Who's Who
Jiang Zemin
(1926-
)
Jiang Zemin, born on 17 August 1926, is a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu
Province. He is Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the
Communist
Party of China
(CPC) and Chairman
of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China.
He participated in the students' movement led by underground CPC
organizations from 1943 and joined the CPC in April 1946. He graduated from the
Electrical Machinery Department of Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1947.
After the liberation of Shanghai, he served successively as deputy engineer,
chief of the works section and concurrently head of the power workshop, Party
branch secretary and first deputy director of Shanghai Yimin No. 1 Foodstuff
Factory, first deputy director of Shanghai Soap Factory, chief of the electrical
machinery section of Shanghai No. 2 Design Division of the First Ministry of
Machine-Building Industry.
He worked as a trainee at the Stalin Automobile Works in Moscow in 1955.
After returning to China in 1956, he worked as deputy chief of the dynamic
mechanics division, deputy chief engineer for dynamic mechanics of the First
Automobile Plant in Changchun and director of the power factory in the plant.
After 1962, he served successively as deputy director of the Shanghai
Electrical Equipment Research Institute under the First Ministry of
Machine-Building Industry, director and acting Party committee secretary of the
Wuhan Heat-Power Machinery Institute under the Ministry, deputy director-general
and director-general of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the First Ministry of
Machine- Building Industry.
After 1980, he served as vice-chairman and concurrently secretary-general of
the State Administration Commission on Import and Export Affairs and the State
Administration Commission on Foreign Investment and a member of the Leading
Party Members' Groups of the two commissions.
After 1982, he served as first vice-minister and deputy secretary of the
Leading Party Members' Group of the Ministry of Electronics Industry and
minister and secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the Ministry.
After 1985, he served as mayor of Shanghai and deputy secretary and secretary
of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee. He was elected member of the CPC
Central Committee at the Twelfth CPC National Congress in September 1982.
In November 1987, he was elected member of the Political Bureau of the CPC
Central Committee at the First Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central
Committee. In June 1989, he was elected member of the Standing Committee of the
Political Bureau and general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the
Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central Committee.
In November 1989, he was elected chairman of the CPC Central Military
Commission at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central Committee.
In March 1990, he was elected chairman of the Central Military Commission of
the People's Republic of China at the Third Session of the Seventh National
People's Congress. In October 1992, he was elected member of the Political
Bureau, its Standing Committee and general secretary of the CPC Central
Committee and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission at the First
Plenary Session of the Fourteenth CPC Central Committee
.
Jiang was re-elected as Chairman of the Central
Military Commission of the Communist Party of China (Nov. 2002) and Chairman
of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China (March
2003).
(source: Chinese official news
agency)
Note: The following is an official
biographical sketch of Jiang Zemin published in 1998
Jiang was born to an
intellectual family in Yangzhou, a historically and culturally famous city
at the lower reaches of China's Yangtze River. The cultural background of
his family with a long tradition of learning enabled him to read
extensively Chinese and foreign literary masterpieces and thus to have a
solid foundation in literature.
However, he chose Shanghai Jiaotong
University, a prestigious university of engineering in China, with
electrical engineering as his major.
It was Jiang Shangqing, his uncle and
foster father, who exerted a great influence on his becoming a career
revolutionary later. His uncle, a Communist, who led a regional
anti-Japanese armed force in the northeast of Anhui Province and north of
the Huai River in China, sacrificed his life for the country in a battle
in 1939.
Jiang graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong
University in 1947. During his college years, he participated in the
CPC-led student movement against Chiang Kai-shek's autocratic rule, and
joined the Communist Party of China in 1946.
After the founding of New China, Jiang
served as an Associate Engineer, head of a workshop and Deputy Director of
a factory in Shanghai. In 1955, he was sent to the Soviet Union to work in
Moscow's Stalin Automobile Works as a trainee for one year.
After his return home in 1956, he served as
director of factories and research institutes in the big industrial cities
of Changchun, Shanghai and Wuhan. Later, he was transferred to Beijing to
take charge of the Foreign Affairs Department of the First Ministry of
Machine-Building Industry under the State Council.
