translations: Tiananmen’s Long Shadow Falls on Tributes to Hu Dehua and His Father, Hu Yaobang

Translations: Tiananmen’s Long Shadow Falls on Tributes to Hu Dehua and His Father, Hu Yaobang

Hu Dehua, the third son of former General Secretary Hu Yaobang, died in Beijing on March 30. The anniversary of his father’s death in 1989, which sparked the protests crushed by the June 4 crackdown, is April 15. That historical context, as well as Hu Dehua’s own vocal defense of his father’s legacy and criticism of Xi Jinping, imbued the younger Hu’s death with heightened political sensitivity. Accordingly, many posts about him and his father h…