Long Debate over the US Challenge } 643
president. Clinton had been under strong criticism from people who believed
that he should not bless the “butchers of Beijing” with his presence or that he
was too weak in dealing with Beijing. He was also beset by a sex scandal that
made it more imperative for him to take a high moral tone in China. Thus,
in negotiating arrangements for Clinton’s visit, his representatives pushed for
broad access for Clinton to the Chinese people via China’s media. Eventually,
the two sides agreed to a joint press conference of Clinton and Jiang to be
broadcast live on national television, a televised speech by Clinton followed
by a question and answer session at Beijing University, and another televised
meeting with community leaders at Fudan University in Shanghai. This was
access to the Chinese people far greater than granted any previous US presi-
dent. This required Jiang Zemin to persuade skeptical Politburo members,
who understood that Clinton would use these occasions to make propaganda
for the very bourgeois liberal ideas against which the CCP had waged reso-
lute struggle since 6-4. In effect, allowing the American president to spread
a little ideological poison was worth a successful PRC-US summit, restoring
comity in the relation, and protecting the positive macro-climate for China’s
development drive.
Clinton, in fact, used his opportunity of speaking to the Chinese people
to highlight his belief in freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. Clinton
referred to 6-4 as “wrong” and “a tragic loss of life,” perhaps offering to many
Chinese for the first time an understanding of 6-4 different than that con-
tinually driven home by CCP propaganda. He referred to the guarantee of
basic human rights, including political rights, by the UN Charter, and of
the obligation of “all countries” to guarantee those rights. Clinton predicted
that China’s government would have to grant its people more freedom in the
twenty-first century. As he had a year earlier in the United States, Jiang stood
his ground during the two men’s joint press conference. As one American
analyst put it, ““As in 1997, the two men disagreed firmly but decorously with
each ot her.”^14
By openly debating with Clinton in a calm but effective fashion, Jiang dem-
onstrated to his Chinese audience his own capabilities, personal openness,
and “democratic” nature. He also demonstrated China’s equal status with the
United States: here was China’s president graciously hosting the American
president, but squarely and calmly rebutting his ideas. Chinese media gave
extensive coverage to Jiang’s activities during Clinton’s visit. Chinese televi-
sion broadcast for the first time footage of Jiang swimming at Waikiki Beach
in Honolulu, Hawaii, the previous year during Jiang’s trip to the United
States. Jiang’s own swim in the Pacific Ocean was compared to Deng’s oc-
casional swims at Beidaihe on Bohai Gulf and Mao Zedong’s 1966 swim in
the Yangtze. The symbolic point was that Jiang was following in Mao’s and
Deng’s footsteps by upholding China’s honor and equal status while main-
taining amicable relations with the Americans.