{"id":12845,"date":"2022-11-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savetibet.nl\/nieuws\/jiang-zemins-tenure-saw-re-engaged-talks-but-also-hardening-policies-on-tibet\/"},"modified":"2022-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T23:00:00","slug":"jiang-zemins-tenure-saw-re-engaged-talks-but-also-hardening-policies-on-tibet","status":"publish","type":"nieuws","link":"https:\/\/savetibet.nl\/en\/news\/jiang-zemins-tenure-saw-re-engaged-talks-but-also-hardening-policies-on-tibet\/","title":{"rendered":"Jiang Zemin\u2019s tenure saw re-engaged talks but also hardening policies on Tibet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, during whose tenure the most recent phase of the Tibetan-Chinese dialogue began, has passed away. In a terse announcement, Chinese state media said, \u201cJiang Zemin passed away due to leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12:13 p.m. on 30 November 2022, at the age of 96.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jiang was brought in by Deng Xiaoping to take charge following the breakdown in the Chinese leadership on account of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. He served as the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as president of China from 1993 to 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chinese state media propaganda photo of then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin visiting Tibet in July 1990.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Following a break in the contact between Tibetan leadership and the Chinese government in the early 1990s, His Holiness the Dalai Lama entrusted his Special Envoy Lodi Gyari with the responsibility of being the lead interlocutor in working on re-engaging the Chinese government to resolve the Tibetan-Chinese conflict. As Lodi Gyari recalls in his recently published memoir \u201cThe Dalai Lama\u2019s Special Envoy: Memoirs of a Lifetime in Pursuit of a Reunited Tibet,\u201d \u201cthen President Jiang\u2019s particular interest was a factor in the lead up to the dialogue process that took place between 2002 and 2010.\u201d Gyari wrote, \u201cBy 1997, our strategy began to pay off. We established direct connections with President Jiang Zemin, and he began to take a personal interest in Tibet. He sent his trusted advisors to Lhasa [Tibet\u2019s capital] to get an unbiased picture of the situation and appointed Wang Jungfu, a senior official with Deputy Minister rank, to meet secretly with me and start a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was in contact with Jiang since her past role as Mayor of San Francisco, also contributed in the reengagement. The contact also led to the inclusion of Tibet as an important agenda item for the summit between President Bill Clinton and Jiang in 1998, including a public discussion on Tibet between them. On 27 June 1998, in a joint press conference in Beijing, which was telecast live in China, Clinton said, \u201cI urge President Jiang [Zemin] to assume a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in return for the recognition that Tibet is a part of China and recognition of the unique cultural and religious heritage of that region.\u201d Clinton also said, \u201cI have spent time with the Dalai Lama, I believe him to be an honest man, and I believe if he had a conversation with President Jiang, they would like each other very much.\u201d In response, President Jiang Zemin said, \u201cAs long as the Dalai Lama makes a public commitment that Tibet is an inalienable part of China and Taiwan is a province of China, then the door to dialogue and negotiation is open \u2026 Actually, we are having several channels of communications with the Dalai Lama, so I hope the Dalai Lama will make a positive response in this regard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch President Clinton and President Jiang discuss Tibet and the Dalai Lama in 1998:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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