China's Leader Talks To 60 Minutes
Disagrees Over Meaning Of Dictatorship
BEUDAUHE, China, Sept. 3, 2000
Jiang Zemin discussed a wide range of topics during the interview with Wallace. (CBS)
(CBS) On the eve of his visit to the United States, China's president, Jiang Zemin, sat down for a rare interview with Mike Wallace.
In a wide-ranging and surprisingly frank interview, Jiang talked about many
topics, including relations between the United States and China, Tiananmen
Square and American morals.
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The two met recently inside the presidential compound in the seaside resort
of Beidaihe, in what Chinese officials say is the first visit there by a
Western television news crew.
Jiang, the leader of one of every five people on the planet, has not been
interviewed for U.S. television in more than a decade. Wallace's interview
will air two days before Jiang is scheduled to visit the United States.
Recently, one of China's government newspapers, The China Daily, called the
United States, "a threat to world peace." Asked if he agrees with that
assessment, Jiang treaded lightly.
"Candidly speaking, maybe it is because of the economic power and leading
edge in science and technology that the United States enjoys, that more
often than not [the United States] tends to overestimate itself and its
position in the world," he said. "But today I want to convey a nice message
to the American people, so I don't want to use too many tough words in our
talk."
Asked about the presidential election, and future U.S.-Chinese relations,
Jiang said that he has a lot of friends among both parties.
"So you gave money to both their campaigns?" Wallace asked.
"Are you just joking?" Jiang responded. "We have never done such things. I
have read the campaign platforms of both parties, and I believe whoever
becomes president will try to improve the friendly relations between China
and the United States for this is in the strategic interest of the whole
world. Someone asked me not to pay attention to unfriendly remarks
candidates might make about China during the campaign because once elected
they will be friendly. I only hope that's true."
Prior to the interview, Jiang had agreed to give short answers so the two
men could cover more ground. When Wallace reminded him of that, a smiling
Jiang was ready with a reply, pointing out that his answers had also been
long. "I think my answer is roughly the same length as your question."
Beidaihe, the site of the interview, has been called China's Camp David.
Beidaihe is where the country's leaders meet in private every August to
develop their plans for the coming year. The president agreed to speak
candidly with 60 Minutes, emphasizing that he wants better relations with
America.
"I hope to convey through your program my best wishes to the American people
," he said.
Jiang said that relations between the two countries are, on the whole, good.
But he compared Chinese-U.S. relations to "nature," because of its
variability: "Our relations have experienced wind, rain, and sometimes
clouds r even dark clouds. However, sometimes it clears up. We all sincerely
hope to build a constructive partnership between China and the United
States."
"That's spoken like a real politician," Wallace responded. "There's no
candor in it."
"I don't think politician is a very nice word," Jiang said.
"No, it's not a nice word," Wallace said. "It is a diplomatic word in this
case."
Although Jiang is gregarious and likes attention, he has not given an
extended interview to an American television reporter for 10 years. He says
this is partly because Americans refuse to believe that the vast majority of
Chinese are actually satisfied with one-party rule. Jiang, in fact,
disagreed strongly when Wallace called China a dictatorship.
"Your way of describing what things are like in China is as absurd as what
the Arabian Nights may sound like," Jiang said. "The National Peoples
Congress selects the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the
Central Committee has a Politburo. And the Politburo has a standing
committee of which I'm a member. And no decision is made unless all members
agree."
Wallace asked Jiang if he admired the courage of the student who stood down
the tank during the student uprising in Tiananmen Square.
"He was never arrested," Jiang said. "I don't know where he is now. Looking
at the picture I know he definitely had his own ideas."
"You have not answered the question, Mr. President," Wallace said. "Did a
part of Jiang Zemin admire his courage?"
"I know what you are driving at, but what I want to emphasize is that we
fully respect every citizen's right to freely express his wishes and desires
," Jiang said. "But I do not favor any flagrant opposition to government
actions during an emergency. The tank stopped and did not run the young man
down."
