Protests: Don’t stirr Trouble, Comrade Jiang

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The party leadership might be concerned that Jiang Zemin’s death could lead from public mourning to an idolization of the deceased leader, and to more protests from there (rhymes with “past leaders were better than you guys at the top”).

Also, the party may want to serve a reminder of what it can do if it considers its rule threatened (rhymes with June 4, 1989).

While the current protests are heavily censored, June 4, 1989 was mentioned in yesterday’s main evening news, in a read-out Jiang Zemin obituary, even if n ot as “liu-si”, but rather as ījiǔbājiǔ nián chūn xià zhī jiāo:

As mayor and as municipal party secretary of Shanghai, Comrade Jiang Zemin led the cadres and masses in Shanghai to raise their spirits and to daring exploration, promoting great breakthroughs in Shanghai’s opening-up and its socialist modernization. The development and opening-up of Pudong was taking shape, he promoted party-building, and the building of spiritual civilization and of society saw major progress. As spring passed into summer in 1989, serious political crisis occurred in our country. Comrade Jiang Zemin supported and carried out the Party Central Commission’s correct decision to take a clear-cut stand and to fight against turmoil, and the correct decision to defend socialist state power, to protect the fundamental interests of the people, and to closely rely on the numerous party members, cadres and masses to vigorously protect Shanghai’s stability.
一九八五年，江泽民同志任上海市市长、中共上海市委副书记。一九八七年，江泽民同志在党的十三届一中全会上当选为中共中央政治局委员，并任中共上海市委书记。担任上海市长、市委书记期间，江泽民同志带领上海广大干部群众振奋精神、勇于探索，推动上海改革开放和社会主义现代化建设取得重大突破，浦东开发开放蓄势谋篇，推动党的建设、精神文明建设、社会建设取得重大进步。一九八九年春夏之交我国发生严重政治风波，江泽民同志拥护和执行党中央关于旗帜鲜明反对动乱、捍卫社会主义国家政权、维护人民根本利益的正确决策，紧紧依靠广大党员、干部、群众，有力维护上海稳定。
In 1989, at the 13th Central Committee’s fourth plenary session, Comrade Jiang Zemin was elected into the politburo’s standing committee, and the central committee’s general secretary. The same year, the 13th central committee’s fifth plenary session made  Jiang Zemin should become chairman of the party’s central military commission.  In 1990, at the 7th National People’s Congress’ third session, he was elected chairman of the People’s Republic of China’s central military commission.
一九八九年，在党的十三届四中全会上，江泽民同志当选为中共中央政治局常委、中央委员会总书记。同年，党的十三届五中全会决定江泽民同志为中共中央军事委员会主席。一九九〇年，在七届全国人大三次会议上当选为中华人民共和国中央军事委员会主席。

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Related

王丹：就算江執政 中國也不會有民主, RTI, Dec 01, 2022
Popular History Reader, July 31, 2012
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Jiang Zemin, 1926 – 2022

Wikimedia Commons – click picture for source

Jiang Zemin (江泽民), one of the CCP leadership’s many trained engineers, the man who invented the socialist market economy and the three represents, … Relatively untarnished by the June-4 crackdowns, he became the CCP’s chairman (or secretary general) in June 1989, by means of what official Chinese sources usually refer to as an “election”, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth CPC Central Committee.  Jiang had spent some time abroad, as a trainee at the Stalin Automobile Works in Moscow in 1955, and later worked in leading technical and party functions in trades as different as the automotive and soap-manfucaturing industries. His work turned more administrative and governmental some time after 1980.

In October 1992, he told the 14th CCP party congress that

To establish a socialist market economy we must do the following important and interrelated tasks.  First, we must change the way in which state-owned enterprises operate, especially the large and medium-sized ones, and push them into the market so as to increase their vitality and efficiency. This is the key to establishing a socialist market economy, consolidating the socialist system and demonstrating its superiority.

