Jiang Talks Up Sino-L.A. Ties
Chinese President Jiang Zemin, wrapping up his weeklong U.S. tour, told a high-powered luncheon crowd in Beverly Hills on Sunday that continued friendship between his country and Los Angeles will bring economic, scientific and technological benefits to both sides.
“China has become the second-largest trading partner of Los Angeles,” the Chinese leader said. “We can say with confidence that the friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and California [promises] further and greater development.”
His audience at the Beverly Hilton Hotel reflected the growing role of business in propelling Sino-U.S. relations, despite concerns over China’s record on human rights and its expanding military prowess. Among the 750 people gathered to hear Jiang speak were top executives from at least a dozen major L.A.-based corporations, from oil companies to banks to media organizations. Dignitaries, scholars and Chinese American community leaders rounded out the list.
As he has throughout his first state visit to the United States, the head of the world’s most populous nation emphasized the gains that both countries stand to make through increased economic and cultural ties, especially for California, which exported billions of dollars in goods to the People’s Republic of China last year.
“China will place priority on such industries as energy, transportation, telecommunications, raw materials, automobiles and electronics where California holds the financial and technological edge,” Jiang said, in a statement brimming with the possibility of millions of dollars in contracts and hundreds of jobs for California workers.
“He’s playing to the business community here,” commented veteran China watcher Richard Baum of UCLA. “He played to the diplomatic and press community in Washington, the academic community at Harvard, the historic community in Virginia and the business community here and in New York. He’s touched all the bases.”
However, whereas Jiang’s stop in the Big Apple had touches of official frost--New York Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani refused to meet with him--officials here took pains to welcome Jiang in Los Angeles, a sign of China’s increasing importance to the Golden State. The Los Angeles area was Jiang’s only stop along the West Coast.
Throughout the luncheon, Jiang, often described as wooden and bland, chatted animatedly with Gov. Pete Wilson on his right and Mayor Richard Riordan on his left, both of whom he had met with in private before the meal to discuss trade issues.
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But in a nod to critics of China’s human rights abuses, most notably the 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Wilson pointedly referred to individual rights and democratic values at least three times during his opening remarks.
“The great elixir of individual freedom is the best prescription to accelerate and multiply your success in achieving your goal” of strengthening China, Wilson said, as Jiang looked on impassively.
Underscoring Wilson’s point outside the hotel, hundreds of demonstrators--like those who have dogged the Chinese leader throughout his trip--lined the streets to protest everything from China’s claim to Taiwan and its rule of Tibet to its restrictions on religious liberty and its dominant shipping presence in the Port of Long Beach. Police estimated the crowd at 1,000 people.
In answer to the accusations, Jiang asserted that “differences between us should be handled properly in a spirit of mutual respect and treating each other as equals.” The United States and China, he said, “should seek common ground, while putting aside their differences that cannot be ironed out for the time being.”
For the most part, Jiang was greeted with warm applause from the audience, especially after he broke into English for the last half of his 20-minute address and expressed his admiration for Los Angeles, which he had visited twice before, beginning in 1980 as a lower-ranking Communist Party apparatchik.
“It has taken me 17 years to realize the beauty of this world-renowned city,” he said, departing from his carefully scripted remarks.
“People were pretty effusive here” about Jiang’s appearance, said Stanley Rosen, a political science professor from USC who attended the luncheon.
UCLA’s Baum said Jiang’s U.S. tour, the first state visit by a Chinese president in 12 years, has been fairly successful in establishing a relationship with China based more on facts and less on emotion. In Washington, Jiang met not only with President Clinton but also with congressional representatives, some of whom have been openly critical of China.
“This is not just a ceremonial occasion full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” Baum said. “I think maybe this is the first step toward a more realistic relationship with China.”
The White House has agreed to another summit between the two presidents in China next year, more Cabinet-level contacts and the establishment of a hotline between Washington and Beijing. Although some have seen such developments as a revival of the Cold War-style summitry that marked diplomacy between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, both Baum and Rosen said different circumstances prevail with China that make the comparison an unhelpful one.
“We’re not trying to avoid nuclear war with China,” Rosen said. “We’re trying to increase communication.”
After Sunday’s luncheon, Jiang, who had originally meant to stay one night in Los Angeles but extended his visit by a day, met privately with American evangelist Billy Graham, with whom he spoke about religious freedom in China, a thorny issue in U.S.-China relations.
“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.”
Jiang also met with Stanford University’s Steven Chu, who last month shared the Nobel Prize for physics, and Charles B. Wang, the chairman of Computer Associates International, a New York-based software company.
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In the evening, an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds of members of Southern California’s Chinese American community welcomed Jiang at a gala banquet, where he spoke of China’s progress and even sang a few bars of Peking opera, to a standing ovation.
“The main purpose of my visit is to promote mutual understanding, strengthen cooperation and work to establish a constructive strategic partnership between China and the United States,” he said.
Jiang also addressed the contentious issue of Taiwan, long a source of controversy between those who regard the Nationalist government in Taipei as the true government of China and those who recognize Beijing. Citing the reversion in July of Hong Kong to Chinese control, Jiang elicited loud applause when he said: “The Taiwan question will also be eventually resolved. To achieve the reunification of the motherland is the common aspiration of the entire Chinese people, including the compatriots now living overseas.”
Jiang began his day with a tour of Hughes Electronics, the telecommunications and satellite firm, which has a long-standing history of business dealings with China. Hughes’ ties to China date back to 1972, when the company’s engineers established ground stations for satellite television coverage of President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing.
Hughes Chairman and CEO Michael T. Smith said his company’s relationship with China has “fostered economic growth that has benefited both our nations.”
Jiang, an engineer by training, marveled at a series of demonstrations of satellite-enabled services and four high-tech automobiles made by Hughes’ parent company, General Motors Corp.
“There is a huge potential between China and the U.S. to engage in cooperation in economic activity,” Jiang said.
Even after a week of photo opportunities, Jiang seemed to relish his moment in the American limelight, waving to reporters and smiling at cameras. He even got behind the wheel of a prototype “intelligent vehicle,” a GM van laden with computers.
At the luncheon in Beverly Hills, he hammed it up a bit with those assembled, an eclectic guest list that included former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, futurist author Alvin Toffler, media titan Rupert Murdoch and dancer Cyd Charisse.
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In addition to trying to charm his listeners, Jiang also has been acutely aware of his constituency back home, where he has successfully handled a year of important events, including the British hand-over of Hong Kong, to cement his position as the country’s top leader after the death of Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in February. The media in China have accorded Jiang’s U.S. visit extensive coverage to highlight his role on the world stage.
“Jiang Zemin established himself as a diplomatic heavyweight” with this week’s U.S. tour, said UCLA’s Baum. “This was a major coming-out for him--not just here, but back home with his audience in China.”
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Times staff writer Karen Kaplan contributed to this report.
* WASHINGTON OUTLOOK
Jiang leaves as he arrived: neither friend nor foe. A5
