Jiang Zemin: President, People's Republic of China
Biographic Profile
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Jiang Zemin
President, People’s Republic of China
General Secretary, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee
Chairman, CCP Central Military Commission
Chairman, PRC Central Military Commission
Jiang Zemin, as China’s top government and Party leader, has been promoting himself as the "core of the third-generation leadership" and a worthy successor to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. As part of this effort, he has been striving for recognition of his contribution to the canon of Communist philosophy through the publication of his selected works. Not long ago, few would have dreamed that he could pursue such exalted status heretofore reserved for revolutionary heroes.
Initially, many observers thought that due to his lack of charisma, lack of military background, and lack of revolutionary achievements (his having been too young to have participated in the legendary Long March during China’s civil war, for example), he would be only a transitional figure after the death of Deng.
But through political shrewdness he has tightened his tenacious grip on power. Domestically, he has used ideological slogans to justify actions that tend to be ideologically neutral, and at the same time he has made his status as an unpretentious and practical technocrat an asset abroad. Most importantly, he managed to consolidate a "collective leadership" through the installation of supporters in the Politburo’s Standing Committee. He won allies in the military by facilitating its modernization in the wake of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He has also removed opponents such as Qiao Shi, the No. 3 in the Party hierarchy and former National People’s Congress chairman.
Jiang also relied on a large-scale anti-corruption campaign as a means of purging such opponents as Chen Xitong, former member of the Politburo and former secretary of the CCP Beijing Municipal Committee, and intimidating others into rallying behind him. He quietly demoted members of the powerful Ye clan of Guangdong Province, including opponents marshall Ye Jianying and his son Ye Xuanping. They had no choice but to comply as Jiang’s top aide and political strategist, Zeng Qinghong, had much evidence of their corrupt activities.
Jiang’s anti-corruption campaign could backfire, however. The wife one of Jiang’s oldest and closest allies (Beijing CCP secretary Jia Qinglin), LinYoufang, has been accused of involvement with a major smuggling ring in Fujian Province. Jiang has taken steps to ensure, through strategic appointments, that members of his own family would not be targeted.
But Jiang is said to lack an original political agenda, choosing instead to adopt the widely heralded goals of Deng Xiaoping. Jiang is considered a "moderate conservative" who favors market economic reforms while keeping the country socially and politically conservative in order to maintain social stability. In Deng’s footsteps, Jiang is pushing for a "socialist market economy" and "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and continuing reform, modernization and opening up policies. He pursued those policies to their ultimate fulfillment by launching an ambitious drive to privatize China’s massive, debt-ridden state sector in 1997 in order to attract more foreign investment and by clinching a deal on China’s WTO entry in late 1999.
In dialogues with Western leaders, Jiang defends the central government’s actions, including, notably, its much criticized activities in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but is also willing to discuss human rights. He made a high profile visit to the United States in 1997 that won him support at home, and in June 1998 he held the first live televised debate in Beijing with American president Bill Clinton.
Jiang wants to move China closer to peaceful reunification with Taiwan as part of his legacy, and although he has been accelerating efforts in this direction, he is not likely to see reunification before his term runs out.
Jiang is now angling for reelection to his posts by the Sixteenth CCP Central Committee in 2002 so that he may have more time to establish his place in history, but he is facing opposition from some senior leaders, led by Qiao Shi, who feels strongly that older leaders should make way for younger ones as he did. In addition, Li Ruihuan, a liberal leader who is No. 4 in the Party hierarchy and chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, declared openly that "the days of China’s present leadership structure are numbered".
According to CNN’s Asiaweek, if Jiang is unable to keep all three of his main posts, it would be easiest for him to give up the presidency, which has recently been mostly a sinecure for leaders on the verge of retirement, although it does allow Jiang to make state visits abroad and meet with other world leaders. If necessary, says the source, Jiang may pass the presidency or his post as general secretary on to his protégé and current vice president, Hu Jintao. Jiang would still be able to exert a great deal of power as chairman of the Central Military Commission. But failing that, Jiang may create a new post for himself, such as head of the proposed National Security Council.
Leadership Posts
From 1980 to 1982, Jiang served as deputy director of the State Import/ Export Administration. While in this post, Jiang is credited with being the first planner of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which was set up by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, having encouraged long-term projects in line with international standards. Concurrently, from 1981 to 1982, he was vice minister of the State Foreign Investment Commission. In 1982, he was made a member of the Twelfth CCP Central Committee, which elects members of the powerful Politburo. From 1982 to 1983, he was vice minister of the Ministry of Electronics Industry, and served as its minister from 1983 to 1985.