Based on Deng Xiaoping‘s concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics (中国特色社会主义), the socialist market economy (社会主义市场经济) focused on growth – something Deng kept emphasizing, sometimes against opposition from more conservative party leaders such as Chen Yun. Even Jiang is said to have come fully behind Deng’s all-out advocacy of growth once the paramount elder had made his inspection tour to the south (i. e. Shenzhen), garnering local support for his reform agenda, and proving that he was still China’s most powerful man, even if (mostly) from backstage.

Unlike his mentor Deng Xiaoping, he was no revolutionary veteran, and therefore lacked some or much of the traditional authority to head the party’s central military commission at the time. He led the commission anyway, and worked to make it clear that he was no mere civilian business promoter, according to a short news notice by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel in January 1995:

Those who criticize me for raising glasses with Western leaders must understand that this is tactics,

he told PLA officers in Chengdu, according to a central committee document the Spiegel said it had on hand.

I’m aware that the West remains our main enemy.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has remained one of the CCP’s slogans, even as Jiang’s (and Deng’s) propensity to growth lost favor among the fourth generation of party leadership, i. e. the previous (Hu-Wen led) politbureau. The term socialist market economy has become less frequently used. In June 2011, China Daily hailed the concept as evidence for the wisdom of the CPC and its able leadership of the Chinese people in their endeavor to build a prosperous, civilized, democratic and harmonious modern socialist state and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation only in June 2011, but left no doubt that the Deng-Jiang approach had been second stage in a three-stage development strategy, and that

Now we are striding forward toward the strategic objective of the third stage. From now to the mid-21st century, China will be in a period of in-depth development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, marketization and internationalization, an important period of strategic opportunities for economic and social development, but also a period with prominent social contradictions.

The three-staged approach referred to by the above China-Daily article of June 2011 had been spelled out by Jiang Zemin’s predecessor Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳), in 1987. Jiang was to replace Zhao two years later, after Zhao had been ousted in the process of the June-4 crackdown. Li Peng (李鹏), state council chairman at the time of the crackdown, and the Standing Committee of the “National People’s Congress” afterwards, referred to the third stage as a the one where

we will catch up with medium-level developed countries in terms of per capita GNP by the middle of this century, achieve modernisation by and large and turn China into a prosperous, strong, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country,

in January 2001, speaking to an audience in India.

The Hong Kong handover in 1997 added to the glorious picture of growth, this time in terms of political power. But appointing the former British colony’s tycoon Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) as the chief executive of the newly-created special administrative region (or having him “elected”) was probably one of Jiang’s leadership’s less lucky choices. In October 2000, enraged by Hong Kong journalists’ questions about if the CCP supported Tung’s candidacy for a second term, and if so, how that support could play a role, if Tung was really to be elected, Jiang told the questioners that they were “too simple, sometimes nayifu”. Tung, deeply embarrassed (by his fellow Hong Kongers, his boss, or both sides), was laughing in the background.

In his angry lecture, Jiang also advised the Hong Kong press people to learn from Mike Wallace, an American anchorman who had interviewed him about a month earlier, in the seaside resort of Beidaihe. It had been an unusual  interview, by CCP leadership standards, one that Jiang had visibly enjoyed, and one that had probably gone very well for him, in terms of public relations. Compared to his successor, he came across as a cosmopolitan, with a certain command of several foreign languages, including English, Russian, and arguably some German. When Spiegel journalists met with Jiang in 2002, they were greeted in German, with no accent.

Jiang had stated the need to deepen the reform of the system of distribution and the system of social security, in his 14th CCP party congress speech of October 1992, but that was basically that. If in essence, the objective of socialism was to liberate and develop the productive forces, to eliminate exploitation and polarization, and ultimately to achieve common prosperity, liberating the productive forces certainly came first. Growing divides between rich and poor didn’t appear to trouble either Jiang, or Zhu Rongji‘s (朱镕基) state council.

