Mission Accomplished

photo by Greg Gibson/AP

President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin toast during their state dinner at the White House on Oct. 29

BY DARA AKIKO/AP

President Jiang Zemin of China left the United States Monday after an eight-day visit during which he said the two nations will enter the next century as better partners, even as persistent protesters denounced his country's human-rights record.

About 100 flag-waving supporters cheered Jiang as he boarded an Air China jetliner at Los Angeles International Airport, gave a farewell wave, and departed at about 10:20 a.m.

Sunday night, at the last event of his visit, Jiang gave his tour a thumbs-up, painting a bright future for U.S.-China relations in the next century. Speaking to about 1,000 enthusiastic Chinese and Chinese Americans at the Biltmore Hotel, Jiang told the audience that his trip helped form a more strategic partnership between the two nations.

"My meetings with President Clinton have been fruitful. ... I am convinced that through the concerted efforts of the two governments and two peoples, China and U.S. relations will enter into a new stage of sound and stable development," Jiang said, speaking in Mandarin.

He also spoke of a prosperous future for China resulting from its resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong. He said he was convinced China can be "one country with two systems" and that the "Taiwan question will eventually be answered."

The biggest applause during the Sunday-night gathering--Jiang's only U.S. engagement sponsored by Chinese Americans--came when he hummed a few bars from a Chinese opera. It was the kind of dramatic gesture Jiang used throughout his U.S. visit.

The Chinese leader who was once dismissed as a gray, Soviet-schooled Communist Party hack proved himself during the tours to be an accomplished student of the flamboyant political gesture--a skill which helped to charm a skeptical U.S. public.

Even before meeting President Clinton in Washington, Jiang had launched his charm offensive. During a stop last Monday in Honolulu, he danced with young hula students, hugged a child, swam at the beach, and tried his hand at the Hawaiian steel guitar.

The image of a folksy, even playful Chinese leader hardly fits with memories of the 1989 military attack on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square and continuing complaints about China's crushing of dissent and oppressive rule in Tibet. But if Jiang can win American hearts and minds, it will be just the latest in a career of surprises.

Regarded at first as a transitory figure doomed to be swept away after the death of his mentor Deng Xiaoping, Jiang has strengthened his position since the elder's February passing. State media have lauded him as a fitting heir to Deng and revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung, a statesman-scholar with his own distinct contribution to China's modernization.

All his remarks during his U.S. tour were apparently intended to present a picture of a forward-looking China, and to diminish the impact of the protesters who followed him throughout his visit and pushed for such issues as freedom for Tibet, independence for Taiwan, and more progress for human rights.

One protester was Pema Choden, 28, who along with three dozen others greeted Jiang's motorcade as it arrived at the Biltmore Hotel Sunday night. Choden also attended other demonstrations held during Jiang's U.S. visit.

"The word independence can't even be spoken in Tibet," Choden said, her voice hoarse. "I'm doing this for my people as well as for my parents and the over 1.2 million Tibetans killed."

Earlier in the day, as hundreds of chanting, Chinese-flag burning protesters demonstrated outside the Beverly Hilton hotel, Jiang met privately with the governor, then asked business and political leaders for patience and cooperation.

"As the old Chinese saying goes: A 10,000-mile journey begins with the first step," Jiang told an audience of 700 people at the luncheon.

Speaking first in Mandarin and then English, Jiang said efforts to enhance relations between China and the U.S. shouldn't be deterred by "differences that cannot be ironed out for the time being."

"The differences between us should be handled properly and with mutual respect," Jiang said.

Before the luncheon, Jiang met privately with Gov. Pete Wilson, in the kind of reception he was denied in New York when Gov. George Pataki refused to sit down with him. Wilson, who advocates negotiating trade issues as a means to force changes in human-rights policies, also met with Jiang last January during a trade mission to China.

"I think that if you fail to meet with people, it is very hard to communicate," Gov. Wilson said.

China is California's sixth-largest trading partner, with China purchasing more than $3 billion worth of U.S. goods, mostly computer and aerospace equipment, in the first half of this year.

Jiang also met privately Sunday with Stanford University Nobel laureate Steven Chu and with evangelist Billy Graham, who said the two discussed human rights in China and religious freedom.

"Twenty years ago hardly one church was open in all of China," Graham noted in a statement after the meeting. "Today there are tens of thousands, and we should be very grateful for that."

A spokesman for the Chinese delegation minimized the impact of protests, saying Jiang was vaguely aware of them but paid them little heed.

"He heard some noises, but the overwhelming number of people were positive," said Sheng Guofang, calling the protesters a "tiny minority [who] in demonstrating their democratic rights ... impaired the liberty of others."

Jiang on the New China

Excerpts of prepared remarks delivered by Chinese President Jiang Zemin Saturday at Harvard University:

Friendship and cooperation between our two peoples are of great importance to the world. The United States is the most developed country, and China the largest developing country. China is a country with 1.2 billion people.

Its stability and rapid development is of vital importance to the stability and development in Asia Pacific and the world at large. China holds a huge market and great demand for development, and the United States holds advanced science and technology as well as enormous material force.

The economies of the two countries are therefore highly complementary with each other. China's potential market, once combined with foreign advanced technology and capital, will produce many opportunities and great vigor for development.

China and the United States share broad common interests and shoulder common responsibility on many important questions which are crucial to human survival and development, such as maintaining world peace and security, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, protecting environment for human survival, and combating international crimes.

All these provide an important basis for further developing China-U.S. friendly relations and cooperation. We should take a firm hold of the overall interests of China-U.S. relations and settle our differences properly so as to reach the goal of promoting mutual understanding, broadening common ground, developing cooperation, and building a future together.

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