Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang successively served as General Secretaries of the Communist Party of China in the 1980s. They were the advocates, designers, implementers, and practitioners who propelled China's economic and political reforms during that era. Hu Yaobang significantly promoted political progress in China through rectifying the wrongdoings of the Cultural Revolution, reversing unjust cases, supporting intellectual freedom, and protecting freedom of speech. As Premier, Zhao Ziyang played a vital role in driving reforms and opening-up by promoting the household responsibility system in rural areas, reforming urban enterprises, expanding foreign trade, and establishing a modern political system. He was truly the chief architect and engineer of China's reform and opening-up.

In 1987, Hu Yaobang was criticized for not being firm enough against bourgeois liberalization, and he was forced to make a self-criticism and resign. His sudden death on April 15, 1989, sparked the momentous Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Zhao Ziyang refused to participate in the party's conservative suppression of the student movement, chose to resign, and never admitted any wrongdoing, eventually passing away after being under house arrest for 15 years. Both Hu Yaobang's forced stepping down and Zhao Ziyang's death under house arrest remain veiled in the history of the Communist Party of China and modern Chinese history.

We commemorate Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang to restore the true nature of the history of reform and opening-up in the 1980s, to honor their remarkable contributions in driving political progress, economic growth, and social changes in China, while also exposing the unjust treatment they received.

Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang are tragic heroes in China's institutional transformation, leaving an indelible mark on the history of the Communist Party of China and China itself. Their conscience represents the conscience of the Chinese nation. Forgetting them would mean abandoning our conscience, leaving China's modern development history incomplete. Commemorating them means raising the banner of the spirit of Hu and Zhao, and working together with democratic forces inside and outside the system, both domestically and internationally, to strive for China's constitutional transformation.