Another trend however did – the growing influence of a qigong-related, or buddhism-related religious organization, Falun Gong. In reaction to an incident in Tianjin, a massive silent protest involving over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners or supporters was organised in Beijing on April 25, 1999. The CCP leadership declared Falun Gong an “evil cult” in July, 1999, and started a lasting crackdown, initially supplemented with extended evening news propaganda featuring allegations against the organization which were hardly more “scientific” than the “evil cult” itself. Here, too, Hong Kong’s unfortunate chief executive Tung Chee-hwa was walking on eggshells, trying to please both his superiors in Beijing, and the public in Hong Kong.

When Jiang stepped down as the CCP’s secretary general in November 2002, he had held the post for more than thirteen years. He relinquished state chairmanship in March 2003, and the party’s central military commission chairmanship in September 2004.

Jiang Zemin was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, in 1926. He is survived by his wife Wang Yeping (王冶坪, also born in Yangzhou), and by two sons, Jiang Mianheng (江绵恒) and Jiang Miankang (江绵康).

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Related
» Jiang Zemin’s Health Matters, July 8, 2011
» Tiger on the Brink, New York Times, about 1998

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Most headlines in during Jiang’s life after retirement came from Falun-Gong affiliated media. The close interest from these quarters was no coincidence.

Xu Yuanchong, 1921 – 2021

Documentaries made during a man’s lifetime often do a better job at describing him, than obituaries. Here’s a good film on Xu Yuanchong (许渊冲) – unfortunately only in Chinese.
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Zhang Kaiyuan, 1926 – 2021

Zhang Kaiyuan (章开沅) was born in Wuhu, Anhui Province, on July 8, 1926, with ancestry mainly in Zhejiang province. According to Xinhua, he studied at Nanjing Jinling University before leaving for the “Zhongyuan Liberated Area”.  Zhongyuan stands for the “Central Plains”, both a geographical and historical term, and particularly contested for its historical aspects. Zhang apparently didn’t complete his studies before leaving Nanjing. He is said to have been a pioneer of Xinhai Revolution research in the 1950s, and of the Nanjing Massacre (1937/38) in the late 1980s, after finding that an American teacher from his alma mater’s history department had saved Chinese citizens during the massacre. He started teaching at Central China Normal University in 1959, and became the university’s president in 1985.

One of his more famous quotes appears to be that

“scholarly research isn’t about charming the talk of our times, but to search real knowledge for later generations. It has become the past with a full stop to it, and a never-ending journey.”

『治学不为媚时语，独寻真知启后人。历史是已经画上句号的过去，史学是永无止境的远航。』

Zhang was a member of the Communist Party of China. He died on May 28, aged 94 (or, by the Chinese way of counting, 95).

Lee Teng-hui, 1923 – 2020

Lee Teng-hui and Nelson Mandela met twice: in 1993, when Mandela visited Taiwan, and in 1994, when Lee attended his inauguration as South Africa’s first democratically-elected president.

台湾的主张， 台湾，1999，p. 103

They were two 20th-century giants of democracy, and there were a number of experiences they had in common – struggles for emancipation, more or less intensive tries at Communism, and a crucial role in the democratization of their countries, respectively. But while Mandela led a long open struggle, spending many decades of it in jail, Lee rose through the ranks of the nationalist KMT, supported and promoted by Chiang Ching-kuo during the 1970s and 1980s.

Lee probably owed much of his career to Chiang’s intention to co-opt native Taiwanese citizens into the KMT – a party which Lee actually (and secretly) hated. In the end, he owed his presidency to Chiang, to those in the KMT who threw their weight behind him after Chiang’s death in January 1988, and his own skills as a politician and a technocrat.

Lee’s career came full circle after his presidency had ended in 2000. The KMT revoked his membership in 2001, citing violation of party rules, not least their former president’s and chairman’s close contacts with the Taiwan Solidarity Union.

