(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) Top Chinese officials headed by Xi Jinping gathered at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday (August 17) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of late leader Jiang Zemin. Xi Jinping delivered a speech of about 40 minutes.
Jiang Zemin died in 2022 at the age of 96. After the Tiananmen Democratic Movement was suppressed in 1989, he was selected by Deng Xiaoping to become the "third generation leadership core" of the CCP. After Deng Xiaoping's "Southern Tour" in 1992, Jiang Zemin led the CCP to implement further economic reform policies, allowing China to go through a decade of rapid economic growth.
His ruling partner, former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, died last week. Zhu Rongji's body was cremated on Tuesday, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Xi Jinping led senior officials of the Communist Party of China to bid farewell at the "Revolutionary Cemetery" in Babaoshan, and Hu Jintao sent wreaths to express his condolences. AFP reporters saw flags lowered to half-mast at government buildings across Beijing and in Tiananmen Square on Tuesday.
Public opinion generally believes that these two leaders will be recorded in history together. Their death marks the end of China's rapid reform era that lasted from the 1990s to the early 2000s.
In contrast, Xi Jinping has strengthened central control and promoted state-led economic policies centered on technological independence and strategic industries.
Several experts in interviews with Deutsche Welle believed that Xi Jinping intended to commemorate and mourn Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji to appease the people under economic difficulties and further consolidate his ruling authority.
"Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin are actually not close"
At the commemoration meeting, Xi Jinping spoke highly of Jiang Zemin's life as "a glorious life and a life of fighting" and repeatedly emphasized Jiang Zemin's great contribution to the "great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics."
In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Chong Ja Ian, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, believes that commemorating Jiang Zemin is used to show the continuity of the Chinese Communist Party's leadership, and may also be aimed at further consolidating Xi Jinping's legitimacy in powering the party and the country.
Zhuang Jiaying said that Jiang Zemin's political legacy is linked to China's economic opening up after the June Fourth crackdown and China's accession to the WTO. This helps lay the foundation for China’s current development trajectory.
Professor Zhang Lun of the University of Cergy-Paris in France believes that "Xi Jinping has been somewhat dissatisfied with Deng Xiaoping for many years, suppressing Deng and supporting Mao (Zedong)", but he also needs to find a predecessor to pave the way for his legitimacy.
Xi Jinping has made a big ideological push in recent years. Zhang Lun told DW that how to stabilize the situation during a major crisis and maintain economic development may be the most important issue facing the CCP. Commemorating Jiang Zemin may "send a certain message to society: we still have to continue to get rich."
In his speech, Xi Jinping reiterated his own propositions, including the need to achieve "two safeguards", that is, "resolutely safeguard the core status of General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core of the Party Central Committee and the entire party, and resolutely safeguard the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee."
Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told DW that Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin are not actually close. Jiang's "Shanghai Gang" has been effectively eliminated by Xi Jinping by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2022 at the latest. Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" was originally intended to lead China in a direction different from that later set by Xi Jinping. "Therefore, the two are no longer ideological confidants, nor are they strategic partners with substantive significance."
Zeng Ruisheng said that Xi Jinping used Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai Gang to suppress Li Keqiang and the "Tuan Faction" he represented at the 17th National Congress in 2007 and the 18th National Congress in 2012, but since then he has been consolidating his power, and it can be said that it is quite thorough now.
Will you be rewarded if you support core leadership?
Such events attended by Xi Jinping have always been closely watched by Chinese observers to infer the political order, the health of retired senior officials and the stability of the political situation.
In the live footage broadcast by state media, Jiang Zemin's direct successor, 83-year-old former president Hu Jintao, did not appear. His last public appearance was at Jiang Zemin's farewell ceremony at the end of 2022; previously at the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao was "asked to leave" by staff.
Hu Jintao's absence has caused public concern about his health.
Wang Qishan, who once became Xi Jinping’s right-hand man in anti-corruption, made an appearance at the commemoration event. In recent years, many officials close to Wang Qishan have been investigated, so there are many rumors about the relationship between Wang Qishan and Xi Jinping.
Hu Ping, a pro-democracy activist and honorary editor-in-chief of the journal Beijing Spring, believes that in recent years, Wang Qishan and Wen Jiabao's former subordinates and cronies have been dismissed one after another, but this does not mean that Wang Qishan and Wen Jiabao's personal status is in crisis or even in danger. Wang is well aware that without Xi's support, he will be beaten by hundreds of officials. Xi is well aware that denying Wang is denying the anti-corruption movement and denying himself, so Xi Jinping will strive to protect Wang Qishan.
