Jiang Zemin, the Chinese leader who oversaw a period of tremendous economic growth for more than ten years after the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, has passed away. He was 96.
Jiang Zemin Cause of Death
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the former Chinese president passed away in Shanghai on Wednesday. According to Xinhua, leukemia and multiple organ failure were the causes of death.
Jiang Zemin
Jiang was born on Aug. 17, 1926, in the city of Yangzhou in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, and first became active in the underground Communist movement in 1943, according to his biography on the People’s Daily website. He graduated in 1947 from the electrical machinery department at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.
He lived in Moscow between 1955 and 1956 and studied vehicle manufacturing at the Stalin Automobile Works. Jiang ascended through the party levels in the 1980s, serving as Shanghai’s mayor in 1985, a member of the ruling Politburo in 1987, and a member of the Central Committee in 1982. When he gave up his position as Communist Party general secretary in 2002, he started to formally relinquish power. Hu Jintao succeeded him, and in March of the following year, he also became the president of China. Up until 2004, Jiang remained in charge of the armed forces.
Jiang had two sons during his marriage to Wang Yeping. One of them, Jiang Mianheng, is a businessman and academic who contributed to China’s space programme. Alvin Jiang, a founding partner at the private equity firm Boyu Capital, is Jiang’s grandson.
Career Journey
Jiang encouraged businessmen to join the Communist Party and, alongside Premier Zhu Rongji, dismantled the “iron rice bowl” welfare system. He guided China toward World Trade Organization membership, leading to a surge in foreign investment from companies such as General Motors Co. and Walmart Inc.
Jiang encouraged businessmen to join the Communist Party and, alongside Premier Zhu Rongji, dismantled the “iron rice bowl” welfare system. He guided China toward World Trade Organization membership, leading to a surge in foreign investment from companies such as General Motors Co. and Walmart Inc.
In a conversation with Andy Xie before Jiang’s passing, the independent analyst and former top Asia economist for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong remarked that Jiang “introduced a liberal element to China’s reforms, with the help of Zhu Rongji.” They “executed several things that propelled China toward markets and openness.” When Deng Xiaoping, the party’s then-supreme leader, chose Jiang for the top position in Beijing in 1989, he was serving as Shanghai’s Communist Party head. He took Zhao Ziyang’s position, who had been removed for sympathizing with the capital’s Tiananmen Square student protesters.
He defended the Tiananmen crackdown at a news conference with then-US President Bill Clinton in Beijing in 1998. “Had the Chinese government not taken the resolute measures, then we could not have enjoyed the stability that we are enjoying today,” he said.
Good relations with the US
The English-speaking Jiang tried to improve connections with the US that had been cut off following the Tiananmen crackdown. In 1997, he paid a visit to the nation, meeting President Clinton and speaking to Harvard University students. Jiang quoted the first phrase of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in a 2000 interview with CBS News’s Mike Wallace. Wallace questioned his motivation for memorization.
The phrase “all men are created equal” caught Jiang’s attention. This had a significant impact on kids when I was a young person. And I believe that what Abraham Lincoln said still serves as the aim of American authorities now.
Unique Personality
Jiang was a political figure with a personality who stood out in China’s typically dull and opaque party system. After swimming more than one kilometer (0.62 miles) at the age of 71 during a 1997 visit to Hawaii, Jiang took to Waikiki Beach for a stroll before performing the Hawaiian folk song “Aloha Oe” on a steel guitar at a dinner thrown by the governor.
At a lunch meeting during the Three Tenors concert in Beijing in 2001, Jiang and Luciano Pavarotti spontaneously sang “O Sole Mio” as a duet. At a state banquet during his 2002 visit to the US, Jiang danced with Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and the wife of then-US Ambassador Clark Randt as a band from the People’s Liberation Army played American classics such as “Moon River.”
“Jiang’s endorsement of cultural pluralism and transnationalism has manifested in Shanghai’s dynamic cosmopolitan cultural activities since the mid-1990s,” said Cheng Li, director of the China Center at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Social Media Tributes
Bloomerang Posted Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese leader died at the age of 96. He presided over more than a decade of dramatic economic growth following the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Andreas Harsono Posted Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Communist kingpin who was handpicked to lead China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and presided over a decade of meteoric economic growth, died on Wednesday. He was 96.
#Breaking:
China’ former President Jiang Zemin died in Shanghai today, at age 96.
Student Jiang, 1940s. pic.twitter.com/gkyKgsdR7T— China in Pictures (@tongbingxue) November 30, 2022
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