On May 4, 1989, Zhao Ziyang met with the heads of Asian Development Bank (ADB) member delegations and senior officials at the 22nd ADB Board of Governors Annual Meeting. There, he delivered a speech that was later criticized as 'talking out of two sides of the Central Committee's mouth'.

Zhao Ziyang said: "Demonstrations by some students in Beijing and some other cities are still continuing. However, I am convinced that the situation will gradually calm down and there will be no major turmoil in China. I have full confidence in this." He also indicated that what was most needed at the time was calm, reason, restraint, and order, and to solve the problems in line with democracy and the rule of law. The tone of this speech was different from that of the April 26 Editorial, and it also contradicted the CCP's long-standing guiding ideology of "taking class struggle as the guiding principle" in dealing with political contradictions.

Zhao Ziyang's speech was drafted by Bao Tong; the speech was not discussed by the Politburo Standing Committee, nor was it reviewed by the CCP Central Committee Secretariat. Bao Tong later stated, "The thought, content, formulation, and even a lot of important language [of the speech] were dictated by Ziyang himself. What I did after returning to the office was organizing the text. I delivered the manuscript at 12:30 noon; Ziyang personally made revisions to two more places in the manuscript."

This speech created quite a commotion, with widespread agreement from the public. Many overseas media outlets believed that Zhao had personally taken charge of the situation after returning to Beijing.

References: Zhang Wanshu, "The Big Bang of History: A Complete Record of the June 4th Incident"; Feng Congde, "A Tiananmen Journal"; "The Critical Moment – Li Peng Diaries"; "The Tiananmen Papers"