The Hottest Ticket in Town : Tonight’s State Dinner for China’s Jiang Zemin Will Put Protocol--and the Lucky Few on the Guest List--in the Spotlight

There won’t be the usual glitzy stars at tonight’s state dinner for China’s president--unless you count Harold Ickes, a former White House deputy chief of staff and a stellar performer at the Senate campaign finance hearings.

The glitter (movie stars) and the glue (intellectuals) were squeezed out by a mother lode of gold--namely, a slew of Fortune 500 CEOs who will mix with almost a dozen members of Congress, as well as a lot of “formers”--an ex-president, a few ex-ambassadors and several ex-secretaries of state (Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker and Al Haig), many of whom are doing business deals in China.

The Clintons also have invited a trifecta from the business side of Hollywood: Michael Eisner, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg will be sitting, though probably not together, around tables draped in gold damask, and feasting off the blue and white FDR china with 225 others in the East Room of the White House.

From the second the dinner with Jiang Zemin was announced a year ago, the jockeying for seats began, particularly among people eager to be seen as having a foothold in an economy that, in the not too distant future, is expected to be largest in the world. Mickey Kantor, a former commerce secretary and U.S. trade representative who did make the cut, said he has never been lobbied as hard as he was for an invite to tonight’s affair.

“Everyone from the academic and think-tank community to members of the administration and business community have been clamoring to be part of this,” said Kantor, now working for a Washington, D.C., law firm. “People were very upfront and honest. They wanted to be there, and they wanted to be there badly.”

The lobbying rapidly descended into begging around Labor Day after a visiting Chinese delegation declined the White House’s offer to erect an enormous tent with hardwood floors and heaters and enough space to seat almost 400. The guest list--inevitably a work of art crafted with suggestions from all over the administration, including the Oval Office--had to be pared down by almost half.

After a long list of must-invites--the Clintons and their diplomatic and domestic entourage; the Chinese party of 14; the congressional delegation, spouses and aides; and network faces Diane Sawyer and Tom Brokaw--there wasn’t room for more than 20 or 30 other couples. And while the White House usually takes the Noah’s Ark approach to enliven state dinners, this time it had to pay homage to America’s pressing economic interest in China by sending out invitations to as many businessmen as could possibly slip into black ties.

And what of everyone else?

“Most people have enough good taste to know that if they can’t get in, they can’t get in,” said a former White House aide experienced at fending off such wannabes. “But some people know no limits. Either they or their surrogates call the State Department, the first lady’s office, even the White House operator, making every argument to get in.”

But, in fairness to even the most craven climbers, tonight’s dinner is by definition historic.

After all, it is a “state dinner” and, unlike some of their predecessors, the Clintons do not put on these full-length-ballgown, put-on-the-dog, ritualized, Reaganesque evenings all that often. This is only their 14th in five years (though the Clintons are anything but antisocial. There have been some 2,000 other get-togethers in the White House, from enormous receptions to smaller chic dinners and those infamous coffees. But back to history.)

The men at the head table will, by their presence, make the evening unique. The political head of the most powerful country in the world and the paramount leader of the most populated country, never mind the largest army (count them, 3 million men), do not often share a formal toast and dinner. The last time in this country was 18 years ago when Jimmy Carter lavishly entertained the late Deng Xiaoping after the United States had newly recognized China. (John Denver was the entertainment; Shirley MacLaine represented Hollywood and, as at all diplomatic moments with China, Kissinger was there.)

Tonight also will offer a pinch-yourself atmosphere:

Guests, arriving about 7:30 p.m., will be led past a barking mass of reporters and television lights to the state dining room where they are to be served canapes and drinks until the “appropriate time,” as the official line goes, when President and Mrs. Clinton and Jiang and his wife, Madame Wang Yiping, come down an elevator and walk to the Center Hall, pose for photographs and receive guests in front of the Blue Room doors.

Often during these evenings, the Clintons and their guests sweep down a marble staircase. But Madame Wang, who is rarely seen in public, has asked to use the elevator.

During dinner in the East Room, the Clintons and Jiangs are to be seated at a long head table for 12, raised above the floor and decorated with dark peach roses and snowberries in an autumnal floral arrangement designed by Hillary Clinton herself, according to her staff.