"I'm not talking about the tank," Wallace said. "I'm talking about that man'
s heart, that man's courage, that man, that lonely man, standing against
that."
Wallace then mentioned that Jiang himself had been a student protestor in
Shanghai, during World War II. Was there any parallel?
"In the 1989 disturbance we truly understood the passion of students who
were calling for greater democracy and freedom," Jiang said. "In fact, we
have always been working to improve our system of democracy. But we could
not possibly allow people with ulterior motives to use the students to
overthrow the government under the pretext of democracy and freedom."
A month after Tiananmen, Jiang wrote a speech in which he said, "Corruption
is growing. If all our party and our government organs use that power to
seek material benefits, isn't this just like fleecing the people in broad
daylight?"
Wallace pointed out that the Tiananmen demonstrators had also been
protesting against corruption. Had they had an effect on the Party, Wallace
asked
"I hate corruption," Jiang said. "You are right that during the 1989
disturbance students were changing slogans against corruption, so on this
specific point the Party shares the same position as the students."
As an aside, and to underline his credentials as a student demonstrator in
times past, the president himself sang a protest song he had used back in
1943 against Japanese troops who were occupying parts of China: "Arise
Fellow Students to Defend the Motherland."
The president's aides suggested it would be unfair to show pictures of the
violence at Tiananmen Square because, they say, Jiang Zemin had nothing to
do with it. But they were glad to give 60 Minutes pictures of their embassy
in Belgrade, which had been demolished by American bombers, during NATO's
air war last year.
When asked if he believed that the United States purposely bombed the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Jiang answered obliquely.
"The United States has state-of-the-art technology," he said. "So all the
explanations that they have given us for what they call a mistaken bombing
are absolutely unconvincing."
"The identification marks of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade were too clear
for people to miss," he continued. "So why has there been such an incident?
It is still a question. But we have decided to look forward, to improve
China-U.S. relations."
Afterward, the U.S. government had tried to convince China that the bombing
had been a horrible mistake.
"President Clinton apologized to me for the bombing, many times, on the
telephone," Jiang said. "I told him, since you represent Americans and I
Chinese, it would be impossible for us to reach total agreement on this
issue."
To find out what Jiang thinks about American morals, the Gettysburg Address
and the Falun Gong, go to the second part of the story.
CBS) In his recent interview, President Jiang told Wallace that accused spy
Wen Ho Lee was not a spy for China.
"I can tell you frankly, China was not in any way involved in Wen Ho Lee's
case," Jiang said during the interview. "But we do know that he is a
scientist."
It is not strange, Jiang said, that Lee came to China and talked to Chinese
scientists. "It's just as normal as some Chinese scientists travelling
abroad," he said. "Allow me to quote a Chinese proverb which goes, 'If you
are out to condemn someone, you can always trump up a charge.' We don't know
what political motives are behind it. Today the Chinese still see Wen Ho
Lee as a renowned scientist."
When Wallace said that Jiang seemed nervous for the first time in the
conversation, Jiang laughed, adding that he was not nervous and he asked Wallace whether he thinks Wen Ho Lee is a spy. When Wallace declined to
answer, Jiang chuckled some more.
Years ago when Jiang was a middle-school student learning English, he had
studied the speeches of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. When he was a
teacher, he used the Gettysburg Address in his course.
Wallace asked him about this, and Jiang offered to recite part of it.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent
a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal," Jiang recited from memory.
Wallace asked him why he learned part that so well.
"I focused on the words, 'All men are created equal,'" Jiang said. "This had
a great influence on students when I was young. And I think what Abraham
Lincoln described still remains the goal of American leaders today."
"Especially the last paragraph, 'The government of the people by the people
and for the people shall never perish from the earth,'" he added.
Wallace then asked Jiang about democracy: "Why is it that Americans can
elect their national leaders, but you apparently don't trust the Chinese
people to elect your national leaders? "
"I am also an elected leader, though we have a different electoral system,"
Jiang said. "Each country should have its own system because our countries
have different cultures and historic traditions, and different levels of
education and economic development."