The KMT had been a vehicle on which Lee pushed forward Taiwan’s democratization, and the re-emergence of Taiwan’s own identity. This rediscovery is still an ongoing process.

While Mandela’s successes and limits in democratizing South Africa were a matter of wide global concern, attention and respect, Lee’s achievements and setbacks mostly took place in the shadows. The likeliest situations that would make the global public look towards the island was when it was threatened by China, with words or military exercises.

Delivering a lecture to an audience at his American alma mater, Cornell University, in 1995, Lee described Taiwan’s situation this way:

When a president carefully listens to his people, the hardest things to bear are the unfulfilled yearnings he hears. Taiwan has peacefully transformed itself into a de­mocracy. At the same time, its international economic ac­tivities have exerted a significant influence on its relations with nations with which it has no diplomatic ties. These are no minor accomplishments for any nation, yet, the Repub­lic of China on Taiwan does not enjoy the diplomatic rec­ognition that is due from the international community. This has caused many to underestimate the international dimen­sion of the Taiwan Experience.

When Lee retired, he essentially moved from the “pan-blue” (KMT-dominated) political camp into the “pan-green” (DPP-dominated) one. He supported both President Chen Shui-bian, and then current President Tsai Ing-wen. And he was prosecuted by the KMT after Ma Ying-jeou had taken office as president in 2008. Lee apparently wasn’t accused of unjustified enrichment, but of “diverting funds and money-laundering”. In November 2013, he was acquitted.

While Lee was known as a technocrat, especially with a record in agriculture, he also sought for new “spiritual” foundations for Taiwan’s emancipation from the Republic of China, i. E. the Chiang Dynasty’s China, imposed on Taiwan during the 1940s’ second half.

My active advocacy, he wrote in the late 1990s,

for  the “reform of heart and soul” in recent years is based on my hope to make society leave the old framework, applying new thought, face a new era, stir new vigor, from a transformation of peoples’ hearts. This goes deeper than political reform, and it is a more difficult transformation project, but we are confident that we will, based on the existing foundations of freedom and openness, achieve the building of a new Central Plain.

近年来，我积极倡导“心灵改革”，就是希望从人心的改造做起，让我们的社会走出旧有的框架，用新的思维，面对新的时代，并激发出新的活力。这是一个比政治 改革更加深入、也更为艰巨的改造工程，但是我们有信心，可以在社会自由开放的既有基础上，完成建立“文化新中原”的目标。

Zhongyuan (中原, the central plains) is a term charged with a Chinese sense of mission and civilization – in that context, it may appear surprising that Lee, a “splittist element”, would use the term at all. The way Henan party secretary Xu Guangchun (徐光春) referred to the central plains may give you an idea: The history of Henan Province constitutes half of the Chinese history. Two years earlier, Xu had apparently given a talk in Hong Kong, with a similar message. But this wasn’t necessarily what Lee had on mind, in 1996.
From “Taiwanisation – Its Origin and Politics”, George Tsai Woei, Peter Yu Kien-hong, Singapore, 2001, page 19 – 20 (footnotes omitted):

Another anecdote should also be mentioned here. In 1996, Lee Teng-hui declared his ambition to “manage the great Taiwan, and to construct a new Central Plain”. As is known, Central Plain (zhong-yuan) was, and still is, a term usually reserved to describe cultural China. To “manage the big Taiwan” is something easily understood, but to construct a new “Central Plain” is very controversial, to say the least. Some argued that Lee’s aim was to help rebuild China as a “new” central plain, but with his foot firmly on Taiwan. But others rebutted that what really was in Lee’s minds was to build Taiwan as a new Central Plain so that there was no need to unify, or have connections, with the “old” central plain, China.

But while the Taiwan experience hasn’t become as much part of human heritage as South Africa’s has, Lee power to shape his country’s development was probably much greater than Mandela’s to shape South Africa’s.

