Jiang Zemin’s Spirit and Style Can Reignite Sino-US Cooperation

Jiang Zemin’s death on October 30th, is a timely reminder of how a functional-working relationship between America and China were – and can be re-ignited and be more co-operative again!

Under Jiang’s watch, China became fully integrated with the U.S.-led global system and elevated its status as a global powerhouse.

Jiang stabilized China after the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989; continued Deng’s economic and political reforms; got China into the World Trade Organization; handled the smooth handovers of Macau from Portugal, and Hong Kong from Britain; and stepped down as party leader in 2002, and as the military’s top commander in 2004, handing power to Hu Jintao, the first peaceful and orderly power transition of the party since it was founded in 1921.

Jiang was a fluent English, Russian, German, and Romanian speaker. “I have to learn them well because I need them when I search for technology information,” he said. He first worked in the First Automotive Works in Changchun, and in Moscow in the 1950s, before being assigned to Shanghai as a deputy director of a state-owned machinery institute in the 1960s.

In December 1986 Jiang recited the full Gettysburg Address in English while talking to students from his alma mater Shanghai Jiaotong University. He quoted President Abraham Lincoln’s famous line of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Jiang formally embraced China’s private business owners and welcomed them to join the Communist Party for the first time. An idea that is embedded in the Three Represents, his signature political theory enshrined in China’s constitution. Three Represents refers to the party representing China’s most advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jiang in December 1986, when, as the producer of the Jan & Dean Concert tour of China, and television movie for Lorimar Telepictures — the first concert tour of China by an American rock band – Jiang, then the mayor of Shanghai, attended the opening night concert in the 18,000 seat Shanghai Workers Stadium.

Jiang was known for his love of Western classical music, singing Beijing and Italian operas at public events, and interest in arts and culture, making Shanghai a natural city to introduce American culture – Hollywood and Rock’n’Roll!

I found him laid-back, easy-going and humorous. We had a few things in common. Like Jiang, I had worked in a machine shop in Detroit in the early 60s, spoke a few languages, and shared his interest in music and, most importantly, developing U.S.-China relations.

America and China – are in the same political boat today, as they were back in the 1980s. Something both countries must address honestly after the U. S. midterm elections, and Xi Jinping’s re-appointment to an unprecedented third term as China’s political and military leader.

Both countries are sitting on explosive economic, political and military powder-kegs.

The current U.S.-China war of words and trade is fertilizing domestic identity politics, and a potential Sino-U.S. military confrontation, in addition to the current trade war.

Both countries are stewing in the same toxic political environment. Angering and outraging people enough to have them pour out onto the streets in protest. Party members in the Democratic, Republican, and Communist parties, as well as those non-party members who belong to different parties or no party, find their leaders behavior reprehensible and unacceptable.

The people of America and China have made revolutionary political changes on both home fronts in the past — and are poised and prepared to do the same today in a post Covid-19 world.

A good time and reason to re-read Alexis de Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution, about the popular uprising that toppled the monarchy in France in 1789.

Xi, and China’s leadership, should seriously consider, re-tracing the footsteps of Deng and Jiang, to re-building the Sino-U.S. relationship – and ditching Russia.

The only way to avoid a global military confrontation – Armageddon — is for America and China to reach out to each other and come up with fair, mutually beneficial agreements for the people of America, China, and the world.