Beijing. China said it was right to send tanks to crush the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations in 1989, as it stepped up security in Beijing following the death of purged former prime minister Zhao Ziyang.
The death of former Communist Party leader Zhao on Monday has refocused attention on the bloody suppression of the protests, which left hundreds of unarmed students and workers dead and triggered worldwide condemnation.
Zhao, a moderniser within the party, strongly opposed the use of force and his last action before he was fired and placed under house arrest was to visit Tiananmen Square and plead for the students to return home peacefully.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the government had made the right decision in 1989. He said it had ensured stability and set the stage for China's economic transformation over the past 15 years.
"There has already been a final conclusion on the political turbulence that happened in the 1980s, and what happened to Mr. Zhao Ziyang," Kong said, reiterating statements made by Premier Wen Jiabao last year.
"Over the past 15 years since the incident, China's development has proved that the final decision or judgment was right," he told a regular briefing.
Kong declined to give any details about the funeral for Zhao, who lived under house arrest at his home in Beijing until his death aged 85.
It is believed there is intense debate within the government about how to handle the funeral which is considered an issue of immense importance in China's Confucian society.
The nervousness over the death of Zhao could be seen on Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing on Tuesday where police were out in force checking identification papers.
They also surrounded Zhao's home north of the Forbidden City where his family has set up a memorial for the former prime minister and head of the Communist Party. Family, friends and supporters have been invited, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights in China reported.
"We have contacted Zhao Ziyang's daughter Wang Yannan and have learned that the family has not forgone a funeral," the center said in a statement.
"The center believes that the Zhao family is being pressured from some quarters and that there are people telling them not to hold a funeral," the statement said.
Zhao, still credited with starting the reforms that put China on the road to 25 years of robust economic growth, was not seen in public after May 1989.
China's cabinet, the State Council, said it had no information about any possible state funeral or public commemorations for Zhao.
Beijing fears Zhao's death could become a rallying point for disillusionment within Chinese society.
In 1976 Chinese disgruntled with the ruling Communist Party used the death of popular former premier Zhou Enlai to hold huge protests on Tiananmen Square.
The 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests were sparked by the death of reformer and former party head Hu Yaobang.
All major newspapers Tuesday carried only muted reports on Zhao's death, printing an identical three-line dispatch without any comment or even a photo of the former leader.
State television had by Tuesday still not mentioned his death, while reports on the event by international television broadcasters CNN and BBC were blacked out throughout Monday and Tuesday.
News websites began Tuesday removing the news from their sites after shutting down chatrooms on Zhao's death on Monday.
China's dissident community has called for open commemorative activities for Zhao, but several dissidents told AFP that police were watching their homes and not allowing them to leave.
"We call on those people who have a conscience to wear a white ribbon and black armband, to get out there (to Zhao's house)," Qi Zhiyong, a dissident who was crippled by a tank in 1989, told AFP.
Bao Tong, a former Communist Party central committee member and adviser to Zhao, and his wife were prevented from reaching Zhao's home, sources told AFP.
Tributes have poured in from around the world for Zhao, with dissidents and the Japanese and Taiwanese leaders urging Beijing to push for the democratic reforms which he had envisioned.