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China Rise of a Perfect Apparatchik

4 minute read
William R.Doerner

The new name at the top of the party roster reads Jiang Zemin, but power in China still rests in the hands of a few octogenarians. So it made sense for them to choose as party General Secretary a man known as “the weather vane.” Jiang is the consummate apparatchik, whose rise to nominal power rests almost wholly on his ability to read China’s swirling political winds correctly. The 63-year-old former mayor of Shanghai perfectly mirrors the party line of the moment — slower economic reform coupled with rigid political orthodoxy — as he made clear last week in his maiden address. Jiang skipped lightly over his long-standing commitment to open-door economics in favor of defending the wave of repression that has followed the crash of the democracy movement. Said the party boss: “We shouldn’t have an iota of forgiveness.”

As Jiang settled into his new job, the purge widened against party officials and intellectuals associated with his more moderate predecessor, Zhao Ziyang, who was formally dismissed on June 24 from most of his major posts but not the party. The country was also subjected to an intense campaign aimed at building the visibility of 84-year-old Deng Xiaoping, who used to eschew the cult of personality but has come out of semiretirement to show that he is still firmly in charge. A speech Deng delivered on June 9 defending his order to the army to remove the demonstrators from Tiananmen Square was broadcast last week and widely praised by officials. Copies were distributed to schoolchildren for summer study.

The most important evidence of Deng’s strength may be the unexpected appointment of Jiang. The beefy Shanghai official does not have any national power base or ties to the army, which makes him no threat to anyone in the hierarchy and thoroughly beholden to those who appointed him. As a tough- minded disciplinarian and agile implementer of policy, he is an ideal Secretary. “Deng is once again very much a hands-on leader,” said a senior British diplomat.

Other analysts read the elevation of a political neuter like Jiang as a signal that the succession battle between conservatives and liberals is not over. “He’s manageable, and he’ll serve as a placeholder until this power struggle is sorted out,” said an Asian diplomat in Beijing. Still other observers thought Jiang owed his new job to a very recent success: his skillful “big lie” campaign aimed at convincing many Chinese that no civilian massacre ever happened.

Born in Yangzhou, near Shanghai, Jiang was educated as an engineer. He was sent to train in Moscow during the same period as hard-line Premier Li Peng. Unusually cosmopolitan for a Chinese leader, Jiang speaks Russian and English and reads several other languages. He advanced steadily in the machine and electronics industries until the Cultural Revolution temporarily derailed his career. Rehabilitated, he used his back-room skills in carrying out post-Mao economic policy to earn him election in 1982 to the Central Committee.

When Deng sought to develop Shanghai into a major industrial center, he turned to the faithful Jiang as the city’s mayor. Jiang’s unswerving orthodoxy and ability to bend at the slightest breeze endeared him to his Beijing superiors but not to Shanghainese. Nor were they impressed by his mediocre abilities as an administrator. After three years, he was shifted to Shanghai party chief in 1988 to make way for a more effective mayor.

Many observers predict that Jiang’s incumbency as party Secretary will be equally short-lived, in the mode of Hua Guofeng, who first succeeded Mao Zedong. Hua warmed the top party chair for five years while Deng emerged. Just how long Jiang can hang on may depend less on his legendary skills at reading the political wind than on the longevity of the old men who lifted him to power.

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