Lee had become president in extraordinary times. Opposition groups, and “illegally” founded political parties among them, had demanded the lifting of the decades-old martial law for a long time. And when Lee began his second term as president in 1990, after the two remaining years of what had originally been Chiang Ching-kuo’s term, students occupied what is now Taipei’s Liberty Square. Once Lee had been sworn in again, he received a fifty-students delegation and promised Taiwan’s democratization, less than a year after the Tian An Men massacre in China.

When a man follows the leader, he actually follows the mass, the majority group that the leader so perfectly represents,

Jacques Ellul wrote in the 1960s^*), and added:

The leader loses all power when he is separated from his group; no propaganda can emanate from a solitary leader.

Lee understood that. Maybe Chiang Ching-kuo understood it, too. But when he made Lee Vice President in 1984, and therefore his heir-apparent, he probably did not know at all how far the “group” – Taiwan’s complex mixture of “ordinary people”, Taiwanese and Chinese nationalists, and, all among them, the islands Indigenous people – would make Lee Teng-hui go.

Taiwan Presidential Office Spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka remembers Lee Teng-hui – click photo for Tweet

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^*) Jacques Ellul: Propaganda, the Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Paris 1962, 2008, New York 1965, S. 97

Obituary: Ji Chaozhu, 1929 – 2020

The following info is based on informal or possibly semi-official obituaries and should be taken with a bit of salt.

Ji Chaozhu was born in Fenyang City, Shanxi Province, in July 1929. Reportedly at times an overseas student in America, he “gave up his studies without hesitation and, overcoming one difficulty after another, returned to the motherland” after the establishment of “New China” (新中国成立后，他追随父亲冀贡泉、兄长冀朝鼎足迹，毅然放弃在美国哈佛大学的学业，克服重重困难，回到祖国). He became a member of the Communist Youth League of China as a Tsinghua University student in May 1951, joined the “People’s Volunteer Army”, and was commended both by China and North Korea for his role in the Korean Armistice negotiations in Kaesong. Beijing Daily (北京日报)^*) quotes from his reminiscence:

At times when a breakthrough in the negotiations was impossible, an American artillery shell would fall into our side of the demilitarized zone near Panmunjom or even Kaesong. At such times, there would be a bilateral investigation, usually with one military officer from each side, plus an interpreter and a stenographer. Our side usually dispatched Colonel Chai Chengwen, and I would be the stenographer. A stenographer didn’t only have to keep records of what both sides said, but also to minute all signs and letters on the artillery shells in the place, so as to show that the Demilitarized Zone Agreement had been broken. At a time, an American shell was lying in its crater without having detonated. I jumped into the crater to write down all letters and notations before climbing out again. Comrade Li Kenong, who later became deputy foreign minister and who worked at the Panmunjom negotiations at the time, told my brother Chao Dingshuo: “Your younger brother is unusually brave. He doesn’t fear death, and dares to jump into a crater with an undetonated shell.”

“有时在谈判无法突破时，一发美国炮弹就会落到非军事区我方一边，板门店附近，甚至开城。这时就有一个双方联合调查，一般双方各派一名军官，还配备一名翻译和一名速记员。我方一般派出柴成文上校，我是速记员。速记员的职责不光是记录双方说的话，还要记录落下炮弹上所有的标志和文字，以证明非军事区的协议被破坏了。有一次，一枚美国炸弹落在弹坑里，没有引爆。我跳到弹坑里把炸弹上的所有文字和记号都记下来才爬出弹坑。当时在板门店主持谈判工作、后来的外交部副部长李克农同志有次对我大哥朝鼎说：‘你弟弟非常勇敢，不怕死，敢跳进没有引爆的弹坑里。’”

Also according to Beijing Daily, Ji became chief state councillor Zhou Enlai’s English translator in 1957, and kept the job for 17 years. A year earlier, in March 1956, he had become a member of the Chinese Communist Party. He became a diplomat in March 1973, with a focus on Sino-American relations. Having served as an ambassador to Fiji and Kiribati concurrently in the 1980s, he became ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1987, and was one of the UN deputy secretary generals from January 1991 to 1996.

