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Jiang and Bush: A lofty
summit
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Sometimes facts are so big that it is
hard to recognize them. This seems to be the case with
President Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States.
Jiang was to arrive on the West Coast of the
United States on Tuesday and is to be back in China next
week, just a few days before the 16th Communist Party
Congress is due to start on November 8. Jiang will thus
have just enough time to recover from jet lag before he
chairs the preparatory meeting of the congress, where
he'll brief his colleagues on his trip and on what he
talked about with US President George W Bush.
We
don't know the contents of these talks, but it is
impossible to think that they won't broach the sensitive
subject of the political succession in China. The two
presidents will certainly speak of Iraq, where basically
China will support a US attack provided it occurs within
the framework of the United Nations. Another subject
will be North Korea, which has admitted to having a
nuclear-weapons program. Here again the US and Chinese
positions are quite close, as both want to keep on
talking with North Korea, and the US has ruled out a
military attack, which would be dreaded by the Chinese
because it would bring war to their doorstep.
Yet the most difficult subject remains the
Chinese succession. Here there are roughly two options:
Jiang will retire completely or he will retain the post
of chairman of the Military Commission. In the first
case Hu Jintao will become the real No 1 of the Chinese
hierarchy, in the second Hu will de facto be still under
Jiang. As the rumor mill in Beijing has been spinning
out of control for months, the relevant fact appears to
be that shortly before the decision will be finalized in
the congress, the Chinese top leader will talk about the
so far extremely secretive power succession with Bush.
This is an unprecedented step.
Never before has
a Chinese communist leader gone to the United States
shortly before such momentous decisions, and thus never
before has a US president had an opportunity to hear a
very first-hand account of the Chinese succession
process as it is unfolding.
The trip, which has
been prepared in detail, is therefore an effort from the
Chinese to become more transparent with the United
States, China's most important economic and political
partner. It can therefore also be construed as a Chinese
pledge to pursue further the political reforms that are
so dear to the United States. The Chinese want to convey
to the world the idea that there is familiarity between
the two leaders, and Jiang will have the very difficult
task of trying to tune into the very different US
wavelength.
China's political system is no
longer one-man rule. Jiang is no Mao Zedong or Deng
Xiaoping - decisions are made through consensus with a
process more complicated than the board meeting in a
company. At the end of a politburo meeting, or of a
dinner where one talks business, the ideal outcome is
that there is no vote, but everybody agrees to a
solution. This is certainly no full-fledged democracy,
where you have an opposition party, but neither is an
old-style dictatorship. It is something in between, a
bridge to cross to the other side, the side of
modernization, a bridge that has so far maintained
stability and change at the same time. Will Jiang manage
to make Bush understand the advantages of preserving
this bridge for some time at least?
These
challenges are important to set on the right track the
relationship between the future Chinese leadership and
the United States. Either political option in China
(Jiang goes or he stays) has its pros and cons for the
preservation and development of the bridge toward
modernization.
If Jiang goes and Hu steps in,
this will signal to the world that there is a peaceful
political mechanism for change in China. But would Hu
alone be able to withstand the pressure of the powerful
conservatives who have been calling Jiang names and
attacking his plans to admit entrepreneurs into the
Communist Party? If Jiang stays some in the world may
doubt the existence of a peaceful political mechanism
for change, but in fact Jiang's very presence will
further push change against the resistance of the
conservatives. In a nutshell these are the political
options, which the Chinese believe the Americans ought
to consider from a realistic point of view, as to what
option is better for Chinese modernization and reforms.
Jiang's talks in the United States alone are
bound to raise many eyebrows among conservatives who
openly say the president is too soft toward the
Americans, so will Bush understand Jiang's predicament?
Fully understanding it won't be easy, as there are many
obstacles. Their relative ages and cultural backgrounds
stand as mountains between the two men, but if the two
men manage to connect, this would be enormously
important for the two countries.
(©2002 Asia
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