Jiang, however, can’t control what goes on outside the hall. Harvard students are planning hunger strikes, e-mailing anti-Jiang slogans to each other and converting minivans into mock prison wagons. Religious-freedom groups in Boston are preparing signs reading NO ONE IS SAFE: NUNS ARE RAPED. From the moment he touches down in Honolulu on Sunday to his departure from Los Angeles seven days later, protesters will dog the Chinese president’s every move. The International Campaign for Tibet will send a van full of activists to follow him from Williamsburg, Va., to Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia. Jiang can expect to see the Tibetan flag (a banner, with two snow lions and a triple jewel, that is strictly banned in China) emblazoned on posters everywhere. Some activists are distributing little bells for protesters to jangle during ““Let Freedom Ring’’ rallies in several cities. A huge demonstration in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, will coincide with Jiang’s joint press conference with Clinton on Wednesday.
An odd collection of activists will come together in Lafayette Park. Tibetan monks in crimson robes will chant alongside conservative Christian activists carrying posters of aborted fetuses. One Christian group supporting religious freedom in China,the Family Research Council, has commissioned an eight-foot Statue of Liberty–one with slightly Asian features, like the ““Goddess of Democracy’’ erected in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The beefy AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney, will be joining forces with the trendy Adam Yauch of the rap group the Beastie Boys,a passionate proponent of Tibetan independence. ““Jiang’s visit has had a greater motivating effect than anything I’ve seen in 10 years,’’ says John Ackerly of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Few people knew or cared about Tibet 10 years ago. Now, supporters of the Dalai Lama have been distributing ““action kits’’ outside movie theaters showing ““Seven Years in Tibet,’’ starring Brad Pitt. The star power of actor Richard Gere is also galvanizing protests this week; he’s putting together a ““stateless dinner’’ for Tibet on the same night that Clinton will throw a state dinner for Jiang. ““I remember the ’60s, and we marched on the Pentagon,’’ says Gere. ““Now thinking kids have found a cause they can believe in again.''
The scale of these protests clearly has the Chinese worried. ““President Clinton invited me, and I don’t think he wants to welcome me with demonstrations,’’ Jiang told American journalists in Beijing last week. National-security adviser Sandy Berger had already gone on record: ““We’re not going to interfere with people’s First Amendment rights.’’ Last week Jiang’s advance team got a dose of reality while checking out their president’s entire route in Washington. Secret Service agents carefully pointed out where protesters would appear–virtually everywhere on the streets Jiang will travel. Finally they came to the C Street entrance of the State Department, where the Chinese president will be the guest of honor at a 150-person lunch hosted by Vice President Al Gore. ““Even here?’’ asked one Chinese security officer in disbelief. Yes, he was told, demonstrators were expected to gather right across the street. Jiang appeared unfazed by protesters in Hong Kong this summer–but he did wear a bulletproof vest.
Jiang knows full well why so many Americans are upset about his visit. Last summer, while meeting with Berger in China, Jiang was bubbling with excitement about the upcoming summit–he even confessed to studying videotapes of the late Deng Xiaoping’s triumphant U.S. tour in 1979. Berger spoke up: America’s welcome would be warm in places, he warned, but times had changed since Deng’s visit, and so had America’s perceptions of China. ““It’s because of Tiananmen, isn’t it?’’ Jiang asked. Berger’s team, startled at such candor from a Chinese leader, confirmed that he was right. But until he sees American protesters in action, Jiang may not realize how China has become the new bogeyman for many people, now that the Soviet Union has collapsed.
Clinton wants a successful meeting almost as much as Jiang does. ““Isolation of China is unworkable, counterproductive and potentially dangerous,’’ he told the Asia Society last week in his first major speech devoted to China. But the rapport between the two summiteers has been rocky. The American president ““tuned out’’ Jiang when they met in Seattle in 1993, Clinton later confessed, because Jiang read woodenly from a sheaf of papers. The Chinese leader will want to establish a better personal bond this week. When the National Symphony Orchestra strikes up after the state dinner at the White House, guests can expect ““a musical coming-together with Clinton,’’ predicts James Lilley, the former U.S. ambassador to Beijing. After all, Jiang crooned ““Love Me Tender’’ with the president of the Philippines at a summit in Manila last summer, and he once subjected Henry Kissinger to a rendition of American show tunes. (According to biographer Bruce Gilley, Jiang’s participation in the communist underground before the revolution consisted partly in organizing musical performances for young people. Evidently he still believes in mixing music and politics.)
Beyond the atmospherics, the two sides have serious business to do. Administration officials have nine ““baskets’’ of issues to discuss with the Chinese, and hope to make real progress on a few of them, such as Beijing’s weapons transfers to Pakistan and Iran, and perhaps a Clinton trip to China in 1998. Al Gore gets a ““win-win’’ basket: he’ll focus on environmental issues. (Coincidentally, Gore may find himself only a few hundred yards from Jiang on Saturday, too: it’s freshman parents’ weekend at Harvard, and Al and Tipper plan to visit daughter Sarah there.)
The administration had hoped that China might release some dissidents before Jiang’s trip, to help sweeten the summit’s mood. The sister of Wei Jingsheng, China’s longest-held political prisoner, asked Clinton last week to seek a medical pardon for her brother, who she said was ““virtually dying’’ and subjected to constant surveillance behind a glass wall spanning one end of his prison cell. In Beijing last week Jiang seemed relaxed in answering reporters’ questions, except when someone brought up Wei Jingsheng. Jiang’s smile immediately faded, and he reverted to reading from a prepared text. NEWSWEEK has learned that Jiang was alone among China’s top seven Politburo members in wanting to consider releasing dissidents, but he was evidently outvoted. So Chinese officials continued rebuffing such appeals as ““intervention in China’s internal affairs’’ and ““unwelcome.’’ Too bad. Jiang may discover for himself what ““unwelcome’’ means on the streets of America next week.
