Jiang Zemin

From her time on the political desk then as Zaobao’s Hong Kong correspondent and Beijing correspondent, Lee Huay Leng, editor-in-chief of SPH Chinese Media Group, recalls her impressions of the late former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Jiang represented the ideas and workings of an era in Chinese politics, and played a great role in shaping China's domestic policies and international diplomacy.

Taiwanese academic Wen-Hsuan Tsai notes that while the late former Chinese President Jiang Zemin had pushed forward economic development during his tenure, he had neglected political reform, and in so doing, possibly paved the way for ever greater centralised rule in China.

US academic Zhu Zhiqun gives an assessment of the late former President Jiang Zemin’s policies during his time leading China throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s.

Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan presents the life and achievements of Jiang Zemin, following his passing at the age of 96. While he was seen as not having enough heft on his own when he first began as CCP general secretary, he had chalked up various achievements by the end of his tenure and graceful exit.

Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution, observes that a new breed of technocratic elites — the “technocrats 2.0” — have rapidly risen to the national leadership in China. What are the major differences between technocrats in the Jiang-Hu eras and the Xi era?

Lance Gore reflects on what Chinese Communist Party cadres today understand by the phrase “Serve the People”, stating that people in positions of power could either serve the people slavishly or ride roughshod over them. The impetus to do right by the populace is simply not ensured. As the authorities seek to get the people more involved in “whole-process democracy”, they will need to consider how the regime’s affinity with the people may be maintained in the absence of electoral democracy.

China has faced reversals of fortune numerous times in history, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. After enjoying decades of upward ascent since its economic reform and opening up, some says China’s fate is about to be reversed again with the coronavirus pandemic, a mammoth disruption that kicked off the 2020s. Lance Gore argues that such massive shock to its political and economic system exposes chinks in its armour but does not necessarily unravel a big country with the world’s most comprehensive industrial structure.

On the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, we present a series of interviews with five ordinary people of China as they reveal their extraordinary lives. As an opener, we begin by taking a look at developments in China under its five leaders.