642 { China’s Quest
a joint press conference, the two presidents directly crossed swords on human
rights and democracy, with each trying to get in the last word. Jiang stood
his ground; it was natural, he said, that China and the United States should
have different ideas about human rights and democracy, since they had differ-
ent traditions, different levels of development, and different values. Again, he
never displayed anger and remained calm and friendly. A ninety-minute ses-
sion with fifty members of Congress grilled Jiang in the most direct and even
baiting fashion. Jiang remained calm and refused to take the bait. At a small
private dinner hosted by an eminent US strategic specialist, one American
guest berated Jiang over Tibet and refused to let go of the issue. Jiang finally
responded by standing up, and breaking into the American song “Home on
the Range”—a move that dispelled the tension, disarmed his adversary, and
delighted the other American guests, who had feared the Chinese president
was about to walk out in a huff. Toward the end of his visit, in an interview on
PBS NewsHour, moderator Jim Lehrer pressed Jiang on whether he had been
disturbed by the repeated and direct US criticism of China’s human rights
situation. Jiang replied:
I’m not disturbed at all. China does not feel that it has done anything
wrong in the field of human rights. China has a tradition of five thou-
sand years, and different countries have different histories and cul-
tures. ... I have already felt that I am welcomed by a majority of the
American people here.^12
Jiang’s fairly good command of the English language and his willingness
to employ it combined with his calm frankness and good humor to win sym-
pathy from the American public. Jiang’s visit accomplished its two major
aims: to finally move the PRC-US relation out of the shadow of 6-4 and to
demonstrate to the Chinese people, and more importantly to PBSC members,
that Jiang was an able statesman capable of shepherding China’s emergence
as a great power.
In mid-1998, Clinton reciprocated Jiang’s summit visit. Jiang’s main ob-
jective in handling Clinton’s visit was to demonstrate to China’s people that
China had achieved global status equal to that of the United States and that
he, General Secretary and President Jiang Zemin, was largely responsible for
this via the personal relation he had forged with the American president.^13
A second objective was to secure from Clinton a public statement and af-
firmation of the “three noes” first conveyed by Clinton to Jiang in the secret
August 1, 1995, letter. Now China wanted a public, preferably written, and
authoritative statement of those concessions.
Clinton’s major objective in visiting China was to demonstrate that he was
a strong advocate for freedom of expression, religion, assembly, and other
basic human rights. Clinton saw himself as a spokesman for universal val-
ues, greatly esteemed by the American people who had twice elected him