According to Taiwan’s China Post, “The Paper”, a Shanghai website, was informed by friends and relatives of Ji’s that the diplomatic veteran had died.

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Note

^*) Beijing Daily quotes from one of its publishing house’s new media channels, “长安街知事”, which may loosely be translated as “familiar with what’s going on Chang’an Road”.
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Obituary: Li Wenliang, 1986 – 2020

One would like to deny it, but even the crudest of propaganda will leave tireless traces on the hard disks of generations. This defines the way Li Wenliang (李文亮), an eye doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital at his lifetime, will be collectively remembered – as a hero who served the people, not as a serious professional.

His death is a calamity, and so is the way he is going to live on in the people’s memory. The authorities didn’t see him in a position to do his job, unhampered by politics. The CCP can’t deal with professional attitudes – to the leadership and its fat cats at the grassroots, ordinary Chinese people are always children, and daddy (or stepdaddy) always knows better. And of course, only daddy must ever excel at his job – be it running the economy, be it running “vocational schools” for alleged “extremists” in Xinjiang, or be it handing down “instructions on how to handle the epidemic”.

Now, Li’s death is becoming a didactic play that flies into the face of the geniuses in Zhongnanhai. Not everything was wrong with the system. A month after Li had been reprimanded for going public (i. e. on the internet) with his medical findings, the Supreme People’s Court reportedly said that “[i]t might have been a fortunate thing if the public had believed the ‘rumors’ then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitization measures, and avoid the wild animal market.”

The unfortunate thing is that the People’s Court’s utterances come across as a try to defuse a dangerous idol – some kind of uncontrollable modernized Lei Feng, conceived and created outside the CPC’s laboratories. He isn’t a marginal idol – even CCTV is sobbing (supposedly, not only outside the Great Firewall of China).

Still, Zhongnanhai may continue to sleep well behind its firewalls. Not even “Sound of Hope”, a Falun-Gong affiliated radio station, appears to find much criticism of the central leadership online, be it because the usual screenplay – idiots at the grassroots, wise leaders at the top – is still effective, be it because the censors are doing a great job.

Li is reportedly survived by his pregnant wife and one child.

Li Wenliang, born in Liaoning Province on October 12, 1986, died in Hubei Province on February 6 or 7, 2020.

Xinhua: Jacques Chirac’s “profound awareness”

Main Link: “Jacques Chirac: a French president’s love for China” (希拉克:一位法国总统的中国情缘)

Xinhua, Paris, Sept 26, 2019 — Jacques Chirac, currently France’s “most popular politician,” was also an important foreign leader with a deep affinity to China. On September 26, his family confirmed that this former French president had died on that day, aged 86. The independent and self-determined diplomatic position and anti-war philosophy he took during his presidency has left France and even Europe with a precious legacy.

新华社巴黎9月26日电 雅克·希拉克，法国当代“最受欢迎的政治家”，也是一位有着深深“中国情缘”的外国政要。9月26日，希拉克的家人确认，这位法国前总统当天上午与世长辞，享年86岁。希拉克担任总统期间的独立自主外交立场和反战理念，是留给法国乃至欧洲的宝贵政治遗产。

That’s the way they liked him (click picture for CCTV video)

Gaining fame by opposing war

反战赢声誉

Jacques Chirac was born on November 29, 1932 in Paris, Corrèze [?]¹⁾, his father was a manager at Crédit Commericale de France. [Chirac] graduated at Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration. At a young age, he followed Charles de Gaulle’s policies, and was elected to France’s National Assembly before he was 40 years old. In 1974, he became France’s prime minister. After resigning as prime minister in 1976, he founded the Rassemblement pour la République and became its first chairman. From 1986 to 1988, Chirac took up the post of prime minister again. In 1995 he was elected French president, re-elected in 2002, staying in office until he retired in 2007.

希拉克1932年11月29日生于巴黎科雷兹镇，其父曾为法国商业银行总管。他毕业于巴黎政治学院、法国国家行政学院，年轻时就追随戴高乐从政，不到40岁当选为法国国民议会议员。1974年，希拉克出任法国总理。1976年辞去总理职务后，他创立保卫共和联盟并任主席。1986年至1988年，希拉克再度出任法国总理。1995年他当选法国总统，2002年连任，直至2007年卸任。

photo / caption: on July 14, 1995, just been elected president, Chirac attended the Bastille Day military parade at the Place de la Concorde. (Xinhua)

Despite having lost much of its former economic power, France played the role of a top-ranking power in the field of diplomacy. When British and American-led coalition forces started the Iraq war in 2003, France, led by Chirac, stood at the forefront of the anti-war camp.

在希拉克时代，法国尽管经济实力已大不如前，但在外交领域却一度发挥着一流大国的作用。2003年，以英美军队为主的联军发动伊拉克战争，希拉克率领的法国则站在了反战阵营的前列。

Before the Iraq war began, Chirac clearly said that France would exercise its veto power at the UN security council. One year after the beginning of the war, Chirac predicted that the Iraq war would lead to increasing terrorist activities and make the world more dangerous. The facts have confirmed the truth of Chirac’s warning.

伊拉克战争开始前，希拉克明确表示法国会在联合国安理会行使否决权。开战后一年，希拉克就预言，伊拉克战争将导致恐怖活动加剧，会让世界变得更加危险。事实证明，希拉克的警告是正确的。

Chirac’s firm opposition to the war earned France global fame, but especially in the Arab world. Many French people took pride in Chirac, believing that on a matter of peace or war, of life and death, “he had adhered to French principles and upheld justice and morality.”

希拉克的坚定反战立场，使得法国在全球、特别是阿拉伯世界赢得了声誉。不少法国人以希拉克为荣，认为他在“事关和平与战争，生命和死亡”的时候，“坚持了法国的原则，捍卫了正义和道德”。

As the leader of one of the Western powers, Chirac was very clear-headed about the trend of global multi-polarization and advocated a “strong Europe” for that reason. In 2007, he said at a EU summit that “the world’s biggest transformation is that we are going through a decade of transformation, from global uni-polarity to multi-polarity. He also believed that European diversity and social fusion were important factors in maintaining strength.

作为西方大国领袖，希拉克对世界多极化的趋势非常清醒，并主张为此需要“强大的欧洲”。2007年，他在欧盟峰会上表示，“世界最大的变革在于，我们正经历从单极世界向多极世界转变的年代”。他同时认为，欧洲的多样性和社会融合是保持强大的重要因素。

photo / caption: on April 28, 2002, French president Chirac, at the central French city of Nontron, embraced a baby from the welcoming crowed at a election campaign event. The presidential elections were held on May 5 that year. (Xinhua / Reuters)

2002年4月28日，法国总统希拉克在法国中部城市农特龙进行竞选活动时，从欢迎人群中接抱一个婴儿。法国总统选举当年5月5日举行。（新华社/路透）

In 2009, a survey conducted by opinion pollster IFOP for “Paris Match” found that two years after leaving office, Chirac remained the most popular politician in the French peoples’ opinion.

2009年法国民调机构Ｉｆｏｐ为《巴黎竞赛画报》所做一项调查中，卸任两年的希拉克被法国人视为“最受欢迎的政治家”。

Deep love for China

中国情缘深

Chirac wasn’t only a well-known politician and diplomat, but also an elegant connoisseur of oriental culture. He had a particular passion for the long history of Chinese culture, which he had studied a lot. French media have called him a man who ardently loves China”, having a “deep affinity towards China”.