Hu Ping said that at the same time, since Xi Jinping came to power, he has continuously strengthened monitoring of retired veterans. In 2022, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a document "Opinions on Strengthening the Party Building Work of Retired Cadres in the New Era", which even clearly stipulated that "the major policies of the Party Central Committee must not be arbitrarily discussed." "Both Wen Jiabao and Wang Qishan are having a difficult time, but they will not be knocked down."
Zeng Ruisheng, an expert on China issues, pointed out: "Jiang Zemin has remained silent since the 20th National Congress, which means that he accepts and fully respects Xi Jinping as the core leader of the party. The signal Xi Jinping sends to other senior leaders is: support the core leadership, and you will be rewarded."
What legacy do Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji leave to Xi Jinping?
During the terms of Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji, China implemented a series of major changes: shutting down long-term loss-making state-owned enterprises, abolishing the old housing system and replacing it with a commercial housing market, experiencing the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, and joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Singaporean scholar Zhuang Jiaying told DW that Jiang Zemin did preside over the reconstruction of China's economic order after the "June 4th" crackdown, but he also experienced the tense period of the Taiwan Strait crisis from 1995 to 1996.
A series of measures launched during that era promoted China's rapid economic growth and also paved the way for China's economic difficulties today. The Reuters report pointed out that Xi Jinping inherited the legacy and difficulties of these growth, while facing more challenges: dealing with trade frictions with the United States and Europe, creating greater tensions on the Taiwan issue, slowing economic growth, and losing the demographic dividend.
Zhang Lun pointed out that it is doubtful whether Xi Jinping's attempt to link Jiang Zemin with his own political agenda and theoretical discussion will succeed. After all, Jiang's era was an era of relatively expanded freedoms, while Xi Jinping's rule was a period of strengthened social control and a significant reduction in freedoms. There are still some important differences between the two.
Zhang Lun also noticed an intriguing detail: The so-called "Three Represents" is Jiang's most valued theory and is widely recognized by society as Jiang's signature theory. In his speech, Xi mentioned the "Three Represents" twice, both of which seemed to be passing by. In Xinhua News Agency's report on the commemoration meeting, it repeated many of Xi's praises for Jiang in his speeches, but did not mention the "Three Represents" at all.
“Clam culture” has a double ironic meaning
Ahead of Monday's event, China's main state-run broadcaster CCTV aired a 12-episode documentary during prime time reviewing Jiang Zemin's life and achievements. The documentary mentioned that in 1989, Jiang Zemin forcibly shut down the Shanghai reformist newspaper "World Economic Herald". The newspaper has previously called for expanded freedom of speech and expressed support for the student pro-democracy movement.
Some netizens noticed that in the third episode of the documentary, "In Case of Danger," the camera completely panned the front page of the newspaper, which clearly read: "We need an environment where we can speak the truth freely."
Jiang Zemin himself was a student protester in the 1940s. During a discussion with students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1986, Jiang Zemin recited passages in English from Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address. During the student movement in Shanghai at that time, students selected content such as "of the people, by the people, for the people" from the speech as their protest slogan.
During the Jiang Zemin administration, the Internet entered China in the mid-1990s. But within a few years, the so-called "Great Firewall" was erected to separate China's Internet from the rest of the world, preventing the public from accessing information and ideas thought to have the potential to destabilize society.
During Jiang Zemin's democratic rule, a large-scale suppression of the "Falungong" organizations that emerged across China was also carried out.
Still, some Chinese netizens remember Jiang Zemin fondly, seeing him as a symbol of a more optimistic era when rapid economic growth translated into tangible improvements in daily life.
On Chinese social media, the names of current and former leaders are often blocked, with Jiang Zemin being referred to as "the elder." “Clam culture” is popular on the Chinese Internet. Netizens of "Membrane Clam" are called or call themselves "Clam Silk", "Membrane Master", etc. The word "membrane" means "worship", while the word "clam" comes from Jiang Zemin's often wearing a pair of toad glasses and his belief that Jiang Zemin looks like a toad.
Media person Jia Jia explained on her X platform account that "clam" comes from the Falun Gong media's counterattack against Jiang Zemin, and "clam culture" has a double ironic meaning.
Zhuang Jiaying told Deutsche Welle that the older people recall the past, the easier it is to beautify it. There will be some people in China who are willing to view Jiang Zemin's era as a period of greater openness, more opportunities, and more hope. At the same time, some people may use this commemoration to contrast today's slower growth and higher youth unemployment, as well as the more distant and harsh perception of today's CCP leadership, to express their dissatisfaction with reality.
He reminded that observers can pay attention to "whether officials will take action to censor or control public narratives about Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. If so, it may indicate that the party and the country are more suspicious and wary of the people."