After 1980, he served successively as
Deputy Director of the State Import and Export Administration and the
State Foreign Investment Administration, Vice-Minister and Minister of
Electronics Industry, Mayor of Shanghai, Secretary of the CPC Shanghai
Municipal Committee, and member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central
Committee. After June 1989, he was elected General Secretary of the CPC
Central Committee, President of the People's Republic of China and
Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Jiang' family background and unique
personal experience have made him always cherish a lofty ideal to enrich
the people, strengthen the nation and rejuvenate China. When Deng Xiaoping
put forward his initial ideas to build special economic zones (SEZ), Jiang,
serving as a leading official at that time in the State Import and Export
Administration and the State Foreign Investment Administration, was
resolute in their implementation without the least hesitation.
Facing a wilderness-like Shenzhen then, he
made a clear proposal: "All development projects in the SEZ should be
started from a long-term point of view and should not follow the
traditional system." Now, China's first special economic zone,
Shenzhen, which is adjacent to Hong Kong, has developed into a bursting
metropolis with a population of over one million.
While he was in office in Shanghai, he won
public praise from the more than 12 million Shanghai residents for his
remarkable achievements.
Above all, the relatively backward
condition of urban construction and infrastructure in Shanghai had to be
changed so as to expedite city development. Jiang, together with his
colleagues, drew up a plan to transform municipal infrastructure with the
help of international capital, using external investments of over three
billion US dollars for the construction of key projects such as a subway,
Nanpu Bridge, water pollution treatment, airport expansion and
program-controlled telephone exchanges.
Now, people marvel at rapid developments in
Shanghai, where "there is a change in a year and a big one in three
years." This has to be attributed to the new thinking of utilizing
external funds and the new mechanism of "borrowing, spending and
repaying money by oneself." These policies were made while Jiang held
office in Shanghai.
After he came to Beijing, Jiang's ability
to manage Party and state affairs was further put to good use. Under the
leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Jiang at the core, China's
reform, opening up and the modernization drive moved forward
uninterruptedly. Based on Deng Xiaoping Theory, a major policy decision
was made under his direction to establish a socialist market economy, and
an Outline of the Ninth Five-year Plan (1996-2000) for National Economic
and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2010
were formulated.
On the basis of summing up the experience
of the reforms and opening up, he expounded in an all-round way 12 major
relationships in China's economic and social development and pointed out
that a proper balance between them should be maintained. Especially in his
report delivered to the 15th National Congress of the CPC, Jiang, holding
high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory, drew up a series of
important guidelines for an all-round advancement of the cause of building
socialism with Chinese characteristics into the next century.
Particularly in economic restructuring, new
significant advances have been made. Not only has it been established that
to keep public ownership in a dominant position and to have diverse forms
of ownership develop side by side is China's basic economic system for the
primary stage of socialism, but also it is clearly pointed out in the
report that public ownership can and should take multiple forms and that
all government methods and organizational forms that reflect laws relating
to socialized production, including the joint stock system and the joint
stock cooperative system, may be utilized boldly.
It is further clarified that the non-public
sector is an important component part of the socialist market economy and
should continue to be encouraged and guided to a healthy development. In
the reform of the political structure, new progress has also been made.
It is clearly pointed out in the report
that the scope of democracy should be further extended, ensuring people
the rights to hold democratic elections, make policy decisions in a
democratic manner, and institute democratic management and supervision.
Ruling the country by law should be upheld and great efforts be made to
promote socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.
His report of more than 30,000 Chinese
characters has been regarded as "a political declaration and program
of action of the third generation of the collective leadership of China
leading the nation toward a new century."
In leading China's reform, opening up and
modernization drive, Jiang has paid close attention to the correct
handling of the relationship between material progress and cultural and
ethical progress. He has said that economic backwardness is not socialism
and nor is spiritual deficiency socialism.
In recent years, the CPC Central Committee
under his direction made a series of major policy decisions to develop
socialist culture and ethics, and to strengthen and improve the leadership
of the Party.
