The Imperial Dragon

By Terry McCarthy/Hong Kong

To be president of China's 1.3 billion people is already a management proposition from hell. But to become Emperor of China requires a mystical aura of power that can move mountains, change the weather and, these days at least, deal with pesky foreigners who want into your telecommunications market.

Last week President Jiang Zemin made a grab for imperial status by inking a World Trade Organization deal with the U.S. that will open China to free international trade for the first time in history. Along the way, 73-year-old Jiang had to move mountains of conservative opposition at home, change the atmospherics between Beijing and Washington, and, yes, deal with 100 million tangled telephone lines. By any measure, it was a monumental deal for China. But for Jiang it was even more--a bid to boost his reputation from that of polished technocrat to the more mythical status of ideological leader. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping--theirs is the kind of status Jiang is bidding for.

Jiang played his WTO hand brilliantly, waiting for U.S. President Bill Clinton to call him--twice--before putting his weight behind the deal. Says Hong Kong-based Fred Hu, Goldman Sachs' chief China watcher: "That's called the Emperor mentality--you kowtow to me first."

And kowtow the U.S. did. The American negotiators obligingly traveled to Beijing, where Jiang kept his distance from the talks, sending in Premier Zhu Rongji to thrash out the details. Once the pact was signed, however, Jiang elbowed Zhu aside. "The photo op was Jiang's," says Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. Trade Representative, who led the American team.

It was a classic Jiang moment--casual, charming, energizing. He is, after all, a man who can recite from memory sections of the Gettysburg Address--in English. His training as an engineer has given him a reverence for technology and a fluency with the idea of an information economy that make him an ideal leader for a Net-ready nation. And his instincts have always been behind Zhu's economic-reform program, despite opposition from conservative heavyweights in the party. Even today he relies on the advice of his American-educated son Jiang Mianheng.

Yet, as perfect as the moment seemed, it wasn't quite at the imperial level that Jiang aspires to. Even in Beijing, where the WTO celebration was as choreographed as the first act of Cats, the zip and pop of a truly great moment was missing. Ordinary citizens weren't glued to their television sets. And the triumphal speech to his fellow Chinese--the grand gesture or unforgettable sound bite that would lock in the historic moment--never occurred. But such policy blahs don't mean that Jiang won't one day pull off that kind of Maoist dazzle, for he's clearly driven by an ambition to be as imperial as he can be. They're just a sign that in rapidly changing China, Jiang is still not ready to put on the crown. In the country's long tradition, an Emperor needs to inspire awe, tinged with a dash of fear, in his subjects. In a less-than-terrifying display of chumminess, Jiang celebrated his WTO coup by taking Barshefsky to a private swan viewing.

Partly this was the act of a masterly politician. Jiang's amiability reflects a man working hard to avoid offending anyone. It's a kind of sensitivity few Emperors would exhibit, but it is probably tied to the fact that Jiang isn't ruling 15th century China. He's ruling a 21st century nation in which the role of Communist Party leadership is being questioned. Explains Jonathan Pollack, the Rand Corp.'s chief China expert: "Jiang is something of a paradoxical figure... The leadership is very anxious. They have a collective self-esteem problem." Jiang's response is to try to be as reassuring as possible. He is a man who scrupulously avoids breaking eggs.

The problem is that there is much in China that needs breaking. In fine imperial tradition, Jiang has left this task to an underling. While Jiang pacifies by practicing the art of the possible, it is Premier Zhu who prefers--even enjoys--sharpening his teeth on the impossible. Zhu staked his personal prestige on doing a WTO deal single-handedly when he traveled to the U.S. in April--and failed when the White House decided a deal was politically unwise. Jiang patiently waited for Clinton to approach him, meanwhile building a consensus among the Chinese leadership that made the final negotiations this month a question of technicalities rather than political will.

Such caution has been with Jiang from the moment Deng tapped him to head the party after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. "I feel as if I am walking on thin ice," Jiang said then, and even now his nervous smile and effete hand wave suggest someone who knows he's treading delicate ground.

His dilemma is that he is the prisoner of the Chinese Communist Party, which he leads 50 years after its revolution: a party that is empty of vision, worried about unrest, out of touch with a younger generation of Chinese for whom money, not ideology, is the bottom line. The harder Jiang tries to impress, the less China's population wants to listen. He understands the need for economic development, but political openness is still out of the question. Even as the ink was drying on the trade deal, police were detaining members of Falun Gong, the banned meditation cult.

Jiang Zemin will continue to seek his Emperor's robes. His next hope for greatness may lie outside the economic sphere, in Taiwan. "Jiang wants some kind of date for reunification. Then he will go down in history," says Andy Xie, chief economist for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. But moving mountains and changing the weather may prove easier than persuading 22 million Taiwanese that their future is best assured under Emperor Jiang. Until then, WTO may be as good as it gets for the smiling President.

--With reporting by Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing and Barry Hillenbrand/Washington

With reporting by Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing and Barry Hillenbrand/Washington