PROFILE: JIANG ZEMIN October 27, 1997 NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT

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This week's summit with China has many people wondering about the country's president Jiang Zemin. After a background report by Kwame Holman, Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with Michel Oksenberg of Stanford University, Jim Mann, foreign affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times and former U.S. Ambassador to China James Lilley, about the president of the world's most populous country.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: October 8, 1997: China is constructing the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, but what will be the social and environmental costs? July 29, 1997: The Senate considers allegations that the Chinese government tried to influence the '96 elections through illegal campaign contributions. June 24, 1997: The House votes to maintain China's Most Favored Nation trading status, ignoring calls to impose sanctions for human rights violations. May 19, 1997: President Clinton says he wants to renew China's Most Favored Nation trading status for another year. April 16, 1997: Does China's leadership have a grand strategy to dominate Asia in the coming years and view the U.S. as a long term enemy? March 27, 1997: Sandy Berger discusses VP Al Gore's trip to China, and possible attempts by China to influence the 1996 elections. Browse the NewsHour's Asia Index

KWAME HOLMAN: Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived on American soil in Hawaii yesterday. He received all the trappings granted a state visitor, including a 21-gun salute. Jiang then inaugurated a theme of his eight-day itinerary--recognition of important moments in U.S. history. He laid a wreath at the memorial for the 1100 sailors who died aboard the USS Arizona during the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the gesture a reminder of China's World War II alliance with the United States against Japan.

Jiang's visit is the highest profile by a Chinese leaders since 1979 when images of Deng Xiaoping's folksy tour of the country became common on U.S. television. By contrast, Jiang Zemin and his past are unfamiliar to most Americans. Jiang was born in 1926 in Yangzhou City, North of Shanghai. Reportedly, he attended an American missionary school where he learned English. Trained as an engineer, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1982. Three years later he was named mayor of Shanghai. He became a member of the Politburo in 1987. Jiang consistently has endorsed his government's deadly stand against pro-democracy forces in the Tiananmen Square uprising in the summer of 1989. During the same period Jiang cracked down on Shanghai dissidents with considerably less bloodshed. In the aftermath of Tiananmen, Jiang was picked by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to be general secretary of the party. In 1993 he was named president.

Under Jiang the government has continued to suppress dissident voices in China. Human rights groups estimate at least 2,000 political prisoners remain incarcerated in China. In external affairs Jiang has focused on trade, encouraging foreign businesses to engage his nation's vast markets. The choice of Jiang to deliver a tearful eulogy for Deng Xiaoping in February cemented his rise to power within the party.

PRES. JIANG ZEMIN, People's Republic of China: (speaking through interpreter) The Chinese people love, thank, mourn for, and cherish the memory of Comrade Deng Xiaoping.

Chinese President Jiang: equally comfortable in a western style business suit as in a Mao style jacket.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last summer Jiang oversaw the smooth handover of Hong Kong from the British to the Chinese. Observers say Jiang can cast himself as a glad handing politician equally comfortable in a western style business suit as in a Mao style jacket. The Chinese president is a music lover who was photographed singing the Elvis Presley hit "Love Me Tender" with Philippine President Fidel Ramos last year. This will be Jiang's third official trip to the United States. Jiang met President Clinton for the first time in 1993 at the Asian Pacific Economic Summit in Seattle. In 1995, Jiang appeared on the NewsHour and spoke about China's rapid economic development.

PRES. JIANG ZEMIN: (speaking through interpreter) China has achieved considerable progress in his economic development; however, I do not believe that when China has achieved economic growth and has become stronger, China will necessarily pose a threat to the world.

KWAME HOLMAN: Before leaving Beijing for this latest trip Jiang met with high-ranking administration officials and members of Congress to prepare. Reportedly, he has practiced his English by watching American movies and reciting famous American political speeches and documents. Jiang uses prepared texts for many of his speeches, but on Saturday he answered questions about his trip from foreign reporters in Beijing.

PRES. JIANG ZEMIN: (speaking through interpreter) From my education and my knowledge I'm not clear about the development of freedom and democracy in the USA, but I hope the Americans will understand that every country has its own process of developing democracy and freedom. This is not a definite concept.

KWAME HOLMAN: This is Jiang's first state visit as president. Tonight he arrives for a tour of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. He arrives in Washington on Wednesday, where he will meet with President Clinton. The two will conduct a joint news conference. Jiang's week-long tour also includes stops in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, where he will see such sights and symbols of American democracy and capitalism as Independence Hall and the New York Stock Exchange.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now for more on President Jiang we turn to Michel Oksenberg, a senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, who just returned from a meeting in China with President Jiang; to Jim Mann, foreign affairs columnist for the "Los Angeles Times" and Beijing bureau chief from 1984 to 1987; and to James Lilley, who was U.S. ambassador to China from 1989 to 1991. Thank you all for being with us.

