Zhao Ziyang, the deposed Chinese Communist Party chief who died on Monday, will not be given a public funeral in order to save his successors from having to decide whether or not to attend.

Zhao had been under house arrest since 1989 for sympathising with student demonstrators demanding political reforms. Beijing has muted all public expressions of grief and prevented unofficial attempts to commemorate the former General Secretary of the Communist Party who is still a popular figure in China.

Failure to turn up for Zhao’s funeral might have embarassed current party leaders, who portray themselves as moderate reformers even if their primary concern is safeguarding the status quo.

While the Communist Party never forgave Zhao for having opposed an armed assault on protesters in Tiananmen Square, it prefers not to offend his many longstanding supporters, some of them in senior party positions. Zeng Qinghong, the Vice President, is said to have visited Zhao’s deathbed on Monday.

Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister, was an aide to Mr Zhao in the 1980s and actually accompanied him to Tiananmen Square, but afterwards saved his own political career by disowning his mentor.

"Zhao’s family decided not to ask the government to arrange a state funeral," said a family spokesman."They are going to do it at home. A hall of mourning was set up at home last night. An invitation has been extended to friends and the public as well."

Some observers speculated that the decision to hold a private funeral was made, or at least suggested, by the Chinese government. "The family may have been promised easier treatment if they forego a state funeral," said a western diplomat.

In contrast, the recent death of Song Renqiong, a former member of the party’s powerful Politburo, was afforded front-page treatment, a photograph and a commentary. At a state funeral, President Hu Jintao paid respects to Song’s family.

The government today stood by its decision to suppress the 1989 protests and made clear Zhao’s death would not spur a re-evaluation of a movement condemned as "counter-revolutionary" - or of Zhao himself.

"The political disturbance and the problem of Zhao himself has already passed. What happened in 1989 has reached its conclusion," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference.

"We will insist firmly and unshakeably on our own road. Nothing will be changed."

Newspapers placed Zhao's brief obituary on inside pages. The party mouthpiece, People's Daily, ran it next to the highly popular weather map.

The reports were based on a brief dispatch issued by the official Xinhua news agency hours after he died. News of Zhao's death on CNN and BBC were blacked out in China.

Domestic newspapers were instructed to keep coverage of Mr Zhao’s death to a minimum and state broadcasters have not mentioned it at all. Web sites run by private companies carried some Zhao stories, but managers were told they could not allow discussions on chat rooms. Where messages were posted, in-house censors quickly removed them.

In death as in the last part of his life, Zhao is a non-person. While Beijing no longer doctors photographs to dim the memory of purged comrades, the process is essentially still the same. By keeping mention of him out of the media, calls for a public funeral and for the reassessment of his controversial stand in 1989 will be kept to a minimum.

Such treatment contrasts starkly with the front page headlines Zhao received in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In an editorial headlined, "Central government should affirm Zhao Ziyang’s contribution", the broadsheet Ming Pao Daily said it felt "very sorry" over Zhao’s death.

"We sincerely call for senior officials led by [President] Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao to give fair comments to Zhao Ziyang’s lifetime merits and reverse their verdict of the June 4 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre," it said.

"We call on those people who have a conscience to wear a white ribbon and black armband," said Qi Zhiyong, a dissident who was crippled by a tank in 1989.

In a sign of official nervousness that Zhao's death could trigger a wave of sympathy, plainclothes police barred his former aide, Bao Tong, from paying his respects today and tightened security around Tiananmen Square and near Zhao’s courtyard home, where the deposed leader lived under house arrest for 15 years. Mr Bao's wife, Jiang Zongcao, was knocked to the ground in a scuffle and taken to hospital for treatment of an injured back.

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