希拉克不仅是著名的政治家与外交家，也是品位高雅的东方文化鉴赏家。他对历史悠久的中国文化情有独钟，且颇有研究。法国媒体称他为“热爱中国的人”，有着深深的“中国情缘”。

As a youngster, Chirac often went to Guimet Museum. At the time, he was particularly attracted to Chinese art, especially ancient bronze devices. Appreciation of ancient Chinese bronze devices became his hobby at the time, at times an obsessive one. According to a diplomat familiar with Chirac, he can even accurately determine the historic age of Chinese bronze relics. In July 2007, while attending a NATO summit was “absent-mindedly” reading a book. The moment was captured on camera by a French reporter who published the news that “president takes a short break, studying Chinese bronze devices.”

希拉克在少年时代经常光顾法国国立吉美亚洲艺术博物馆。当时，他被中国艺术品特别是古代青铜器深深吸引。从此，中国青铜器鉴赏研究成为他的爱好，甚至到痴迷程度。据了解希拉克的外交官介绍，希拉克甚至能准确判断中国青铜器的历史年代。2002年7月，希拉克出席北约首脑会议时“开小差”读书。这一幕被在场的法国记者拍下，登报称“总统忙里偷闲，研究中国青铜器”。

Photo/Caption: on December 4, 2000, Chirac appreciated China Liao dynasty relics on a Chinese cultural relic discoveries exhibition in Paris.

2000年12月4日，希拉克在巴黎举办的中国文物考古发现展上欣赏中国辽代文物。（新华社记者李根兴摄）

In September 1978, Chirac, in his capacity as former French prime minister and as Paris mayor, visited China on invitation. After visiting the Qin Shihuang Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, he was greatly stunned and called the place “the eighth world wonder”.

1978年9月，希拉克以法国前总理、巴黎市市长的身份应邀访华。他在西安参观秦始皇兵马俑后深受震撼，称之为“世界第八大奇迹”。

Jacques Chirac felt emotional links towards Chinese culture and was a major promoter of French cultural exchanges with China. When the Chinese-French cultural year was held from 2003 to 2005, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in “Chinese red”. This didn’t only pioneer cultural exchange between the two countries, but also played a model role globally.

希拉克情系中国文化，也是法国对华文化交流的主要推动者。2003年至2005年，中法互办文化年，埃菲尔铁塔披上“中国红”。这既是两国文化交流史上的创举，也在世界上具有示范作用。

Chirac left a profound footprint in Sino-French relations and contributed to the “golden decade” of Sino-French” relations. Between the times he assumed and left office as president, he visited China four times, tracking almost half of the country. In the meantime, Sino-French relations kept improving. In 1997, China and France established a comprehensive cooperative partnership, and in 2004, they established a comprehensive strategic partnership.²⁾

希拉克对中法关系的发展留下了自己的深刻印迹，造就了中法关系的“黄金十年”。1995年出任总统至卸任，希拉克4次访华，足迹几乎遍及半个中国。其间，中法关系不断得到提升。1997年，中法两国建立全面合作伙伴关系，2004年建立全面战略伙伴关系。

In 2006, in an interview with Xinhua reporters before a visit to China, Chirac emphasized that all French people understood the extent to which the prospects of global development depended on China. China and the world were inextricably linked to each other, and this profound awareness was exactly one of Jacques Chirac’s prime motives to vigorously promote Sino-French relations.

2006年，希拉克在访华前接受新华社记者专访时强调，每个法国人都明白，世界的发展前途在很大程度上取决于中国。中国与世界密不可分，这一深刻认识正是希拉克大力推进中法关系发展的原动力之一。

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Note

¹⁾ probably a mix-up by Xinhua – Chirac was born in Paris, but many of his ancestors were from Corrèze in central / southwestern France, the department he also represented at the National Assembly from 1967 to 1986 and from 1988 to 1995.
²⁾ Referred to as partenariat global sino-français and partenariat stratégique global respectively, in French-language Chinese publications.

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Related

“Le bruit et l’odeur”, 1991, Wikipedia, acc 20190928
“A completely banal incident”, LA Times, Aug 29, 1987

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