China’s Xi leads event marking late leader Jiang Zemin’s 100th birth anniversary

BEIJING – Top Chinese officials led by President Xi Jinping gathered in the Great Hall of the People on Aug 17 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of late leader Jiang Zemin, who led China in a pivotal phase in its rise from a marginal economy to a global growth engine.

Jiang, who died in 2022 at the age of 96, confounded naysayers and led the country through a decade of rapid economic growth after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

His co-partner in governance, the no-nonsense former premier Zhu Rongji, died last week, with the funeral scheduled for Aug 18.

The passing of the two leaders into China’s history books marks a definitive end to the breakneck reforms they both represented during the 1990s and early 2000s, with an emphasis on private entrepreneurship and wealth creation.

That stands in contrast to Xi, who has exerted greater central control and pressed a state-driven economic policy of technological autonomy and strategic industries.

In a 40-minute speech on Aug 17, Xi called on the Communist Party to carry forward Jiang’s legacy, presenting the current leadership as the continuation of his political and ideological project. That message was also carried in state media coverage in recent days.

Under Jiang and Zhu, China pushed through painful changes: shuttering chronically unprofitable state companies, dismantling the old housing system in favour of a commercial property market, weathering the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Xi now faces considerable challenges of his own as he seeks to weather trade frictions with the US and Europe, tensions over Taiwan, slower economic growth and demographic decline.

“On the new journey ahead, we must heighten our sense of vigilance against potential dangers,” Xi said during the Aug 17 event.

“With an indomitable fighting spirit and superb skill in struggle, (we must) proactively meet the major tests posed by high winds and rushing waters, or even by raging storms,” he added.

Events involving Xi are closely monitored by China watchers for clues to the political pecking order and for indications of the health and continued standing of the country’s retired elite.

Former president Hu Jintao, Jiang’s immediate successor, now 83, was not immediately seen in state media footage of the event, which was attended by current and retired officials.

Hu’s premier, Wen Jiabao, as well as former vice-president Wang Qishan, Xi’s one-time anti-corruption chief, were seen at the event, suggesting that they remain in favour with the leadership.

A number of officials once associated with Wang have come under corruption probes in recent years.

An unlikely fandom

Ahead of Aug 17’s event, China’s state broadcaster aired a 12-part prime-time documentary series chronicling Jiang’s life and achievements.

The programme recounted how, in 1989, Jiang – who had himself been a student protester in the 1940s – forcibly shut down a reformist Shanghai newspaper after it called for greater freedom of speech and voiced support for the pro-democracy demonstrations that culminated in the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

Under his presidency, the internet arrived in China in the mid-1990s. Yet, a few years later, the so-called Great Firewall was erected to separate China’s internet from the rest of the world to prevent access to information and ideas considered potentially destabilising to Chinese society.

Still, some Chinese netizens remember Jiang fondly as a symbol of a more optimistic era when rapid economic growth translated into tangible improvements in everyday life.

On Chinese social media, where current and former leaders’ names are routinely censored, Jiang has come to be known as “The Elder”. An internet subculture has sprung up in apparent admiration of the Soviet-trained former vehicle factory manager, who was known for his love of singing and his propensity to recite Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from memory in English.

“There are only two kinds of people in the world,” said one comment on Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, about the documentary on Aug 15. “Those who don’t understand him and those who admire him.”

Last week, China’s central bank announced plans to issue a set of commemorative coins bearing Jiang’s image later in August to mark the centenary, delighting the late leader’s youthful online fan base.

“The commemorative coins are going to be really hard to get,” one said on Weibo, China’s version of X. REUTERS