Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Zhao Ziyang and Li, and Li's direct involvement in pushing for action against the protesters. The SCMP reported that, after his formal retirement, Li worked hard on the book to get his side of the story told. In the foreword, dated 6 December 2003, Li writes: "I feel responsible to write up what I know of the truth about this turmoil to serve as the most important historical testimony." Li wrote that his not being present to receive the students' petition at 11.45 am on 22 April 1989 was not the snub it was interpreted to be; he was simply 'unaware that the students were told that he would meet them'. According to the SCMP, Li's 23 April entry strongly implies that, being worried that the student movement might lead to another Cultural Revolution, and acting on a suggestion from Yang Shangkun, he and Yang sought instructions from "comrade Xiaoping" secretly that night, ahead of the Politburo standing committee meeting which later voted to condemn the student movement. This is apparently at odds with official accounts that the meeting occurred on 25 April. Wu Guoguang, a former associate of Zhao, suggested that the secret meeting helped to form the consensus within the Politburo standing committee by firmly throwing his support behind Li. According to Li, on 21 May 1989, two days after the decision to impose martial law in Beijing, Wen Jiabao had refused to authorise Zhao's telegram asking Wan Li to call an emergency session of the National People's Congress over the legality of imposing martial law. Student leaders had demanded the removal of the premier and retraction of martial law. Li said: "Wen Jiabao has done the right thing by refusing to send out the telegram approved by Zhao Ziyang." He said that both he and Hu Jintao approved using force against the students. Li explicitly asserts that Deng Xiaoping personally took all the big decisions, including ordering the People's Liberation Army to crack down on Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989; the decision to impose martial law was taken at a meeting with five Politburo Standing Committee members and president Yang Shangkun at Deng's home on 17 May, when it was also decided to replace Zhao Ziyang with Jiang Zemin as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. In closing, Li writes that "leading cadres of all levels could learn the