Jiang gets fair marks on U.S. trip 'performance'

Jiang gets fair marks on U.S. trip 'performance'

By Edward Neilan

Debriefing sessions back in Beijing might ask the question:
'Who is this guy Richard Gere?'

TOKYO (JP): China's President Jiang Zemin is back in Beijing,
facing the music from his colleagues, in a series of critiques on
his recent visit to the United States.

Although outsiders cannot get inside the councils that are
debriefing Jiang, it is safe to say that he will get fairly high
marks for his performance on a tough assignment.

His biggest achievement may have been in keeping his cool in
the face of taunts from protesters. But Jiang won few points for
his stiff repeating in English of Confucian and Lincolnesque
platitudes.

His major shortcoming may have been an absence of the
spontaneity which his predecessor Deng Xiaoping showed during a
ground-breaking visit 20 years ago. Deng's donning of a cowboy
hat in Houston was impromptu; Jiang's wearing of the three-
cornered Jeffersonian hat at Williamsburg appeared contrived and
even hypocritical.

Deng's visit heralded the promise a new era of U.S.-China
cooperation in strategic positioning against the Soviet Union.

But Jiang's visit seemed to expose and sharpen differences,
while establishing a more solid dialog.

"Don't forget that China demanded that Jiang get a red
carpet treatment, like the old U.S-Soviet summits," said a
Western diplomat. "They want to be seen as a great power so
respect is the issue. Some disagreements with the U.S. are
allowable, short of demonization."

China has four big areas, the visited exposed, on which it has
to show some moderation and movement if it is to truly expect
improvement of across-the-board relations with Washington.

They are Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen Square and human rights
generally.

The best-prepared Americans for the Jiang visit turned out to
be the U.S. business community which got a reward in the form of
sales orders for 30 Boeing jetliners, members of Congress who
have strong feelings regarding a fair shake for Taiwan,
protesters championing the causes of Taiwan and Tibet, President
Clinton and the U.S. Stare Department, in that order.

For all the criticism about a lack of interest in China by the
average American, did you notice how intelligent were the
questions asked at news conferences after luncheon and dinner
speeches, particularly at the Harvard session?

A major problem, of course, is that the Chinese folks back
home got only a sanitized version of the Jiang visit on their
radio and television and in newspapers. The dissent was not
reported.

All the evidence suggests that Beijing will try to come up
with a move on Taiwan after Jiang's visit. Some measure will have
to be undertaken to get the cross-strait talks going. This is one
area where China can show that for the moment it is really
interested in engagement, not confrontation.

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen's upcoming visit to
Beijing should help in settling some rules of naval engagement
that will prevent miscalculations in the Taiwan Strait. We'll see
about that. The written strategies of the Chinese navy are aimed
at the conquest of Taiwan, period.

On Tibet, Jiang was probably asked by Communist Party Central
Committee members on his return the equivalent of "Who is this
guy Richard Gere?"

Movie actor Gere showed some finesse in leading protests on
China's record Tibet. He drew sour comment from Henry Kissinger,
who seems increasingly out of touch with Americans' feelings on
China unless they are tied to business deals. The U.S. movie
industry has a series of films coming out on Tibet and has
decided to fight Beijing's censorship every step of the way.

Gere stars in the upcoming Red Corne with a Tibet story line
that is critical of Beijing. China has already expressed
displeasure at Sony's Sixteen Years in Tibet and Kandu made by
Walt Disney"s Touchstone Films unit. Harrison Ford and Steven
Seagal are other stars who have been championing Tibetan causes.

Beijing may get the soft soap treatment from the State
Department but making Hollywood kowtow is a different matter.
China's paranoia is seen in the fact that it allows only 10
American movies into the country each year.

China has a chance to put the Tiananmen issue further behind
it when Premier Li Peng retires next spring, to be succeeded by
economics czar Zhu Rongji. If Li assumes one of Jiang's post,
like the Presidency, it will mean the factional power struggle
continues. If Li, identified with the order to crack down at
Tiananmen, is given the head chair at the National People's
Congress or a lesser post, it will mean the Tiananmen debate is
subsiding.

But someday China is going to have to say Tiananmen was a
mistake. Whether the Chinese Communist Party can survive such an
admission without inviting challenge to its control is another
matter.

Edward Neilan has been invited as a visiting scholar to Fudan
University, Shanghai, for one month starting this week. In 1996
he was visiting professor of journalism, National Chengchi
University, Taiwan.