These measures have helped China improve
its social atmosphere. Paying attention to ethics and civilities has
become common practice.
The anti-corruption campaign has also won
positive results. Such major cases as that of Chen Xitong, a former member
of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and former Secretary
of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPC, have been investigated and
dealt with according to law. All these moves have won popular support.
Jiang is fully aware that in order to carry
out the modernization drive in a big country with a population of 1.2
billion, social stability is a prerequisite.
Hence, he lays particular stress on the
need to balance reform, development and stability, and has formulated the
basic principle of "seizing the current opportunity to deepen reforms
and open China even wider to the outside world, promoting development and
maintaining stability."
Even though China's political situation has
become more stable, its economy prospered and people's living standards
improved day by day, Jiang as China's top leader has never been
intoxicated with successes, and has constantly exhorted leading carders at
all levels: "We should have the awareness of hardships and think of
danger in times of safety."
With regard to contradictions and
difficulties existing in economic and social life, he always keeps a clear
head and exerts himself to resolve them.
In the past nine years, he has traveled to
all of China's provinces (except Taiwan), autonomous regions and
municipalities directly under the Central Government, and gone deep into
grassroots units for investigation and study as well as for the
understanding of social conditions and popular will.
Wherever he goes, he will invariably visit
those workers whose enterprises have not extricated themselves from
difficulties, and express his sincere concerns. He pays special attention
to the life of those people who live in poor areas of remote provinces.
The Chinese Government under his direction
worked out a very ambitious "plan to alleviate poverty" and was
determined to accomplish in the main the task of providing adequate food
and clothing for the needy in rural areas within this century.
In the diplomatic field, the third
generation of collective leadership with Jiang at the core has
demonstrated its outstanding capability to cope with the international
situation and handle all kinds of complex international affairs.
In the past nine years under his
leadership, China has scored a series of diplomatic successes. China's
international standing has risen increasingly and its influence on
international affairs has kept growing.
China's relations with all countries in the
world have further developed on the basis of the Five Principles of
Peaceful Coexistence. The good-neighborly relations with surrounding
countries have further consolidated, and solidarity and cooperation with
the vast number of developing countries have greatly strengthened.
In particular, his successful state visit
to the United State in 1997 made the Sino-US relations enter a new stage.
Jiang as a statesman of the new generation
has the distinct makings and style of a scholar. He has extensive
knowledge. He loves reading, and the most he reads are the latest books on
economics, science and technology, politics and culture.
While in office in Shanghai, he wrote
papers such as On the New Features of the Development of World Electronic
Information Industry and Strategic Problems of the Development of China's
Electronic Information Industry, the Trend of Energy Development in the
World and Main Energy-Saving Measures, which were published in the
"Shanghai Jiaotong University Journal".
He can use English, Russian and Romanian,
and knows some German and Japanese. In meeting with foreign guests, he
often expresses his viewpoints in foreign languages.
He is highly accomplished in famous works
of classic Chinese literature and often quotes in talks well-known lines
from exponents of various schools of thought as well as Tang, Song and
Yuan poetry.
He also reads extensively famous works of
Western literature. He loves to read novels by Mark Twain, and can recite
passages from "Hamlet" by Shakespeare and verses from "Ode
to the West Wind" by Shelley. He also knows very well works by Leo
Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov and Turgenev.
He not only loves literature, but has a
wide range of other interest. He likes both erhu tunes by A Bing, a great
master of Chinese folk music, and symphonic music by Mozart and Beethoven,
great masters of Western music.
At leisure, he may play erhu and bamboo
flute, traditional Chinese musical instruments, as well as the Western
musical instrument piano. He thinks that art treasures of Chinese and
Western cultures are the common spiritual wealth of mankind.
Jiang has a warm, harmonious and happy
family. He and his wife Wang Yeping have two sons, a grandson and a
granddaughter. In his spare time, Jiang often indulges in sporting with
these "pearls in his palm" in great joy, tells them stories and
teaches them to recite ancient poetry and read English, thus enjoying the
traditional Chinese family life of "several generations living under
one roof."
(source: Chinese official news
agency)
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