Mike Oksenberg, you met with Jiang Zemin very recently, and you met with him many times before that. What's he like personally?

MICHEL OKSENBERG, Stanford University: (San Francisco) Well, he's an affable individual. He--most importantly I think--combines very diverse strands in his background. He had an early Confucian training, which certainly had an impact upon him. Then he had an extensive exposure to the West during his teenage years, particularly while he was in college in Shanghai. And then he spent the bulk of his career as a Communist economic planner in the Chinese bureaucracy. I think that it's been quite a--in a way maybe I'd almost use the word "struggle" for him--to reconcile in his own mind these three very diverse strands in his background and try to amalgamate them into a meaningful hold. I wonder sometimes when I meet him what combination of these influences produce his identity.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ambassador, did you have any of those same impressions?

JAMES LILLEY, Former U.S. Ambassador to China: (New York) Yes, I did. I found him a man who could quote Tang Dynasty poetry in one breath and the Gettysburg Address in the next. I found him a conservative Communist Party technocrat but also a man of expansive tastes and interests. So I do think he's an interesting and challenging man. He's tough. He's a survivor. He's resilient, and he tacked on to the right man at the right time. His timing was excellent when he moved from Shanghai to Beijing in 1989 under the tutelage of the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Ambassador, did he deal directly with you, or did you always wonder if you were hearing what he really thought, or what he really wanted?

JAMES LILLEY: No. We dealt directly. The last meeting we had was just before I left China. He wasn't president yet. He was secretary general of the party, and we had a long, long session in which we talked about very many things with great diversity and great interest, some of it in Chinese, some of it in English, some of it translated, some of it not.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Jim Mann, tell us a little bit more about his background. He came from Shanghai. How important is that in forming his thoughts and the way he deals with the world?

JIM MANN, Los Angeles Times: Very important. Shanghai, of course, is China's biggest city. It's also--it's--city--it's his most advanced intellectually--and industrially. And since Jiang has been leader of China, he's sometimes been accused of bringing along a Shanghai clique. I remember interviewing him when he was mayor of Shanghai in 1987. There were a group of correspondents who met with him, and he had just gotten there from Beijing; he had been in the government ministry. He'd been minister of electronics. And he was grousing and complaining to us about Shanghai in a good natured way--he said all these people--nothing we do is right. They complain we don't pick up the garbage; they complain there are watermelons on the streets. It was an education for him to be back in Shanghai and see the lively politics there.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ambassador. Lilley, he's apparently studying American movies and reading books and really trying to learn a lot about American culture before he comes. At least, that's what's reported. Does that surprise you?

The Modern Chinese Man.

JAMES LILLEY: No, because I think his purpose is to convey to the world that he is the new Chinese man, the modern Chinese man, the man that comes from the coastal cities. He's not the old revolutionaries who came from Yangon, Sutshwan, Jhansi Inland. He's a modern Chinese that comes from the coastal area. And I think this is important for him to convey. At the same time he has to convey back to China that he stands up for China's interest; that he stands with a superpower as an evil. It's a tricky thing but he's a man with a lot of talent. I think he can do it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Does that sound right to you?

MICHEL OKSENBERG: Oh, very much so. And I think that Ambassador. Lilley has stressed a very important part of Jiang. He stands in such sharp contrast in so many ways to his predecessor, Deng Xiaoping. Deng identified himself with the interior of China. He had spent some time in France, but he called himself a native son of the Chinese soil. Jiang Zemin in everything that he does tries certainly in his meetings with Americans to create another impression; that he has partaken of western civilization while remaining Chinese, and that that's crucial to him, and therefore I think his visit to the United States is going to Washington--also to Philadelphia--to Independence Hall to try and go up to Harvard, give a speech there. He's going to try and really connect with an American audience. But Ambassador. Lilley's point is also important; that he has to walk a very delicate tightrope because he is still addressing a Chinese audience, and he's trying to convince a Chinese audience that he is worthy of being their leader. He, after all, came to office through the tragedy of June 4, 1989. In my view, he has yet to fully convince--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's what happened--

MICHEL OKSENBERG: The Tiananmen affair, the tragedy of the suppression of the students. And he has yet to convince I think fully his own populace that he deserves to occupy the chair that he now holds.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jim Mann, tell us about how he did come to power and his relationship to the events at Tiananmen Square.

JIM MANN: He has--he was not directly involved in the leadership decision to call in the army in Beijing. In 1989, in the spring of 1989, he was still the party secretary in Shanghai. But it would be going too far to say that he has no connection to these events. He has party secretary in Shanghai was swept up in a couple of ways. There was a point when the leading--one of the leading newspapers in China--the World Economic Herald--published in Shanghai, the leadership called them up and told them to close it down. And he agonized a little bit and then he went ahead and did it. There was another favor that he seems to have done for the leadership in those very hectic days right when Marcia Wald was declared one of China's top leaders--a man named Wan Li--who was the head of China's legislature--happened to be in Toronto and in the United States.