From 1985 to 1989, he was mayor of Shanghai and secretary of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee, and became a member of the Politburo of the Thirteenth CCP Central Committee in 1987. He was said to have pursued his duties as mayor "efficiently but not spectacularly", being thought rather useless by his critics.
But others credit him with luring foreign investment to Shanghai from Hong Kong, Japan and the West and thus transforming Shanghai into a modern cosmopolitan city. This venture capital included US$3.2 billion, of which he poured 1.4 bln into Shanghai’s infrastructure construction projects such as a subway system, Nanpu Bridge, water pollution treatment, airport expansion and program-controlled telephone exchanges.
He also won recognition from central government leaders for having peacefully ended social unrest in Shanghai in 1986. While mayor, he established a network of strategic connections with rising political stars, later dubbed the "Shanghai faction", that he used to reinforce his power base after Deng died in February 1997.
Jiang became a co-opted member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee and general secretary of the Thirteenth CCP Central Committee in June 1989 in the wake of the Tiananmen Square uprisings. He was brought to Beijing by Deng to replace then CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for having sympathized with the protestors. Jiang had been a virtual unknown among central government leaders, but had pleased Deng by firing a prominent liberal newspaper editor in Shanghai at the beginning of the demonstrations. He proceeded to confirm the trust placed in him by supporting the suppression of the movement.
Deng groomed him as his heir apparent, and in preparation for this role, Jiang began to cultivate ties in the Party and the military. He took over many of Deng’s daily duties as the latter’s heath deteriorated. In March 1990, after Deng Xiaoping retired from the post, Jiang was elected chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission. He was formally elected a member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, general secretary of the Fourteenth CCP Central Committee, and chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission in 1992. In March 1993, Jiang was elected PRC president and chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission.
Jiang was reelected general secretary of the Fifteenth CCP Central Committee, chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau in September 1997. He was reelected president of the PRC and chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission in March 1998.
Background
Jiang Zemin was born in August 1926 to an intellectual family in Yangzhou, a city northwest of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province that was under Japanese occupation. When an uncle died fighting the Japanese, Jiang was given to that uncle’s family to raise as their only male heir. His consequent status as the adopted son of a revolutionary martyr would later aid his career.
Jiang studied electrical engineering at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University during China’s civil war, graduating in 1947. While at college he participated in CCP-led student movements against Chiang Kai-Shek and joined the Party in 1946. From 1949 to 1955, Jiang served successively as an associate engineer, the head of a workshop and the deputy director of a factory in Shanghai. In 1955, he was sent to the Soviet Union to work in Moscow’s Stalin Auto Works for a year as a trainee.
Upon his return in 1956, Jiang served as a director of factories and research institutes in Changchun, Shanghai, and Wuhan. During the Cultural Revolution, he escaped being attacked for his intellectual background by keeping a low profile. Later he was transferred to Beijing to become deputy director, then director of the Foreign Affairs Department of the First Ministry of Machine Building Industry under the State Council.
While in office in Shanghai, Jiang published several papers in the Shanghai Jiaotong University Journal concerning China’s electronic information industry and energy-saving measures.
Jiang enjoys reading books on economics, science & technology, politics and culture, and is also fond of the works of Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Shelley, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov and Turgenev in addition to classical Chinese poetry. He can speak English, Russian and Romanian and knows some German and Japanese. He enjoys listening to Chinese folk music as well as Mozart and Beethoven. He plays both the erhu and bamboo flute (classical Chinese musical instruments) as well as the piano.
Jiang is married to Wang Yeping, who studied at the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute and used to be the head of an electrical engineering research institute in Shanghai; she is now retired. They have two sons; the eldest, Jiang Mianheng, received his doctorate in electrical engineering in the United States. He is currently a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s top government think-tank, a post thought to shield him from being targeted in the ongoing anti-corruption drive. The younger son, Jian Miankang, studied in Germany after graduating from the Shanghai No. 2 University of Engineering. It is reported that he is now working for the German company Siemens. Jiang has a grandson and a granddaughter.
UPDATED: 22 February 2000 |
