Chinese See TV Face-Off as New Page in History

It was a miracle of sight and sound: President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, their faces and comments--including strong statements on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre--live and uncensored on national TV, before a potential domestic audience here of 800 million people.

Luo Zheng was one of them.

“It’s a new stage” in Chinese politics, declared Luo, a retired Beijing University psychology professor who watched the drama unfold on-screen in his small apartment. “Chinese leaders used to be very careful when they faced reporters, afraid of making mistakes. But now, they’re facing reporters in public.”

In a land where information is still tightly controlled, Saturday’s extraordinary broadcast of the news conference, complete with unscripted questions and answers, surprised Chinese and Western observers alike.

Carried live on China’s premier official channel, the broadcast began just after noon and concluded, uninterrupted, after more than an hour.

Throughout the broadcast, especially during Clinton’s forthright critique of the government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters nine years ago and Jiang’s even defense, viewers were treated to a wide-ranging discussion virtually unprecedented in Chinese history.

“We . . . saw today a truly historic press conference that, for the first time, witnessed the leader of the United States and the leader of China discussing and debating a range of issues, but most particularly human rights, to a live audience across China and the United States,” U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said.

“I can’t remember any occasion when such diametrically opposed statements by a Chinese leader and a foreign leader were allowed to be freely aired, especially on the human rights issue, which is usually taboo for China,” added Robin Munro of the organization Human Rights Watch/Asia.

Break From Tradition

For some observers, the event reflected the political loosening that has at last begun to occur gradually in the world’s most populous nation following the harsh repression immediately after 1989. For others, it was a display of Jiang’s grip on power, shown by his willingness to publicly trumpet China’s ties with the U.S. and to hear criticism of China’s human rights record, both anathema to the Communist Party hard-liners who oppose him.

For everyone, it was a breath of fresh air from the stilted, the-party-is-great newscasts that have marked the information business here for decades and been derided by millions of viewers, or just plain ignored.

It was impossible to determine how many tuned in Saturday, but even a third of the potential audience would equal the entire U.S. population.

“This is a great improvement by Chinese standards,” said Shi Tao, 32, a consultant with a foreign company in Beijing. “They dared to broadcast it live, which meant that Jiang was not afraid of Clinton saying anything embarrassing. And the translators were pretty honest--they didn’t change the questions or the answers or soften them like they used to.”

The two heads of state traded blunt remarks on sensitive issues ranging from nuclear arms to negotiations with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.

“Both sides were pointed in the ideas they raised,” said Jin Canrong, a scholar in the American studies department of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Science. “But the atmosphere of the news conference was good. The two presidents tolerated and understood each other.”

No issue garnered more attention, internationally and domestically, than the debate over the massacre at Tiananmen Square, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians were killed.

The Chinese government contends that it used justifiable force to quell a counterrevolutionary movement. Jiang hewed to that line of argument Saturday, to the dismay of human rights advocates, who warned against expecting systemic change any time soon simply because of the televised sparring.

Silver Lining Seen

But some Chinese saw a silver lining.

“Chinese leaders have always refused to talk about this topic because they say it’s an ‘internal affair.’ This time Jiang answered the questions,” said a retired engineer named Hao, impressed that he could watch that happen on live TV.

“It’s big progress that Jiang would discuss the June 4th issue openly,” agreed Shi, the consultant, adopting the shorthand that the Chinese use to refer to the crackdown. “But you can’t expect miracles, like the Chinese leaders changing their minds overnight.

“Jiang says what he has to say; that’s the rule. [But] in the last nine years, they have softened their tone little by little, changing it from a ‘rebellion’ to ‘turmoil’ to ‘political disturbance.’ . . . That’s already progress.”

Luo, the retired professor at Beijing University, which suffered heavily for its role in the 1989 student protests, was cautiously optimistic.

“It’s very possible for the conclusion to change. From a historical point of view, conclusions are often changed,” he said, citing official re-evaluations of “anti-rightist” campaigns of the 1950s and the disastrous 1966-76 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps symbolically, the widely despised hard-line leader who orchestrated the 1989 attack, former Premier Li Peng, was absent from Saturday’s news conference, although he was pictured later shaking hands with Clinton at the state dinner in Beijing’s massive Great Hall of the People.

The news conference, held in the same place, was only the second time that Chinese households--more than 300 million of which own TV sets--have had the chance to see a leader field questions not obviously submitted in advance.

The first open news conference, a lively forum given in March by Jiang’s handpicked economic czar and new premier, Zhu Rongji, wowed the international press and many Chinese.

After Saturday’s live broadcast, the official evening news programs omitted any mention of the blunt exchanges between the U.S. and Chinese presidents.

Some observers speculated that Jiang was blindsided by Clinton’s plain-spoken remarks on human rights. But there was little evidence to suggest that the Chinese leader was unaware either that Clinton would raise the issue, as the White House had promised he would, or that the whole thing would be beamed on state-sponsored TV across the country.

A Possible Signal

Indeed, forging ahead with the news conference may have been Jiang’s signal that he has clear ascendancy over his rivals and was unafraid that the debate would telegraph any weakness on his part.

“He’s full of confidence,” Luo said. “The main thing it showed was that Jiang can face the world.”

An American-style media event, however, can bring on American-style criticism.

After 20 years of opening up to the outside, urban Chinese are avid consumers who have caught on to Western ways, including the importance of image in addition to substance.

“I didn’t like Jiang speaking English,” said computer engineer Li Jun, 35, referring to the Chinese president’s occasional forays into the linguistic territory of his guest.

“It’s kind of a loss of face. As the head of the Chinese nation, he should always speak Chinese instead of a foreign language,” said Li, who labeled Clinton the more polished and articulate statesman.

Hao, the retired engineer, took issue with Jiang’s manner when the Chinese leader responded to a question about dissidents and political prisoners.

“He lost his temper a bit,” said Hao, 74. “That’s not appropriate for the leader of a big country, especially in front of foreign reporters.”