A week after the death of former premier and Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese government has still not decided on his funeral arrangements.

Zhao's family and friends, and the more than 3,000 supporters who flocked to his courtyard home in Beijing to pay their respects in the past week, feel that Zhao deserves recognition from the country he helped steer on the path to reform before his sudden purge in 1989 for supporting pro-democracy students during the Tiananmen Square uprising.

The central government announced that it would hold a simple ceremony for Comrade Zhao, but seems to be stymied as to which leaders should attend, whether or not it should be open to the public, and how Zhao's career should be portrayed.

According to local media reports, academics, liberal party members, friends and former classmates have all written to President Hu Jintao urging him to honor Zhao's achievements and ignore his "mistakes," especially his opposition to the military crackdown on students camped out in Tiananmen Square.

Such generosity of spirit toward their fallen comrade would bring praise from home and abroad, and enhance the more human image that Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have been cultivating, the liberal-minded suggest.

But the central leaders seem to be still testing the winds of public sentiment, fearful lest they unleash powerful forces such as those that went out of control in 1989. It was the death of former ousted party leader Hu Yaobang, after all, that triggered the protests of that fateful year.

Zhao, who died in a Beijing hospital last Monday at the age of 85, never reappeared in public after his May 19, 1989 visit to Tiananmen Square, where his emotional appeal to students to leave the square ahead of the crackdown was broadcast on national television. After being stripped of his posts and ousted from the party, he remained under house arrest for 15 years at his home in Beijing.

Zhao was by no means the only influential person supporting the students. Their demonstrations had sparked a huge groundswell of support for democratic reforms among academics, media representatives, government workers and liberal party members. Many of them were young in 1989; many would now be well positioned in Chinese society. Surely they have not forgotten those heady, hopeful days or the man who became a scapegoat for defending their aspirations.

On the other hand, many have attained comforts and privileges they would not have dreamed of 15 years ago, and may be unwilling to jeopardize their material and social security by paying more than a quiet tribute to the man they once admired.

Nevertheless, wary of stirring up sleeping sentiments, state media issued only a terse announcement of Zhao's death, and security personnel kept a close watch on his home, allowing some mourners to bow and lay wreaths in front of his portrait, but turning others away, including activists and foreigners. Zhao's former aide, Bao Tong, who spent seven years in jail for supporting his boss, was placed under virtual house arrest and, like other known dissidents, remains under guard since Zhao's death.

Reporters who slipped through the heightened security on Beijing's college campuses found that today's students, by and large, were uninformed about, and uninterested in, Zhao's death or the student movement that took place when they were small children. Politics are no longer a topic of conversation among university students desperate to do well in their studies and land good-paying jobs. Some pointed out that the facts of the 1989 movement were unclear, with the Internet offering contradictory versions of events.

An exception to the general apathy surrounding Zhao's death was Hong Kong, where pro-democracy legislators held a moment of silence for Zhao on Wednesday in defiance of the Legislative Council president's ruling that such a move violated council rules.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people turned out for a solemn candlelight vigil Friday night, honoring Zhao as a man who sacrificed his political career for his conscience. The crowd included many middle-aged and elderly people as well as students, and some families with children.

For many, attendance at this ceremony, as at Hong Kong's annual commemorations of the June 4th crackdown, was an exercise of freedom and a sacred duty, underscoring the fact that this was the only place in China where such activities could be staged openly.

On Sunday evening a group of about 100 students gathered at Hong Kong University, representing all seven of the city's universities, for a memorial service in front of the Pillar of Shame, a statue representing those who died in the 1989 crackdown. Attendance was small because the universities were on semester break, the organizers explained, but as student leaders, their social conscience demanded that they honor the man who defended the right of students to voice their opinions and stand up for their beliefs.

One student from mainland China expressed amazement that no teachers or school administrators appeared to stop the ceremony. There was only a lone middle-aged gentleman, accompanied by a young woman photographer, meticulously taking pictures of all the speakers and participants, no doubt to be stuffed into the central government's fat files on potential troublemakers.

The government in Beijing will have to decide soon what to do with Zhao's body. Most likely it will hold a quiet ceremony with tightly controlled attendance, perhaps at an unannounced time to avoid the appearance of unwanted mourners.

But throughout China surely there are hundreds of thousands who have held a private moment of silence in their hearts for the man who took the brunt of official anger at the outpouring of democratic hope and ambition that uplifted them, briefly, so many years ago.