Jiang was chosen by the top leaders of the Communist Party. Public elections
occur only in some villages and small towns, and candidates must either be
members of the Communist Party or run as independents.
Wallace asked Jiang why China had a one-party state. "Why must we have
opposition parties?" Jiang responded. "You are trying to apply the American
values and the American political system to the whole world. But that is not
very wise."
"Let me be frank," Jiang said. "China and the United States differ greatly
in terms of our values. You Americans always use your values in makig
judgments about the political situation in other countries. We want to learn
from the West about science and technology and how to manage the economy,
but this must be combined with specific conditions here. That's how we have
made great progress in the last 20 years."
China's standard of living has been rising dramatically. In China, as in
America, the economy largely determines the level of the people's
satisfaction with their government. Jiang maintains that the vast majority
of Chinese believe a strong one-party rule is the best way to hold the huge
population together and to keep the economy growing. Stability is the top
priority, sometimes at the expense of human rights.
Wallace asked him about human rights and about the Chinese government's
persecution of the religious group Falun Gong.
"Their leader, Li Hongzhi, claims to be the reincarnation of the chief
Buddha, and also a reincarnated Jesus Christ," Jiang said. "Can you believe
that? He said that doomsday was about to come and that the Earth was going
to explode. In fact what he says are just fallacies to deceive people. But
as a result of his preaching, many families were broken and many lives were
lost. So after careful deliberations, we concluded that Falun Gong is an
evil cult."
Jiang pointed out that no Falun Gong followers have ever been sentenced to
death.
But 26 of them have reportedly died in police custody.
Jiang told 60 Minutes the Falun Gong has driven thousands of its members to
commit suicide.
The Falun Gong said that's ridiculous - that it does not encourage suicide
and that it's still going strong despite the Chinese government's efforts to
quash it.
Asked about the Chinese government's persecution of Christians, Jiang said
that Christians have not been persecuted in China, and that the constitution
protects religious freedom, including Christianity. "But Falun Gong is a
cult," he said. "It is totally different from Christianity."
Jiang has always favored tough government controls of the press. "The press,
" he said, "should be a mouthpiece of the Party."
"I think all countries and parties must have their own publications to
publicize their ideas," Jiang told Wallace. "We do have freedom of the press
, but such freedom should be subordinate to and serve the interests of the
nation. How can you allow such freedom to damage the national interests?"
Wallace asked Jiang why it had blocked certain Internet sites, including the
BBC's and the Washington Post’s.
"We hope people will learn a lot of useful things from the Internet," Jiang
said. "However, sometimes there is also unhealthy material - especially
pornography on the Internet - which does great harm to our youngsters."
Wallace pointed out that the BBC and The Washington Post sites did not have
pornography. "They might be banned because of some of their political new
reports," Jiang said. "We need to be selective. We hope to restrict as much
as possible information not conducive to China's development."
China's previous leader, Deng Xiaoping, once said, "to get rich is glorious.
" Jiang said that while this outlook does allow some people to become
wealthy before others, "The ultimate objective is prosperity for all."
Wallace asked him if he thought America was more decadent than China.
"Let me put it this way," Jiang said. "Due to many differences between our
countries in historical traditions, ways of life, religious beliefs, etc.,
things you don't regard as decadent in the States, we may regard as decadent
in China. That's why we have to be very selective."
When he travels to America, Jiang will meet with American business leaders
to urge them to increase their investments in China. Corporate America has
long lusted after China's billion-buyer market, but China still sells a lot
more to the United States than America sells to that country.
In effort to change that, the White House has said that if the U.S. Senate
approves permanent normal trade relations with China, as the House already
has, that would force China to reduce tariffs and trade barriers, and
therfore to buy more American goods.
Jiang wants normal trade relations, too, and he ended the interview by
underscoring that point.
"I'm convinced that this interview will further promote the friendship and
mutual understanding between our two peoples," said Jiang, who told Wallace
that he admires America. "I want to promote mutual understanding between our
two peoples."