This dinner, like others, will be pure American fare.

Usually, the chef, Berkeley native Walter Scheib III, does not try to compensate for cultural difference. Rather, the idea is to showcase great American cuisine while making sure the visiting dignitaries are comfortable with the food.

The White House never previews the menu, but sources did let slip (quite proudly) that the pastry chef, Roland Mesnier, would be creating yet another dessert as a tribute to the guest of honor. (Who could forget the marzipan cookies made to look like sushi for the emperor of Japan?) Tonight’s dessert is on the orange blossom theme, to honor Jiang’s fondness for oranges.

After dinner, the guests will be led to a pavilion on the South Lawn where they will be entertained by the National Symphony Orchestra playing Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, John Phillip Sousa and George Gershwin’s “American in Paris,” a recent request by the president after he heard the piece at the symphony’s season opener last week.

At the end of these evenings, the heads of state usually mount the stage to thank the entertainers, and this promises to be that moment that Jiang, a known crooner and pianist, makes a break from what is shaping up to be a rather serious evening.

Since President Clinton doesn’t usually tote along his saxophone, he just might sit down at the piano bench alongside Jiang to play a little. “I would speculate they would do four hands on the piano,” said Ann Stock, the first lady’s former social secretary who now is a vice president of the Kennedy Center. “But that’s not official.”

One diplomatic source insists that “despite what he seems, Jiang can be very loose, you know, get off the script. I think he’ll try a little of that at the state dinner. It’s his chance to go along, loosen up. Watch his body language, how he talks to the president. He’ll surprise you.”

In fact, the Chinese apparently want few surprises and made few requests for the evening.

According to the first lady’s current social secretary, Capricia Marshall, who met in late August with a delegation representing Jiang, they want nothing less than what is “normally” accorded other heads of state, and what was presented 18 years ago to Deng.

The current Chinese president had three requests for the guest list: Washington Post owner Katharine Graham; William Walsh Jr., head of the humanitarian group Project Hope; and virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who the Chinese don’t seem to mind is playing a score in the new movie “Seven Years in Tibet.”

Certainly, of all the activities during Jiang’s eight-day American tour, the dinner is a case in point that this visit is as much about pomp as it is about circumstance: Jiang apparently wants “normal” in order to staunch ugly imagery that flowed from Tiananmen Square a decade ago, and to be counted now among the respected friends of Washington. The White House, in turn, sees China as too important to be gratuitously insulted.

“People are taking a hard look at this dinner,” said Marshall, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and on her maiden voyage tonight as social secretary. “The goal from a diplomatic point of view is to represent U.S. interests, both economically and politically, and to draw China into a world framework where they want to be. I expect a great evening.”

When all else fails, protocol will act as the evening’s parameters and buffer from the shouting crowds who think the president shouldn’t be entertaining the head of such a repressive regime.

“The way to avoid any kind of criticism from anybody is to follow protocol,” said Molly Raiser, who until the summer was chief of protocol at the State Department. “This evening will be surveyed and taken apart by everybody, and that’s the wonderful thing about protocol. Things are done in a certain way. The president of China can be assured he’ll have exactly the same thing as the queen of England.”

It is unclear how the splendor of the evening ultimately will play against the cacophony of complaints about China, from its treatment of monks in Tibet to its policy on nuclear disarmament.

A rooftop away at the Hotel Washington, actor Richard Gere, on the brink of promoting a movie scorching China’s closed society, will be hosting a white-wine-and-cheap-hors-d’oeuvres “stateless dinner.” Apparently, several Capitol Hill lawmakers who were invited to the White House also plan to stop by that event--if for no other reason, their staffers admit, than to catch a glimpse of Uma Thurman and Sharon Stone.

“We’ll be lobbing beer cans at the White House while they dine-and-wine this guy,” one congressional aide chuckled.

At least one guest at the state dinner, however, plans to politely demonstrate her concerns about human rights in China just by her presence at the dinner. Bette Bao Lord, the author, China expert and wife of former ambassador to China Winston Lord, explains: “While Americans have different viewpoints, in a civil society we can still sit down and have dinner together and disagree on everything. In our country, your measure of patriotism is not a question of how much you agree with the head of state. [It’s important that] whenever Chinese leaders come through the United States, they see people who reflect that.”