Xi Jinping faces another dilemma: how to mourn Jiang Zemin

The deaths of Chinese communist leaders are always fraught moments of political theater, and especially now with the passing of Jiang Zemin shortly after one wave of public resistance on a scale unseen since Mr Jiang came to power in 1989.

China’s austerely autocratic current leader Xi Jinping must lead the mourning for Mr Jiang, who died aged 96 on Wednesday, while also struggling with widespread protests against China’s exceptionally strict Covid-19 restrictions. The demonstrations have also at times brutally called on China to return to the path of political liberalization that seemed at least conceivable, even openly negotiable, under Mr Jiang in the 1990s.

How mr. Xi Orchestrating Achievement – ​​Paying Homage to Mr. Jiang while avoiding becoming a symbolic cudgel against Mr. Xi – will be another challenge for him in the coming weeks as China tries to rising cases of coronavirus and an economic slowdown.

“We mourn Comrade Jiang Zemin with a heavy heart and will turn our grief into strength,” said Mr. Xi Wednesday. according to an official summary of his remarks to a visiting Lao leader. The front page of Volksdagbladthe party’s newspaper, in sad black and white on Thursday, was completely dominated by articles about the death of mr. Jiang and a large portrait of him.

“How they mourn his death may provoke more anger, even though Jiang Zemin never enjoyed the popularity of Hu Yaobang,” said Lynette H. Ong, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who studies China, referring to the leader whose sudden died in 1989 led to the protest movement in Tiananmen Square. “It will at least give people a legitimate reason to come together and mourn.”

Almost immediately, the announcement of Mr. Jiang a deluge of online tributes from Chinese. Quite a few made thinly veiled, often sardonic comparisons between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Xi, whose authoritarian policy have taken censorship and ideological controls to new heights.

A comment on Weibo, a social media service in China, then recalled Mr Jiang used a megaphone in 1998 to urge rescuers to prevent storm surge barriers from breaching. The commentary said Chinese society at the time was “advancing vigorously, cheerfully, singing as we entered a new era”.

Many other comments were not so effusive. As a leader, Mr. Jiang can be swollen and repressive when his political survival demands it, including against followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. He was also known for his high opinion of himself and his equally high pants.

But Chinese people found enough reasons to remember the time of Mr. Jiang in a senior central position from 1989 to 2004, as China moved from a post-Tiananmen political freeze to years of dizzying, sometimes reckless and polluting growth. The party tightly controlled political life, but allowed law attorneys, commercial news outlets, belligerent dissidents, and liberal party scholars to participate in public debate—a slice of freedom that doesn’t exist now.

“Toad, we wrongly blamed you before; you are the ceiling, not the floor,” said one comment, citing a popular nickname for Mr. Jiang, based on his stocky figure and large glasses.

Another comment recalled 1997, when Chinese audiences got to enjoy Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in a movie with a relatively risqué story for that time in China. “Goodbye,” said a popular comment marking Mr. Jiang’s death, “Thank you for letting us all watch Titanic that year.”

Hours after his death, Weibo censors moved quickly to restrict commentary on the news, apparently to prevent relatively innocent nostalgia from turning into sharp criticism of Mr Xi and the party, especially after several days of political turbulence. The “Titanic” comment was deleted after garnering tens of thousands of likes.

“In death, Hu Yaobang became a heroic martyr, while in life he did not enjoy that reputation at all,” said Geremie R. Barmé, a sinologist in New Zealand, who was in Beijing in 1989 and left shortly before the military massacre. protesters and residents. “In today’s nostalgic haze, the same thing could happen to Jiang Zemin.”

On weekends, demonstrators demonstrate in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and other Chinese cities collected in the hundreds and thousands to denounce strict, intrusive and burdensome policies aimed at eradicating coronavirus cases. Some took the opportunity to also call for democratic change, freedom of the press, an end to ubiquitous censorship and even the removal of Mr. Xi and the Communist Party.

The resistance had some distant echoes with the 1989 movement, when the death of Hu Yaobang, a reformist leader who had been removed from power, sparked student protests that occupied Tiananmen Square until an armed crackdown on the square on June 4. The deaths of other Chinese leaders have also sparked protest and dissent, most notably Zhou Enlai in 1976.

Mr Xi could use mourning rituals for Mr Jiang to try to “recover from his isolated situation,” Zhang Lifan, a Beijing historian, said in written responses to questions about Mr Jiang’s death.

“Whether this is a deliverance from the June 4 nightmare or a return, we just have to wait and see,” said Mr. Zhang.

But a repeat of 1989 seems extremely unlikely under Xi’s heavy net of security, suggested Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation who analyzes the Chinese Communist Party. “Jiang Zemin’s death will not have a ripple effect on Chinese politics,” he said.

Still, the challenge for Mr. Xi will be to orchestrate the funeral events to ensure it stays that way. By announcing Mr. Jiang’s death, the party paid tribute to his achievements, especially in promoting economic change and modernizing China’s military. It also urged the country to rally behind Mr Xi.

A announcement about funeral arrangements because mr. Jiang indicated that a memorial service would be held and that – according to party custom – international leaders would not be invited.

Like the death of previous great Chinese leaders such as Deng Xiaoping are a guide, can Mr. Xi also presided over the service at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where thousands of officials, dignitaries and probably Mr. Jiang’s relatives gather. But fears about the spread of the coronavirus may limit the guest list this time.

Small as the ceremony may be, there will also be the thorny question of whether and how Hu Jintao, China’s top leader in the decade between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Xi, must be involved. From Mr. Hu name was on a long list of civil servants and retired civil servants who will oversee arrangements for bereavement activities.

But Mr. Hu, notoriously buttoned up while in power, caused a rare commotion at a party congress in October that disrupted Mr Xi’s triumphant moment before winning another five-year term in power.

On the last day of the convention, Mr. Dazed, Hu reached for a document on a table in front of him, and after some commotion was abruptly escorted out of the room while other senior officials mostly stared straight ahead with stone faces. Theories circulated that Mr. Hu somehow protested to Mr. Xi, although Mr. Hu suggests that illness was the most likely cause. Still, Mr. Xi does not want a repeat.

Reporting contributed by Changche, David Pierson, Joy Dong, Claire Fu and Amy Chang Chien.