SCMP: Jiang's legacy to nation not easy to assess (Excerpt)

11/18/2002

South China Morning Post

Page 3

[Note: these reference articles for this website were written by non-practitioners and do not necessarily represent Falun Gong practitioners' opinions.]

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The communist media can never be accused of objectivity and even less during a party congress. So, amid the hyperbole, bunting and patriotic songs, it is difficult to retain a balanced assessment of the Jiang era.

"During his 13 years, the economy made great strides," said Liu Kangmin, who owes his two apartments, car and foreign travel to the computer business he set up after Mr. Jiang took over. "Living standards for millions went up and our choices in life increased greatly. We have more freedom than we used to.

"But how much of the credit for this should go to Old Jiang is hard to say. He took over a system that was already moving in a certain direction. He had good people under him. I do not think he was an innovator or imaginative," he said.

"Where he failed was reform of the political system and tackling corruption. The party is as undemocratic and top-down as it was when he took over. He failed to deal with corruption because he refused to diminish the party's control on the issue."

For the general public, this remains the biggest grievance against the party, just as it was in the spring of 1989, causing the protests that led to the military crackdown, the overthrow of the party secretary and Mr Jiang's sudden ascent to power.

[...]

For many, Mr. Jiang's biggest mistake was his decision to ban Falun Gong in 1999, which led to the arrest of thousands of its believers, who were held in prisons and labour camps where hundreds of them died, and which involved the use of millions of man-hours of police and other security personnel.

Most people believe Mr. Jiang made this decision on his own, stunned as he was driven in his black limousine with stained bullet-proof glass round Zhongnanhai on April 15 [Editor's correction: April 25], 1999, and saw the thousands of believers sitting in silent protest on the streets.

The advisers who agreed with him on the threat posed by the organisation [Editor's note: Falun Gong has no organization, no membership, and no political aspirations] urged a more nuanced response but Mr Jiang would have none of it and ordered it be crushed with the full force of the state.

"This decision ruined the lives of thousands of people, many of them innocents who were not against the government or the party," a Chinese professor said.

"It also badly affected the chances of building a more civil society, by affirming that the authorities must control civil organisations."

Mr. Jiang leaves to his successor other dossiers which he failed to address - the widening wealth gap and the growth of an urban under-class, millions of workers laid off from state factories who are too old and unskilled to find new jobs and compete against younger and cheaper migrants from the countryside.

While these workers are supposed to receive a minimum living allowance from the local government, many do not. They survive on the breadline, an easy prey for crime and discontent.

In his two-hour speech to the congress on November 8, Mr Jiang devoted just a few sentences to these people, the losers in the reform process he oversaw during his 13 years in office.

SCMP (South China Morning Post) is a prominent Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper.