Chinese President Expresses Optimism on Relations With U.S.
By ERIK ECKHOLM
August 10, 2001
The New York Times
EIDAIHE, China, Aug. 8 — Jiang Zemin has not yet met George W. Bush, but in their single telephone conversation last month, Mr. Jiang now says, ``from his voice I could feel that he was a president I could do business with.''
Mr. Jiang, who is the president, Communist Party secretary general and military chairman of China, was optimistic about the future of Chinese-American relations this week in a rare interview at the leadership's seaside retreat, 170 miles east of Beijing.
``Both sides share a positive desire for a good relationship,'' he said, dismissing as routine background noise the voices in the Bush administration calling for mobilizing against a ``China threat.''
``We should try our best to find the common ground between us,'' he said, almost rising from his chair.
Mr. Jiang met Wednesday with the publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., senior editors, a columnist and China-based correspondents of The Times for an interview that was initially suggested by Chinese diplomats. Mr. Jiang's chief goal appeared to be to emphasize China's desire for smoother relations as the new American presidency takes shape and as China looks toward playing host to the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and braces for major transitions in political leadership and the economy.
The 85-minute interview took place in a formal meeting hall lined with red armchairs in a large gardened compound for senior leaders in the fading resort town of Beidaihe. Mr. Jiang, who is 75, appeared cheerful and confident as he defended China's domestic and foreign policies, sometimes waving his arms and citing proverbs.
While his message was one of friendship, he gave no ground on areas of difference with the United States, including Taiwan, Tibet or human rights. Rather, he often suggested that the problem was that foreigners did not understand China's goals and why it must adapt Communist rule to a changing society rather than scrap it altogether, as many in the West might prefer.
``I lived for three-fourths of the last century,'' he said when asked about the prospect of a major political loosening, ``and I can tell you with certainty: should China apply the parliamentary democracy of the Western world, the only result will be that 1.2 billion Chinese people will not have enough food to eat. The result will be great chaos, and should that happen, it will not be conducive to world peace and stability.''
Bursting into English, he added, ``And so I tell you very friendly and frankly, this is my opinion.''
The well-guarded compound where the meeting took place, known as West Mountain, is sprinkled with large two-story, pale-yellow manors.
Every summer since the 1950's, leaders from Mao onward have gathered in Beidaihe, (pronounced bay-die- huh), with other party mandarins to hash out major issues, and to swim in the Bohai Sea.
From the glimpse offered this week, the compound does not have the shirt-sleeve ambience of Bush family retreats like Kennebunkport or the Texas ranch. For luncheons and meetings with foreigners, at least - this day, Mr. Jiang also met a delegation of United States senators - business suits were de rigueur. During the interview, young women in long silk skirts hovered to top off cups of tea.
``People think we are here for a vacation,'' Mr. Jiang said. ``But actually it's impossible to take a break, even for a single day.''
``But there is one thing that I have to do every day,'' he added proudly, referring to a habit he shares with predecessors like Mao and Deng Xiaoping. ``I have gone swimming each of my 11 days here already, no matter what the weather conditions.''
The topics and schedules at Beidaihe are secret, but this year a major subject is said to be the coming changes in party leadership.
Over the next two years, a large share of the Central Committee as well as Mr. Jiang and the two other top leaders, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Li Peng, the Parliament chief, are scheduled to retire.
Mr. Jiang is expected to give up the post of party secretary general in 2002, and his term as president runs out in 2003. Asked whether he might consider keeping an official title after that - some supporters have floated the idea of his retaining the military chairmanship or another high post - Mr. Jiang did not respond, and his ambitions and the realistic possibilities are largely unknown.
Mr. Jiang said he felt confident that the next generation of party leaders would continue his general approach: opening the economy more widely to global competition and investment, as China is doing with its entry to the World Trade Organization, but preserving the monopoly of the Communist Party to protect national unity.
Just this week, a book of Mr. Jiang's speeches was published with great fanfare. In it, he calls for the party to embrace the new ``advanced productive forces'' in society like entrepreneurs and the technological elite. While he has been criticized for abandoning socialism and destroying a worker's party, he said his ideas were faithful to ``the fundamental tenets of Marxism, applied to the real conditions in China.''
Questioned about democracy and human rights, Mr. Jiang insisted that China was developing its own model and extolled the country's village- level elections, inadvertently suggesting that similar direct elections are also held for township leaders.
But he said it is unrealistic to think of direct elections for provincial or national leaders, in part because 100 million of the country's 1.26 billion people are illiterate.
Mr. Jiang, in a written answer, defended the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, asserting that the group had ``done great harm to people's physical and mental health'' and that no government could sit idly in the face of such an ``out-and-out cult.'' He also wrote that the recent arrests and trials of several Chinese-born scholars, some of them naturalized Americans or permanent residents of the United States, were justified because they were ``members of Taiwanese spy organizations,'' something the scholars have vehemently denied.
Though he acknowledged social strains as failing state industries lay off workers, he was upbeat about the long-term outlook, saying he had told ``certain backward industries'' seeking protection that ``you have to be brave enough to go to the sea - you have to swim upstream!''
While China will seize the fantastic information potential of the Internet, Mr. Jiang said, he justified the country's efforts to control or block some content, including online versions of some foreign media, again citing what he says are China's unique problems of social stability.
On Tibet, one of China's most vexatious international issues, he said his government had continuing, indirect communications with the exiled Dalai Lama. But he said that the Tibetan leader had never fully accepted China's conditions that Tibet is an inalienable part of China and that the People's Republic is the sovereign government.
Though he repeated China's goal of peaceful reunification with Taiwan, he also made it clear that Taiwan's formal status as part of China would never be up for negotiation. If the United States presses ahead with more sales of advanced weapons, then ``I can only say that it would be very dangerous,'' he warned. He added that China would never renounce the use of force in the event that Taiwan moved toward independence.
He also warned that if a proposed American missile defense was perceived as negating China's small force of nuclear missiles, then ``we would keep an appropriate number of forces to meet our defense needs,'' but he declined to be more specific.
Still, Mr. Jiang professed to be unworried by what some describe as a hawkish and anti-China climate in Washington. ``At any time, there are all kinds of people with different opinions,'' he said, and he quoted a Song Dynasty poem: ``People part and meet, they have sorrow and joy, just like the moon that wanes and waxes.''
He described a long and friendly acquaintance with the first President Bush and his wife, Barbara. He expressed his hope that the new president's visit to China in October would advance friendly ties, and said, ``For two such big countries, it would be strange if they had no disagreements at all.''
He made a jocular apology, in English, for there being ``too many proverbs in China.'' Then he ended the interview, and his review of Chinese- American prospects, by citing this one: ``It takes two hands to clap.'' |
