STANFORD, CALIFORNIA — The diaries of Li Rui, an aide to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, can remain at Stanford University's Hoover Institution after a federal judge declined to enforce a Beijing court ruling that had ordered their return to China. Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the possession and donation of the materials by Li Rui's daughter, Li Nanyang, was lawful and consistent with Li Rui's wishes.

Li Rui was a senior member of the Communist Party of China who became Mao's personal secretary in 1958. He kept diaries for eight decades beginning in 1938. The diaries include criticism of the Great Leap Forward, an industrialization program championed by Mao from 1958 to 1961 that caused a famine estimated to have killed as many as 40 million people. Li Rui also documented the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, which he referred to in his diary as "Black Weekend."

Li Rui directed that his diaries, correspondence, meeting minutes, photographs, and other materials be made publicly available for study at the Hoover Institution due to a fear they might be destroyed by Chinese authorities, according to Stanford. Li Nanyang, a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party who lives in the United States, made the donation official shortly before her father's death in 2019 at the age of 101.

Zhang Yuzhen, Li Rui's widow, sued for the return of the original diaries, stating they contained personal information about her relationship with Li Rui and belonged to her. A court in Beijing ruled in Zhang's favor, but Stanford was denied the opportunity to appear in the Beijing proceedings. The university then sued Zhang in California seeking control of the diaries.

During the California trial, witnesses for both sides testified that if the materials were returned to China, they would be censored and likely banned, according to the institution. The court found that Zhang, who is in her 90s, did not initiate the Beijing case and that her defense in the California case was likely funded by the Communist Party of China.

The Hoover Institution welcomed the ruling. "This decision ensures one of the most valuable firsthand accounts on the history of modern China will be freely available for study," said Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. secretary of state.