Top Chinese Communist Party officials gathered in Beijing on Tuesday for a memorial service to honor former president Jiang Zemin, in a display of unity and strength at a time when Chinese leader Xi Jinping faces widespread frustration over his strict coronavirus restrictions and iron-fisted rule.
China holds Jiang Zemin funeral at difficult time for the leadership
On Monday, a funeral ceremony for Jiang, who led China through a period of breakneck economic development from 1989 to 2002, was held at a military hospital in Beijing before he was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, the site in western Beijing where many senior leaders are buried.
The Tuesday morning ceremony at the towering Great Hall of the People in central Beijing is set to conclude a week of national mourning. Chinese state media has reported that the country’s stock exchanges will be suspended for three minutes while air raid sirens ring out and people honk car horns.
News of Jiang’s death Nov. 30, from leukemia and multiple organ failure at age 96, came as Chinese security forces were cracking down on frustrated and mostly young urban residents who took to the streets in more than a dozen cities to protest primarily against “zero covid” policies, but also Xi’s repressive politics.
Chinese authorities have barely acknowledged the largest display of public discontent since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. But a gradual easing of coronavirus testing and quarantine requirements has accelerated in recent days.
Historically, the death of former senior leaders has often been an unsettling time in Chinese politics, when internal divisions within the party elite intensify and public grievances with the current leadership are aired. The passing of Premier Zhou Enlai in 1976 and General Secretary Hu Yaobang in 1989 both fueled student-led protests and calls for deeper reform.
But since the evening of June 3 and morning of June 4, 1989, when the People’s Liberation Army used tanks and bullets to clear demonstrators from Tiananmen Square and the surrounding Beijing streets, the party has been determined to avoid similar crises.
Jiang, who was chosen by Deng Xiaoping and hard-liners as a compromise candidate during the turmoil of 1989, led a campaign of patriotic education teaching schoolchildren of all ages to love the party, as well as pursuing a continued crackdown on Tiananmen leaders.
At the same time, he led an effort to rebuild China’s image globally after the massacre and pushed forward with economic changes and the gradual opening of Chinese markets to the world, culminating in accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Throughout the process of internationalization, however, Jiang continued to openly reject Western-style multiparty democracy and warn of “hostile forces” trying to undermine the party’s rule — a line that has been used frequently under Xi, including during the recent surge of discontent.
Despite Jiang’s harder edge, his death created a degree of nostalgia for a leader who could be spontaneous and displayed a keen interest in the Western world. He was known to be able to recite the Gettysburg Address in English from memory.
Jiang’s eldest son, Jiang Mianheng, a physicist and head of ShanghaiTech University, led the proceedings Monday, carrying a portrait of his father and receiving an embrace from Xi.
Current and former senior leaders, including Hu Jintao, who led the country between Jiang and Xi, paid their final respects to Jiang before he was cremated.
Hu’s sudden departure midway through the final day of the 20th National Party Congress in October drew widespread speculation about both his health and his relationship with Xi, who had just secured a norm-defying third term as leader and cleared the top leadership of Hu proteges in favor of his own lieutenants.
In official footage of the ceremony Monday, Hu was shown walking without help past funeral wreaths.
Source: WP
