Your Thursday briefing: Jiang Zemin dies

Moreover, Chinese censors are struggling to keep up with the protests.
ImageJiang Zemin in Hong Kong in 1998. Credit...Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
China mourns Jiang Zemin< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Jiang Zemin led the China after the Tiananmen Square protests n 1989 and presided over a decade of meteoric economic growth. He died yesterday at age 96.
Now China must figure out how to honor Jiang during a wave of public defiance on a scale not seen since he came to power. The protests have sometimes boldly called for China to return to the path of liberalization that seemed at least thinkable, if not openly questionable, under Jiang's rule.
Xi Jinping, the sternly autocratic leader, must preside over the mourning – the deaths of Chinese Communist leaders are always difficult moments in the political theater – while preventing Jiang from becoming a symbolic cudgel against Xi's policies. Almost immediately, online tributes to Jiang drew thinly veiled, often sardonic, comparisons between him and Xi.
History: Jiang oversaw a period of dizzying growth , sometimes reckless and polluting. The party controlled political life, but allowed more debate and freer speech than currently exists. Jiang himself was a talkative and disarming exception to the mold of rigid, unsmiling Chinese leaders.

World Dec 1, 2022 0 110 Add to Reading List

Your Thursday briefing: Jiang Zemin dies

Moreover, Chinese censors are struggling to keep up with the protests.

Jiang Zemin, wearing an olive green uniform, walks along a red carpet while passing reviewing the ranks of the People's Liberation Army, each soldier, in blue uniform and white gloves, holding a rifle in front of him.

China mourns Jiang Zemin< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Jiang Zemin led the China after the Tiananmen Square protests n 1989 and presided over a decade of meteoric economic growth. He died yesterday at age 96.

Now China must figure out how to honor Jiang during a wave of public defiance on a scale not seen since he came to power. The protests have sometimes boldly called for China to return to the path of liberalization that seemed at least thinkable, if not openly questionable, under Jiang's rule.

Xi Jinping, the sternly autocratic leader, must preside over the mourning – the deaths of Chinese Communist leaders are always difficult moments in the political theater – while preventing Jiang from becoming a symbolic cudgel against Xi's policies. Almost immediately, online tributes to Jiang drew thinly veiled, often sardonic, comparisons between him and Xi.

History: Jiang oversaw a period of dizzying growth , sometimes reckless and polluting. The party controlled political life, but allowed more debate and freer speech than currently exists. Jiang himself was a talkative and disarming exception to the mold of rigid, unsmiling Chinese leaders.