And he began at the time--the press was--the Chinese press was uncontrolled--and they began reporting that he was--he supported law and legal procedures--there was a movement in China to hold that martial law was illegal. It hadn't been approved by the legislature, and he--Wan Li got on a plane--he flew back. The plane landed in Shanghai and suddenly he was met by a delegation of party leaders, including Jiang, taken off. He was sort of isolated for a couple of days. And by the time he--Wan Li came out he was supporting the party line.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ambassador--sorry, go ahead, Jim.

JIM MANN: Jiang was really supporting Deng and the leadership in '89 but was not directly involved in a decision.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Ambassador, on this question of the events of '89?

JAMES LILLEY: Yes. I think where Jiang scored his points with Deng Xiaoping, who was making the decisions, namely Jiang has handled Shanghai much better than the people like Chung Xi Tung, the mayor of Beijing, had handled Beijing, and the army. Shanghai had been really handled without debts, and they had huge demonstrations there. And Jiang Zemin and his--the mayor Zhu Rongji went out and spent all night with the students laughing with them, trying to get them to understand. And a number of instances through the 80's--during two other campaigns in Shanghai, Jiang handled these things fairly skillfully, without bloodshed, undermining the student movement, appealing to the parents, dealing with the student organizations, and then getting them back in the box, and then moving on. He showed Deng he had skill in handling dissent.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mike Oksenberg, turning to the economy, he comes here at a time of tremendous economic uncertainty all of a sudden in Hong Kong and all over Asia. Tell us about his economic background and whether he's flexible enough to handle this as this big meeting begins, this kind of changed scene.

MICHEL OKSENBERG: Very important question. Any summit is held against a background of current events, and the recent weeks the collapse of the economies of Southeast Asia, the collapse of the Hong Kong stock market establish an environment for this summit that was not anticipated--let me put it that way. And when Jiang Zemin goes back home, I believe he's going to face an altered economic situation, one in which the amount of investments coming to China from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong are going to drop precipitously, and where the Hong Kong dollar vis-a-vis the currencies of Southeast Asia and the Chinese--simply make China somewhat less competitive on the world market.

President Jiang's Three Triumphs...

So Jiang Zemin has had three major triumphs this year. Let's remember that--Hong Kong well taken over, 15th party congress, now a trip to the United States--but what's he going to do when he gets back home? And what role will the United States play in China's effort to reform its economy and what role will the China market play as a locomotive for economic development? Those conversations probably should begin somewhat unplanned two days hence. And the question is whether Jiang has the strength, the flexibility, as well as the administration having the flexibility to put a new item on the agenda and to pursue it in the months ahead. I myself come back from my latest trip to China somewhat more apprehensive about the Chinese economic future than I have been for some time. The reforms of the state-owned enterprises announced so boldly just a few weeks ago are now going to have to take place in a different and less hospitable environment.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Ambassador, just on this question of flexibility, still thinking of Jiang Zemin as a person here--is he--does he have the flexibility to deal with the kinds of things that are happening very quickly now right at the beginning of this big meeting?

JAMES LILLEY: Well, I think he does, and I think he's made a wise move. I'd agree with what Mike Oksenberg said. I think he's put his best man--his rival in Shanghai in a way--Zhu Rongji--in charge of the economy. This man has done very well in terms of curbing inflation and bringing growth down and balancing it. Zhu Rongji will now take on these gargantuan tasks of state-owned enterprise reform, financial reform. He will be point man on it and he's got Li Lanqing also a very bright man from--university in Shanghai to help him. I think that Jiang Zemin does have flexibility. He was a little wooden in Hong Kong, maybe a little bit wooden in getting off the airplane in Hawaii, but he got the lei around his neck; he did the dance; I think he will show some flexibility but there will be times when he gets rather stiff and reads from a script because he makes--has to make sure he doesn't turn off the audience back home.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Jim Mann, how important is this meeting for Jiang Zemin's week-long--all these activities?

JIM MANN: It's extremely important. It's not important for his immediate political future because he's already been--he's gone through a party congress--he's consolidated his leadership. It's important for him in running China to establish a relationship with the United States. That was true even before the financial events of the last few days and it's even more true now. He needs to establish a working relationship with the U.S..

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And do you have anything to say just before we go on how important for him?

MICHEL OKSENBERG: I think it's very important, not only for Sino-American relations but to enhance his stature at home. If he stumbles here, it'll get back home and weaken his claim to be the ruler of China. Notice, however, that what is not important to him necessarily is addressing the specific, concrete issues now dividing our two countries. And from that point of view I enter this week, shall I say, with fairly modest expectations of what's going to come out of it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you very much, all of you.

JAMES LILLEY: Just one point--can I--North Korea--we've got to work together to deal with that very dangerous problem, and Jiang Zemin being here is very important to deal with that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thanks very much to all of you.

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