China’s rising political star, Premier Zhu Rongji, displayed his star qualities before the world’s media Thursday in a manner rarely seen by a senior Chinese official.
He was candid. He was resolute. He gave direct answers. He spoke without reference to the notes Chinese leaders usually carry with them to remind them of official policy and without resort to the coded jargon of official party rhetoric.
Unlike the typical Chinese leader in the spotlight, his facial expression frequently changed, and he often moved his head from side to side as if he knew what he was talking about and found it interesting.
When asked how his responsibilities would affect his personal life, he showed emotion. “I heavily feel the arduousness of this task,” he said, sighing. “But no matter what is waiting for me, whether land mines or an abyss, with no hesitation or misgivings I will continue to devote myself to the people of my country all the days of my life,”
He even cracked a few jokes, congratulating a Time correspondent for this week’s magazine cover. “That picture was more good-looking than the one on the cover of Newsweek,” said Zhu, who is possessed of a naturally dour expression. “But I don’t blame Newsweek because I am rather ugly.”
When asked by a Hong Kong reporter whether he would be visiting Hong Kong, he quipped that, since being appointed premier, “unfortunately I have lost some of my freedom and my human rights have been constrained.”
On the question of human rights, a subject on which his views were not previously known, he was less forthcoming. When asked his opinion of the decision to use troops to quell student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he firmly toed the party line.
“On this matter, the entire party is of one mind,” he said. “We have already drawn a correct conclusion on that matter, and this conclusion will not be changed.”
That Zhu the economic reformer is not a political reformer comes as no surprise. But even as premier, Zhu will not have a free hand in setting policy, as he pointedly reminded journalists by deferring on several occasions to recent policy speeches given by President Jiang Zemin and by Li Peng, Zhu’s predecessor for nine years. Both men rank ahead of Zhu in the Communist Party hierarchy.
Zhu has been steering the country’s economic policy for the last five years as vice premier, and he is known as the chief architect and advocate of the sweeping reforms under way in China’s dinosaur state sector.
Although there was not much new in what he said, it was the way he said it that underscored why Zhu’s appointment as premier seems to have energized China’s usually stuffy bureaucratic image. Compared with the carefully scripted tedium of the last two weeks of party speeches at the National People’s Congress, Zhu’s frank explanations of China’s problems and how to solve them came across as refreshingly genuine.
“He’s like a breath of fresh air,” said a Western diplomat. “He says what he means, and he means what he says.”
Zhu spelled out more steps toward dismantling the socialist welfare system, set deadlines for financial reforms and lashed out at the wasteful spending of government bureaucrats, whom he accused of squandering the country’s money by investing in unneeded projects.
In a sign of his intention to get down to business swiftly, Zhu announced that starting in the second half of this year, China would stop allocating free housing to its citizens and encourage them to buy their own homes. Investment spending will be directed toward the construction of housing, which “will become the new growth point in the Chinese economy,” he said.
That will mark another crucial step in China’s transition from socialist to market economy, a process under way but whose most painful days lie ahead.
As a result of the envisioned reforms to state structures, millions of Chinese will be cut loose from their socialist life-support system of benefits and forced to find their own jobs, pay for their housing and fund their medical and insurance plans.
Whether they will or whether China instead will find itself confronting an explosion of social unrest among the dislocated and unemployed will depend on the economy continuing to grow.
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Zhu, as designated financial wizard, will be responsible for seeing that it does. He vowed that it will, saying that meeting the government’s target of 8 percent growth next year was “an objective that must be obtained.”
Zhu acknowledged that Asia’s financial crisis will present “formidable challenges” to China’s economy but emphasized that these will not be allowed to delay China’s economic reforms. Changes to the banking system and the state bureaucracy will be completed within a year, he pledged. The entire state reform package “must be completed in three years,” he said.
Zhu’s confirmation as Jiang’s choice of premier on Tuesday drew a standing ovation from delegates to the NPC, a rubber-stamp legislature of party faithful not known for displays of spontaneous or independent thinking. His comments Thursday caused stocks in Hong Kong to rise 3 percent in a vote of confidence in his firmly worded reform commitments. His pledge of eternal servitude to the Chinese people prompted rapturous applause from the Chinese press corps.
It seemed as though China was getting something it hasn’t had in a while: a genuinely popular leader. But some Chinese seemed unmoved by the shift at the top of their country’s hierarchy.
“I hope he solves the problem of unemployed workers, but I don’t think he will,” said Lian Xuan, a factory worker who fears losing his job.
“I don’t see much hope, but I’ll keep an open mind,” shopkeeper Wang Wei said.
“Aren’t they all the same?” asked street sweeper Liu Yang. “I don’t care who they pick.”